…Microsoft Form 10K 2017: Vision: “Our strategy is to build best-in-class platforms and productivity services for an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge infused with artificial intelligence (“AI”).”
……# Mentions AI or artificial intelligence: 7
…Microsoft Form 10K 2016: Vision: “Our strategy is to build best-in-class platforms and productivity services for a mobile-first, cloud-first world.”
……# Mentions AI or artificial intelligence: 0
Source: AI Import
When you start a revolution, you need to go public before the next revolution starts. Hadoop used to be the “revolutionary” technology behind the “big data” revolution but it has now been buried deep by deep learning, at least as far as the tech hype is concerned. One Hadoop distribution vendor, Hortonworks, sensed the passing of the “revolution” baton early, and went public in 2014. “In a year or two we may look back at November 10, 2014 [the day it filed for IPO] as the beginning of the end of the Hadoop Bubble,” I wrote in The End of the Hadoop Bubble?
Digital disruption is the flip side of digital opportunity. Established companies and startups alike enlist new technologies in the fight to dislodge incumbents, protect entrenched positions, or re-invent entire industries and business activities.
To help business and IT executives evaluate emerging technologies and their potential impact on the digital transformation of their organizations, Forrester recently published “Top Technologies for Digital Predators, 2017,” a detailed analysis of 15 emerging technologies with a wide range of disruptive potential and time-to-impact. Here’s my summary description of the 5 technologies with the highest potential to create competitive advantage, change markets, or alter the business landscape altogether:
Intelligent Agents
AI solutions that can interact with their users, learn their behavior and understand their needs, and even make decisions on their behalf. Today’s prototypes include Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google Now and Google Home, and Apple’s Siri. The landscape for this emerging technology is expanding rapidly to include a wide range of chatbots, virtual agents, robotic process automation, and other digital assistants. Personalized, high-quality experiences promise to increase customer loyalty and reduce customer attrition. As minders of internal processes, Intelligent Agents also promise to reduce costs, improve productivity and optimize all types of business activities. Example of current use: Artificial Intelligence From Salesforce Partner DigitalGenius To Boost KLM Customer Service.
Read the rest of the article at Forbes.com
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin declared last week that the threat of artificial intelligence taking over American jobs “is not even on my radar screen.” Mnuchin is “not worried at all,” at least not for the next 50 to 100 years. This was in sharp contrast to the attitude of the previous administration. President Obama, for example, opined that “We’ve been seeing specialized AI in every aspect of our lives, from medicine and transportation to how electricity is distributed, and it promises to create a vastly more productive and efficient economy… But it also has some downsides that we’re gonna have to figure out in terms of not eliminating jobs. It could increase inequality. It could suppress wages.”
How good or bad AI will be for employment and how soon its beneficial or detrimental effects will manifest themselves have been debated—loudly and persistently—over the last few years. Here’s a somewhat random collection of recent quantitative and qualitative assessments.
Entire jobs and specific work activities will (continue to) be automated…
38% of jobs in the United States, 35% of jobs in Germany, 30% of UK jobs and 21% of jobs in Japan could be at potential risk of automation by the early 2030s–PwC
More than 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human by 2020—Gartner
Automated vehicles could threaten or alter 2.2 million to 3.1 million existing U.S. jobs, including 1.7 million truck drivers—Executive Office of the President, December 2016
The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock Inc., is entrusting more of its $5.1 trillion in assets to robot stock pickers to decide what to buy and sell. Seven portfolio managers are expected to leave—The Wall Street Journal
China has laid out a development plan to become the world leader in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030, aiming to surpass its rivals technologically and build a domestic industry worth almost US$150 billion (S$204 billion).
Released by the State Council, the policy is a statement of intent from the top rungs of China’s government: Beijing will be investing heavily to ensure Chinese companies, the government and military leap to the front of the pack in a technology many think will one day form the basis of computing.
HT: @miguelselas
Source: Callaghan Innovation (Infographic)
