IBM report says over 60% Indian and Chinese companies use AI

By

-

May 21, 2022

A recent IBM report suggests that more than 60% of the companies in India and China use artificial intelligence (AI) in some parts of their business operations.

As companies across the globe are adopting a digital approach to their operations, the deployment of technology has drastically increased over the past few years.

This report is yet another proof of how companies have gained confidence in new-age technologies like artificial intelligence. According to IBM’s report, global AI usage is continuously increasing, with 35 percent of organizations utilizing AI in their operations.

This surge was attributed to corporations seeing the usefulness of AI as they emerged from the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic while dealing with manpower and skills shortages, as per Morning Consult’s “Global AI Adoption Index 2022.”

The report mentioned, “Chinese and Indian companies are leading the way, with nearly 60 percent of IT professionals in those countries saying their organizations already actively use AI, compared with lagging markets like South Korea (22 percent), Australia (24 percent) the US (25 percent) and the UK (26 percent).”

Morning Consult carried out the survey on behalf of IBM between March 30 and April 12, 2022, where samples of more than 7000 senior business decision-makers with some influence over their company’s IT decisions were collected. The data included 500 respondents from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, China, India, Singapore, Australia, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and 1,000 respondents from Latin America.

The survey results found that over half of IT professionals in India working for organizations exploring or adopting AI indicate their companies plan to spend on R&D, proprietary AI solutions, reskilling, and workforce development in the coming year.

“Adoption is being driven by advances that make AI more accessible for companies (50 percent), and the increasing amount of AI embedded into standard off the shelf business applications (46 percent),” mentioned the report.

Meta’s new Cloud-based API is here for WhatsApp

By

Dipayan Mitra

-

May 20, 2022

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, announces the launch of its new cloud-based API for WhatsApp that will help companies grow their business.

The new API will drastically reduce the time required for digitizing operations and is aimed at businesses of all sizes.

Promoting businesses over WhatsApp is an effective way of marketing products and services as companies can directly contact potential customers through the world’s most popular messaging application.

According to Meta, this API will make WhatsApp available to any company looking for a quick, efficient, and secure method to communicate with their customers.

“With this new API, we’ve cut down start-up time from months to minutes so businesses and developers can quickly and easily access our service, build directly on top of WhatsApp to further customize their experience and increase the speed at which they can respond to their customers,” mentioned Meta in a blog.

Moreover, the services will also save businesses money on server costs and provide them with immediate access to new features. Meta is also working on several advanced features for these companies, such as the ability to organize chats across up to 10 devices to better handle an inflow of talks.

Meta has clarified that people have control over the businesses they speak with, and companies cannot message people unless they have the end user’s consent.

Interested users can directly sign up for this service from the official website of WhatsApp or can also connect with one of Meta’s business solutions providers.

E42 launches India’s first AI Marketplace

By

Dipayan Mitra

-

May 20, 2022

Artificial intelligence-powered no-code NLP platform providing company E42 launches India’s first AI Marketplace.

The announcement was made during the company’s flagship event called E42 Colclave 2022. Avnish Sabharwal launched E42’s AI Marketplace during the event through video calls.

According to the company, its newly launched Marketplace will be a store where E42’s clients can sell their AI bots, which can then be licensed or hired by other companies to use for enhancing their services.

This development comes just after E42 completed ten years of helping enterprises smart using AI. The AI Marketplace is a display of all E42 and partner-built click-to-hire AI workers, which will soon be available for businesses to browse and choose from.

“The idea behind E42 Conclave is to bring together business leaders from varied functions and verticals to discuss aspects of AI and digital transformation that are critical for today’s enterprise to stay abreast of the competition,” said Co-founder and CTO of E24, Sanjeev Menon.

#E42 Conclave 2022 is an #exclusiveevent that will host E42’s partners, clients, and prospects from across industries and will be all about bringing together visionaries from varied functions and verticals! Stay tuned for more! https://t.co/l5Pkh5MYz8 #E42PartnerNetwork pic.twitter.com/TAlsxrywSY
— E42 (@E42_ai) May 12, 2022

Pune-based artificial intelligence bot platform E42 was founded by Animesh Samuel, Sanjeev Menon, and Sanjeev Nair in 2012. The company specializes in delivering a no-code platform that allows people to create and deploy AI coworkers in their area of expertise using a simple drag-and-drop interface. E42’s platform is easy to implement, operate, and migrate, allowing businesses all over the world to automate time and resource-intensive activities.

Co-founder and CEO of E42, Animesh Samuel, said, “E42 Marketplace has been thoughtfully created keeping the interest of our partners and customers in mind. A single platform to list all the AI workers that we and our partners built that can be hired by any enterprise in a few clicks is what sets our Marketplace apart.”

He further added that according to numerous studies, at least half of the enterprise workforce will be AI workers by 2026, representing an $800 billion opportunity for them and their partners.

Chandigarh University Students test AI-powered Driverless Car NOMAD

By

Dipayan Mitra

-

May 20, 2022

Chandigarh University Students AI Driverless Car NOMAD

Chandigarh University mechatronics engineering students have successfully tested their self-developed artificial intelligence (AI)-powered driverless car named NOMAD.

