In this podcast we interview Madelene Stolpe who is the Head of Digital Strategy, Health for the City of Oslo, Norway. We discuss how Oslo is exploring using AI technologies to help its citizens and also help move towards becoming a Smart Connected City, the role that AI plays with labor and employment and the future of jobs, and more! Continue reading AI Today Podcast #83: Interview with Madelene Stolpe, Head of Digital Strategy, Health, City of Oslo, Norway at Cognilytica.

In this podcast we get the rare opportunity to interview fellow podcasters. Frank La Vigne and Andy Leonard are co-hosts of the Data Driven podcast and joined us on this episode of the AI Today podcast to discuss the important role data plays in AI, their take on how data will continue to be used into the future and the idea of pervasive knowledge. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #82: Interview Frank La Vigne and Andy Leonard with Data Driven Podcast at Cognilytica.

Sales are important for any organization. After all, if companies aren’t selling they are not generating revenue. Increasingly, enterprises are using AI in sales to improve their bottom lines. In this podcast, Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer explain how AI, machine learning, and cognitive technologies are being applied to enhance the way sales is being done in the enterprise. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #81: How AI Enhances Sales — Use Case Series at Cognilytica.

Most of the resources we need to power our growing economies — oil, gold, copper, coal, and more– come from the ground underneath us.  Modern mining operations are increasingly turning AI and machine learning technologies to help keep those resources flowing without risking human lives. In this podcast Cognilytica analysts explore various ways that AI technologies are being used in the mining industry. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #80: AI in Mining — Use Case Series at Cognilytica.

A lot goes into the clothes we wear, covering a spectrum of activities including designing, manufacturing, logistics, marketing and sales. It’s no wonder that fashion and clothing manufacturing firms are applying AI technologies to transform various steps throughout the process. In this podcast, Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ron Schmelzer will discuss various ways AI is being used in the fashion industry. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #79: AI in Fashion — Use Case Series at Cognilytica.

The fight for customer attention is fierce and companies are increasingly turning to technology to discover new ways to help. Artificial intelligence is playing a major role in creating connected customer experiences throughout the entire customer lifecycle. In this podcast hosts Kathleen Walch and Ron Schmelzer explore various ways AI is improving the customer experience. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #78: AI in Customer Experience at Cognilytica.

Across many industries and implementations, we see some recurring themes pop up in those use cases. In past podcasts we’ve talked about chatbots, autonomous vehicles, and aspects of natural language understanding, computer vision, and advanced robotics. In today’s AI podcast we want to talk about the concept of hypersonalization, a particular use case that’s applicable across a wide range of industries, but advertising in particular. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #77: Hyperpersonalization – The Double-Edged AI Sword at Cognilytica.

Cognilytica tracks almost 3000 companies that offer AI-specific or AI-enhanced products for sale in the market. However, as you can imagine, there’s a great amount of diversity in these vendors. Some vendors focus on providing low-level “enabling” infrastructure that supports any range of AI, machine learning, or other compute- or data-intensive activity. Others provide a single-industry application that applies AI to a particular, specific business or industry problem. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #76: Cognilytica’s Classification of the AI Vendor Ecosystem at Cognilytica.

In heavily regulated industries such as the energy industry there can be some unique challenges to technology adoption.  In this podcast we interview Tim Custer, Senior Vice president – North America land, business development and real estate with Apache. We discuss how AI and ML technologies are being used to extract valuable information from unstructured content, how Apache is leveraging AI technologies to help with a variety of tasks such as contract review, some unique use cases for AI and ML technology, and more! Continue reading AI Today Podcast #75: AI in Oil & Gas: Interview with Tim Custer – Apache at Cognilytica.

Knowledge graphs and other ways to encode the relationship between data concepts are putting common sense into AI and machine learning. In this podcast, we interview Chaitan Baru, Senior Advisor, Data Science Research Initiatives at University of California San Diego, and formerly serving a four year rotation at the National Science Foundation (NSF) where he helped with a number of initiatives including the Big Data program and Data Science-related activities. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #74: Knowledge Graphs and AI, Interview with Chaitan Baru, UCSD at Cognilytica.

