EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES | BDO LLP
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03 EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES | BDO LLP
Vegas. It uses artificial intelligence to learn the behaviour of every user, device and application within an organisation, then builds a picture of a normally operating system so that it can quickly detect unusual activity that could indicate a malicious attack. The global AI market is expected to grow to $202.6 billion by 2026, up from $20.7 billion in 2018, according to Fortune Business Insights Last year, 956 deals valued at $13.5 billion took place through the third quarter, putting AI deal activity on pace for ‘another record year’, according to PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon are all heavily invested in AI: wherever tech takes us next, AI is likely to be at the heart of it.
videos, stop them being uploaded and reduce the potential for lone-wolf attacks on UK streets. It has a distinct philosophy of working towards the public good and has launched a fellowship programme, teaching bright science graduates to combine academic excellence with commercial objectives. Featurespace, at #25 on the same list, develops intelligent software that identifies suspicious online behaviour to stop fraud attacks as they happen. Its platform monitors customer data from clients including Danske Bank, Worldpay and ClearBank, and learns to think in the same way as customers would, so allowing it to more accurately detect ever-more sophisticated fraudulent behaviour. Cyber-security developer Darktrace, at #54, provides software to detect and counter cyber-security threats for customers as diverse as T-Mobile, the Church of England and the City of Las
AI is a slippery word for a broad church of technologies, and lots of things get wrapped up within that label. When a lot of people hear the term AI, their mind turns to machine learning and big data. Machine Learning is certainly a form of AI but that doesn’t mean all AI is machine learning. There is this other classification of AI which has been an unstoppable train for centuries, which we might just label automation . Some would call that AI, and some wouldn’t. Robotic process automation is a good example of a technology that is decades old, that sat fleetingly under the AI bracket, but wouldn’t now be considered AI by most people. If we might agree that AI is a machine doing something that we thought was intrinsically human, ie a kind of artificial intelligence, it was once right at the frontier. But the very moment a technology like this works and delivers
There are AI elements in the predictive capabilities of Netflix, which uses an algorithm to make intelligent suggestions for your next watch, and Nest, an AI start- up acquired by Google in 2014 for $3.2 billion. Nest’s Learning Thermostat uses behavioural algorithms to help you save energy based on your use patterns and schedule. AI is widely used in business already, of course: in chatbots, ecommerce, workplace comms, HR operations management, healthcare, cybersecurity, logistics, betting, manufacturing and many other applications. From agriculture to automotive to architecture, AI reaches everywhere. Security, compliance and monitoring are key areas where AI can make a huge difference. London-based Faculty, #22 on the 2019 Tech Track 100, is an AI software developer that has built an artificial intelligence model to help the Home Office identify terrorist propaganda
AI: WHAT’S IN A NAME? Rainbird CEO James Duez looks at the evolution of the meaning of ‘artificial intelligence’ – and the sweet spot where horizontal capability meets vertical need
value, we no longer regard it to be doing something that’s uniquely human. It reveals itself to be what it always was - the next generation of computer science. And so to some, AI has almost becomes a label for everything that’s at that fringe and maybe doesn’t quite work yet. In the last ten or so years, there’s been a resurgence of interest in AI amongst the minds of many. But as an umbrella term, it’s singularly unhelpful. We can talk about artificial general intelligence , the building of a machine which is as intelligent as us at a broad range of tasks. This is where a lot of the popular science fiction stuff comes from, but it has little relevance to business. It’s interesting reading, but it won’t help you bring efficiency to your operations or new digital services to your clients. So then we come to where AI solutions really adds value, which is always in narrow circumstances, hence the term artificial narrow intelligence . There are
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