The motive of the team behind NOMAD is to essentially reduce the number of road accidents that happen in India, which accounts for nearly 11% of total accidents in the world. The high-tech vehicle can sense its surroundings and automatically make decisions related to its movements without the need of any onboard human driver.

NOMAD can reduce the risk of road accidents caused primarily by human error while also delivering high accuracy even in foggy weather and permitting minimal operational costs. Students from the 2020 batch, including team leader Satyam Sharma, KVS Mohan Vamsi, Navjot Singh, and Sarabsukh Surya, came up with the idea.

NOMAD employs several sensors like radar, Lidar, Sonar, GPS, Odometry, and Inertial Measurement units to detect its surroundings. Moreover, it uses advanced control algorithms to analyze sensory data to identify appropriate navigation courses, impediments, and essential signage.

“The recurrent neural network will work as the heart of the system as it has the ability to process sequential data and back-propagation through time,” said Sharma.

He further added that this ability to back-propagate through time helps the car to make decisions based on its present and previous positions (recorded frames), allowing it to recognize and distinguish between slow-moving and fast-moving objects, as well as their directions of travel, to prevent a collision.

The image processing system receives primary feedback from two main cameras, which are augmented by 360° sensors located throughout the vehicle. NOMAD has a 2-speed transmission system with a top speed of 25 KMPH and can be fully charged in nearly five hours.

IBM collaborates with Amazon to provide IBM SaaS on AWS

By

Dipayan Mitra

-

May 20, 2022

Technology giant IBM announces that it has partnered with Amazon to bring its IBM Software as a Service (SaaS) to Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Both the companies recently signed a partnership agreement to establish this collaboration. This partnership will now allow IBM to offer a broad portfolio of its software on AWS.

Users will be able to seamlessly access the IBM suite of solutions that ranges from automation, data and AI, security, and sustainability capabilities, which is built on Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA) and runs cloud-native on AWS.

The solutions include IBM API Connect, IBM Db2, IBM Security ReaQta, IBM Observability by Instana APM, IBM Maximo Application Suite, IBM Security Trusteer, IBM Security Verify, and IBM Watson Orchestrate.

Senior Vice President of IBM Software, Tom Rosamilia, said, “As hybrid cloud continues to become the reality for our clients, IBM is ready and willing to meet them with a flexible and cloud-native software portfolio wherever they are in the cloud or in data centers.”

Tom further added that by strengthening their partnership with AWS, they are taking another big step toward allowing businesses to choose the hybrid cloud model that best suits their needs and workloads, enabling them to focus on solving their most critical business problems.

The partnership will also include several joint initiatives to make it easier for clients to use IBM Software on AWS, including integrated go-to-market operations across sales and marketing, channel incentives, developer enablement and training, and multi-sector solution creation.

“Through our multi-year agreement, AWS will work with IBM to offer a broad array of IBM Software as SaaS on AWS. In addition, we’ll be working together on stronger joint marketing and co-selling programs for customers,” said Matt Garman, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at AWS.

Ian Goodfellow joins DeepMind after leaving Apple

By

Dipayan Mitra

-

May 19, 2022

Machine learning expert Ian Goodfellow has reportedly joined Alphabet’s subsidiary DeepMind after leaving Apple because of the company’s return-to-work policy.

Goodfellow had been with Apple for nearly three years, having joined the company’s Special Projects Group in April 2019. According to Bloomberg, Goodfellow is now joining Google’s DeepMind team as an individual contributor.

However, there is not much information available currently on which role Goodfellow will serve in DeepMind. Goodfellow is also referred to as the father of general adversarial networks (GAN), which can be used to create deepfake videos. This new addition to DeepMind’s team will help the company develop better solutions.

The fact that he left the firm is significant for Apple, given it presently operates a number of artificial intelligence and machine learning-based technologies, such as FaceID. According to a Tweet from Zoë Schiffer, Goodfellow mentioned, “I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team.

Apple had previously adopted a work-from-home strategy for its staff to be safe in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak. Last month, Apple employees returned to their offices under a hybrid home/office work policy, capping off a two-year-long working from home.

Though Apple has allowed some of its employees to work remotely, Goodfellow was not one of the lucky ones.

Amazon Launches Smart Commerce program In India

By

Dipayan Mitra

-

May 19, 2022

Global eCommerce giant Amazon launches its new Smart Commerce program in India to help small businesses grow.

The new initiative of Amazon will drastically help local retailers in digitization and increase their footprint in the eCommerce retail industry.

The announcement was made during the firm’s flagship online summit Amazon Sambhav on 18th March 2022. Amazon Sambhav 2022 is a two-day virtual summit that brings together senior government officials, senior Amazon executives, and thought leaders for in-depth discussions on accelerating India’s digital advancement.

According to the company, Smart Commerce is a new initiative that aims to turn local retailers into Digital Dukaans and help the government meet its goal of digitizing 10 million small enterprises by 2025.

Stores can now expand their businesses with Smart Commerce, digitizing their offline operations, providing enhanced in-store shopping experiences to walk-in customers, and creating their own online storefronts to service customers directly.