One of the biggest challenges with AI is making sense of the decisions made by black box machine learning algorithms. In this episode of the AI Today podcast, hosts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interview Steve Eglash, Executive Director of Strategic Research Initiatives in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University to discuss Explainable AI, Responsible AI, and how to get AI systems to behave in a more testable, provable, and error-free way. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #73: Tackling Transparent & Responsible AI – Interview with Steve Eglash, Director of Strategic Research Initiatives, Stanford University at Cognilytica.

AI and machine learning are impacting just about every industry, and the oil and gas industry is no exception.  AI and ML are helping companies with unstructured content and data, as well as augmenting human jobs without replacing them. Listen to this podcast as Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interview Joel Hron, CTO at ThoughtTrace, a company applying AI to processing documents many decades old. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #72: Interview with Joel Hron, CTO, ThoughtTrace at Cognilytica.

2018 proved to be a great year for AI-related technology and companies alike. We saw countries across the world adopt AI strategies, VC funding for AI focused startups go gangbusters, and industries of all types from retail, pharmaceutical, restaurants, logistics, healthcare and so many more benefit from AI technologies. If you haven’t heard our recap of 2018 AI related news makers and market shakers, you should definitely go and listen to that (after this podcast of course). Continue reading AI Today Podcast #71: What does 2019 Have in Store for AI? at Cognilytica.

2018 is over and boy was it a crazy year! AI continued to show its strength in 2018, and certainly shows no signs of slowing as we make our way to 2019. In this podcast Cognilytica analysts look back on the year and reflect on some of 2018’s biggest AI news, trends and use cases. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #70: 2018 — Cognilytica’s AI Year in Review at Cognilytica.

Cognilytica analyst Kathleen Walch recently moderated a panel in November 2018 on “Driving Digital Transformation through AI and Deep Learning”. The following recording is the live panel discussion. We discuss fundamental buildings blocks needed for building a digital organization, process changes brought about from AI technologies that companies of all sizes are adopting, examples of digital transformation projects that depend upon AI to succeed, and more! Continue reading AI Today #69: Driving Digital Transformation through AI and Deep Learning at Cognilytica.

AI and machine learning are being used in almost every industry, and the oil and gas industry is no exception. Want to know the various ways in which the oil and gas industry is adopting AI? Listen to this podcast as Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interview Catalina Herrera, Director of Education and Enablement at ThoughtTrace, a company applying AI to processing documents many decades old. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #68: Interview with Catalina Herrera, Director of Education and Enablement, Thought Trace at Cognilytica.

Robots are gaining adoption across a wide range of industries. Recently, the Smithsonian Institution has started to use Softbank Robotics’ Pepper robot to add value to the the visitor museum experience. In this podcast, Cognilytica analysts Ronald Schmelzer and Kathleen Walch interview Kristi Delich, Deputy Director, Office of Visitor Services, Smithsonian Institution on how Pepper is being used at the museum, potential future uses, and observations from how the general public interacts with a robot in a museum environment. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #67: AI in the museum: Interview with Kristi Delich, Deputy Director, Office of Visitor Services, Smithsonian Institution at Cognilytica.

Curious how industrial technology companies are adopting Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and cognitive technology into their product lines and how these technologies help with innovation processes? In this podcast Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interview Frank DeSantis, VP of Breakthrough Innovation at Stanley, Black & Decker, Inc., and dig deeper into how AI and cognitive tech is changing the landscape for industrial goods and how these emerging technologies will change the way that consumers and business interact with physical devices and tools in the real world. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #66: AI & Robotics at Stanley black and Decker – Interview with Frank DeSantis, VP Breakthrough Innovation at Cognilytica.

