Could the office be staffed by chatbots? May 29, 2018 Whether checking insurance quotes, ordering concert tickets, or seeing if your favourite trainers are back in stock, almost all of us will have encountered a chatbot in our daily lives. Capable of providing fast access to information and offering pre- programmed responses to minimise misunderstanding in communication, businesses have found that chatbots have cut customer [...]
Rocket Internet moves into fintech and AI with £2.3bn cash investment up for grabs May 29, 2018 Prolific German e-commerce investor Rocket Internet will begin channelling money towards startups in fintech, vertical marketplaces and artificial intelligence, confirmed CEO Oliver Samwer after revealing its first quarter results today. Rocket currently owns majority stakes in meal kit delivery service HelloFresh and fashion house Global Fashion Group (GFG), though it recently sold eight per cent [...]
DEBATE: With Amazon’s Alexa recording private conversations, are we too complacent about AI in our lives? May 29, 2018 With Amazon’s Alexa recording private conversations, are we too complacent about AI in our lives? Joe Baguley, vice president and chief technology officer (EMEA) at VMware, says YES. As more complex and automated technology enters our daily lives, we must bear some responsibility as consumers to ensure that we are educated on what that technology [...]
London-based marketing-tech firm Realeyes raises £12m with backing from Draper Esprit May 22, 2018 London-based AI marketing-tech firm Realeyes has announced a $16.2m (£12m) funding round with support from venture capital firm Draper Esprit. The company works with large advertisers such as Coca-Cola and Mars to maximise the impact of their video marketing through analysing how audiences react to ads. Realeyes uses webcams and computer vision and machine-learning technology [...]
The top threat to global business: protectionism May 22, 2018 Barely a day goes by without consultants and politicians urging businesses to embrace innovation or be left behind in the AI apocalypse. But while it is never a good idea to take your eye of the technology ball, there is a greater threat to the world of business: the rising tide of protectionism. KPMG’s 2018 [...]
PayPal in talks for $2.2bn takeover of iZettle May 17, 2018 PayPal is preparing to take over Swedish payments app iZettle, just a week after it announced plans to float. An announcement of the $2bn deal is expected as early as tomorrow, after Sky News reported that the two companies were in talks. The price PayPal is thought to be bidding would value iZettle at double [...]
Londoners more cautious about digital shopping than rest of world May 16, 2018 Londoners are not getting carried away with the fast-changing nature of retail compared with internet users around the globe, new research has shown. Research from Ericsson found that an increase in people using smartphones to pay for goods and services was leading to a second shift of consumers calling on the help of ‘digital shopping [...]
Keywords are the future as artificial intelligence transforms search advertising May 14, 2018 Whenever you search on Google for something you’re thinking about buying, you’re using a selection of keywords and signalling your intent to make a purchase. If you search for “brown shoes” and adverts appear in your search results suggesting where to get brown shoes, you’ve experienced “search retargeting”, a technique that brands are combining with [...]
Digital Innovators: three market transforming companies leading business into the world of tomorrow May 9, 2018 Technology has become one of the main driving forces of the world economy, allowing businesses to become more productive and efficient, and helping to create new types of jobs. Data analytics and machine learning mean that artificial-intelligence powered devices are becoming faster and smarter, able to solve all sorts of problems and tasks. These three [...]
Artificial Intelligence: The importance of identifying the problem May 9, 2018 Over the past few years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has attracted a huge amount of attention. It is anticipated to transform almost every sector including key areas such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, automotive and aviation. The impact of this technology is so great that it has led the government and the AI sector to agree [...]