Amit Agarwal, SVP, India and Emerging Markets at Amazon, said, “Today, we are excited to launch Smart Commerce that will enable any store to truly become a digital dukaan and serve customers with the best of Amazon no matter where they are – in their physical store, directly through their own online storefront, or on Amazon.in.”

He further added that they are only getting started, but they’re on track to digitize one crore of small enterprises by 2025.

Amazon is all set to release its first set of solutions under the Smart Commerce program in the coming weeks. Apart from digitizing stores across India, Amazon has also pledged to generate nearly 2 million jobs in the country.

“We are humbled to share that we have already digitized over 4 million small businesses and local stores, are on track to enable $5 billion in cumulative exports, and have created over 1.16 million direct and indirect jobs in India, including 135K new jobs added in the last one year,” said Manish Tiwary, Country Manager, India Consumer Business, Amazon India.

NATO launches AI initiative to ensure tech advantage

By

Dipayan Mitra

-

May 19, 2022

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has started a program to better understand the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in modern war fields.

Two NATO companies have taken this initiative as a step to improve the organization’s technology capabilities and have an advantage over its enemies.

The NATO Science and Technology Organization and the NATO Communications and Information Agency have brought together more than 80 AI professionals, researchers, and academics from the United States and other NATO member countries for the strategic “horizon scanning” project.

The event was launched in the Netherlands in the presence of NATO Chief Scientist Dr. Bryan Wells and NCI Agency General Manager Ludwig Decamps.

Bryan Wells said, “AI is one of the key emerging and disruptive technologies identified by NATO as vital for the maintenance of its technological edge. By working together, the STO and the NCI Agency are able to bring together global experts to ensure the very best scientific expertise is available to advise NATO and its Allies and Partners on the latest scientific trends in this area.”

He further added that the importance of The Hague as a global focal point for providing a broader understanding of all AI challenges was reinforced by last week’s conferences.

According to NATO, its Horizon Scanning strategic project uses Theodore von Kármán’s foundational premise to bring armies and scientific personnel closer to improve collective knowledge and understanding.

Moreover, the AI experts also went to the NCI Agency’s Data Science and AI labs in The Hague to see how AI can be trained on NATO data to solve the Alliance’s challenges.

“The Hague is home not only to many high-tech industries but also to several international organizations, such as NATO and the UN, which are working to develop AI responsibly, for the greater good,” said Saskia Bruines, the Deputy Mayor of the City of The Hague.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to increase Salary Budget

By

Dipayan Mitra

-

May 19, 2022

CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, has said that the company is planning to increase its salary budget drastically.

This is a step of the company in its effort to retain talents in the organization and prevent them from quitting. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, has revealed intentions to “nearly double” the company’s budget for employee raises and increase the range of stock compensation given to some employees by at least 25%.

Additionally, Nadella said that the company intends to pay more salary to mid-career stage employees and also for workers employed at particular locations. Microsoft made the announcement as its fiscal year comes to a close on June 30.

A Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC, “People come to and stay at Microsoft because of our mission and culture, the meaning they find in the work they do, the people they work with, and how they are rewarded.”

The spokesperson further added that this increased investment in global compensation indicates their continuous commitment to providing employees with a highly competitive experience. Sources claim that Microsoft is raising annual stock ranges by at least 25% for employees at level 67 and below.

While bigger companies like Microsoft are giving a hike to their employees, several others choose to lay off their workforce to cut down company running costs. In a recent incident, Netflix laid off 150 employees claiming it to be a step to compensate for the loss it had taken after losing 200,000 subscribers.

Datarobot also fired nearly 7% of its workforce to cut back company costs. The company addressed the employees in an email, mentioning that the layoffs were a result of the startup’s extensive hiring strategy and changing market conditions in the technology industry.

Tesla announces Second Artificial Intelligence Day in August

By

Dipayan Mitra

-

May 18, 2022

Tesla Second Artificial Intelligence Day

The world’s most popular electric vehicle manufacturing company, Tesla, announces its plans to host its second Artificial Intelligence Day on 19th August 2022.

Tesla AI Day #2 on Aug 19. So many cool updates!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2022

This announcement was made by the company’s CEO and the world’s richest man Elon Musk. According to Musk, the recently announced event will reveal “many cool updates” for the customers. Many upcoming products or projects in the pipeline will be revealed to us during Tesla’s AI Day event.

This began last year when the firm organized its first Tesla AI Day event, which was broadcast live on YouTube for the common public to watch. One of the biggest disclosures made during the Tesla AI Day regarding the company’s Tesla Bot.

Recently, Musk said that he plans to sell the artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robot Tesla Bot by 2023. Other significant announcements in the first Tesla AI Day included the launch of the D1 chip, project Dojo, etc.

Considering last year’s event, the expectation for the second Tesla AI day is high. Tesla enthusiasts expect updates regarding the company’s self-driving technology and other ongoing projects during the event.

Recently, Google also conducted its Google I/O 2022 event that is available to watch on YouTube. Many new Google products such as Pixel 6a, Pixel Buds Pro, Pixel Watch, and others were unveiled during the event.