Series 7 – The Rise of AI: The Perfect World or The Perfect Storm?

Our last blog focused on the growth of AI and the explosion of Big Data. This blog will focus on the importance of developing Trust and Transparency in designing, developing and implementing AI products and service solutions, and will identify Innovative AI companies to watch.

AI and Trust are Key to Evolutionary Success

It is critical to have a vision that AI’s purpose is to serve humans and to augment human intelligence versus replace humans. As AI evolution happens, new jobs /roles will be created to support our new world order. We can expect a closer symbiotic relationship between machine and human. We have already experienced this with mobile connectivity, with texting as prime communication channel where world and work and life have blended into continual data/information flows of connectivity.

The Perfect World with AI

We already have speech-recognition programs running on smartphones that can bring the power of the internet to help those who cannot read and are illiterate. Enabling search to be 100% activated by voice to support knowledge sourcing can improve the lives of 80 million people, roughly 17% of the human population who cannot read or write.

Kensho Technologies Inc. has over over $58M poured into the company. Often referred to as the SIRI of the financial world, it provides analytical tools for capital markets, using a rich analytics platform. Kensho’s system, Warren, is designed to interpret natural-language search queries such as, “What happens to car firms’ share prices if oil drops by $5 a barrel?” It will then scour financial reports, company filings, historical market data and the like, and return replies, also in natural language, in seconds. Investors can ask Warren natural-language questions and get responses, similar to the way IBM answers medical questions from health professionals.

LeadGenius uses a global network of more than 500 skilled researchers in 40 different countries to train a machine learning system for B2B sales. LeadGenius’s data crawlers comb through websites, business directories, government filings, and credit agencies, much the same way Google’s search engine crawls the web. LeadGenius researchers then clean, verify, and enrich that data, teaching the software what to look for the next time it searchers. LeadGenius also automates email outreach for sales teams by using a combination of human and machine intelligence to read sales emails and sort through the responses.

Enlitic: This San Francisco startup is creating an AI-based medical diagnostics system that can accurately diagnose patients. The goal is to learn as much as possible about reading medical images to create a system that will be able to interpret images from MRIs, CTs, ultrasounds, x-rays, and nuclear medicine.

Narrative Science Data is more important than ever to businesses, but working with pages of numbers can be complicated. Narrative Science’s AI system will find a way to turn those numbers into readable content, then deliver that content to the professionals who need it. Called Quill, the technology is already being used to report on sports scores and earnings statements. Financial firms use Narrative Science to put the technology to use in writing in-depth reports on stock performance for investors and regulators.

X.ai: X.ai’s tool, Amy, schedules meetings for busy professionals. To put Amy to work, users simply copy Amy on an email where meeting times are suggested and Amy takes over, checking designated calendars and coordinating a time that works for both the user and the other party. Once a time has been chosen, Amy logs the time on the user’s calendar and the meeting is set.

Legal Robot: A letter from an attorney can cost hundreds of dollars, but this new AI software may be able to do the work for people. Legal Robot is targeting to support consumers by providing legalese for letters and reviewing contract language. While AI can’t yet fight cases in court for clients, the software would make it easier for professionals to handle day-to-day business without having to consult a high-priced lawyer.

SalesChoice’s Insights AI Engine™ helps sales professionals see more to win more, by analyzing large data sets from mid market to Fortune 500 companies, by analyzing all the historical data patterns of opportunities, products, account history, or other objects inside CRM or outside CRM, to develop a unique AI model which automatically correlates win and loss history. As new patterns are identified, SalesChoice continues to learn and predict outcomes, with up to 95% predictive accuracy. Installed and being used by leading brands in Professional Services, Telecom and Media companies like Digiday out of NY, SalesChoice can help reduce COS by over 30% and improve forecasting accuracy by 30-60%. The company has three products built in market: predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics and propensity to purchase, and also has recently developed a Data Sciences Research Lab to analyze large data sets to create custom predictive analytics and digital transformation models for competitive advantage.

MarketBridge has developed an innovative AI software product to help sales professionals find the right contacts to target, advise on what you should sell, given the right content, and also help you keep focused on the right action(s). Awwwn open architecture allows MarketBridge to collect diverse sources of customer insight and leverage predictive AI model(s). With attention spans always being so limited in Sales, MarketBridge is solving a key challenge companies in mid to large enterprises have, keeping focused on the right contacts that have more outcome leverage.

Conclusion:

Artificial intelligence is an exciting new field of technology that investors in most industries are interested in supporting. As venture capitalists continue to search for businesses that are innovators in this space, more entrepreneurs will find ways to work it into their startups in addition to the many existing businesses exploring the field.

The next blog will explore examples of the Perfect Storm, highlighting examples of AI approaches which can create risks and vulnerabilities to how we work and live.