MLPerf, a consortium of 40 technology companies including Google and Facebook, just released benchmarks for evaluating artificial intelligence-enabled tools, including image recognition, object detection and voice translation. MLPerf general chair Peter Mattson, a Google engineer, reported, “for CIOs, metrics make for better products and services they can then incorporate into their organization.” Thus far, organizations have been slow to adopt AI technologies, in part due to the plethora of tools and services available. Continue reading Consortium Releases New Measurement Benchmarks for AI

Amazon, which currently dominates the virtual assistant market with its Echo speaker, is now launching Alexa for Business. With Alexa for Business, offices could potentially use the voice-enabled assistant to take care of numerous tasks. It’s a leap of faith since it is still unproven how many businesses would want to install an Echo in every conference room, design relevant programs or even want their employees talking to devices. Companies might also have concerns about sensitive internal information being in the cloud. Continue reading Amazon Enters the Workplace with Bow of Alexa for Business

Recently, Microsoft software that integrates machine learning spotted a temperature problem in a massive beer vat at Deschutes Brewery, and automatically fixed it, saving the company from a big loss. Deschutes Brewery accesses the software via Microsoft’s cloud computing service, a growing trend among all kinds of businesses relying on such tools from Amazon and Google as well as Microsoft. Use of AI is becoming more widespread as it becomes available as software in the cloud, rather than a huge hardware expenditure. Continue reading Amazon, Google, Microsoft Democratize AI Tools in the Cloud

In 2016, IBM plans to open a West Coast headquarters for Watson, its artificial-intelligence system, in San Francisco. The company will also unveil new Watson capabilities, including speech, language understanding, image recognition and sentiment analysis, all of which are associated with AI in computing. The East Coast headquarters in downtown Manhattan was established in January 2014 as a separate business. Watson West, expected to employ several hundred people, is aimed at Silicon Valley startups. Continue reading IBM Targets Silicon Valley Startups with Planned Watson West