Interested in knowing how AI and machine learning can process documents over a century old and still gain understanding from the text? Want to know how the oil and gas industry is adopting AI? Listen to this podcast as Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interview Nick Vandivere, CEO of ThoughtTrace, a company applying AI to processing documents many decades old. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #65: Interview with Nick Vandivere, CEO, ThoughtTrace at Cognilytica.

Machines are able learn how to process images and text and extract intelligence from those images and text. But they still don’t understand the images of know the meanings of words. We’re still at the early days of AI with respect to common sense and real natural language understanding. In this podcast, Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interviewCatherine Havasi, Chief Strategy Officer of Luminoso on the current state of the art with Natural Language and what Luminoso is doing to move the industry forward. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #64: Common Sense and Natural Language Understanding – Interview with Catherine Havasi, Luminoso at Cognilytica.

Interested in the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR)? Curious how AI is being used in the entertainment, gaming, and media industries to enhance the overall experience? Listen to this podcast where Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interview Mariana Acuña Costa, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder of Opaque Studios as she shares insights into the use of AI in these various industries, how AI can help with content creation, how these industries with continue to adapt and more. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #63: AI, AR, and VR: Interview with Mariana Acuna, Opaque Studios at Cognilytica.

Film, media, and entertainment industries are using AI and machine learning technologies to enhance and change the way that entertainment is produced, developed, and delivered. In this Cognilytica AI Today podcast, hear from Hanno Basse, Chief Technology Officer of 20th Century Fox Film Corp about how AI, machine learning, and cognitive technologies are forever changing the way that entertainment is being brought to the masses. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #62: AI in the Entertainment Industry – Interview with Hanno Basse, CTO, 20th Century Fox at Cognilytica.

Did you know that many of the articles and news reports you are reading are generated by AI systems? Using natural language generation (NLG) and other techniques these AI systems are not only creating content, but they are helping to manage the editorial process, moderate comments, help with research, and support the entire journalistic process. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #61: AI in News & Journalism — Use Case Series at Cognilytica.

Social media is filled with lots and lots of content and most of it is unstructured data, meaning that it doesn’t fit into databases or rows and columns on a spreadsheet. In particular, lots of text, images, video and audio content is posted daily. In this podcast, Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interview Nav Kesher, Head of Data Sciences, Facebook Marketplace Experience on his insights and experience on AI and its various applications in different industries. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #60: Interview with Nav Kesher, Head of Data Sciences, Facebook Marketplace Experience at Cognilytica.

Public defenders in the United States are burdened with large workloads and ever-increasing piles of information they need to sort through. Additionally, they are deeply needed in an environment where defendants are unable to afford the legal protection they are entitled to under the rights of the constitution. This is one problem that AI and machine learning is promising to solve. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #59: The Tubman Project – Interview with Darrell Malone Jr. at Cognilytica.

Anyone observing the news can see that artificial intelligence and machine learning are getting lots of attention. As long as a startup has AI or cognitive technologies in their business plans or marketing material, they seem to get funding. And the amount of funding some of these startups are getting is eye-opening! So this makes us ask the question: Are we in a bubble? Continue reading AI Today Podcast #057: Is VC Funding for AI Overheated? at Cognilytica.

When people hear about the race for AI dominance, they often think that the main competition is between the US and China. The US and China do have most of the largest and most well funded AI companies on the planet, and the pace of funding, company growth, and adoption doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #056: AI’s Strategic Importance: A Look at Different Countries at Cognilytica.

The big idea of AI and cognitive technologies is to address and tackle problems that require human cognitive capabilities. Many vendors in the RPA market are simply using AI as a marketing vehicle and are not fundamentally changing or improving the way business process is done. This is why companies looking to pursue the path of Intelligent Process Automation need to have the desired end state in mind: full autonomous business process (ABP).  Continue reading AI Today Podcast #055: Autonomous Business Process (ABP) at Cognilytica.

The AI Today podcast is celebrating our 1 year anniversary!  With this, we wanted to revisit our first podcast topic “Does AI Matter?” as well as reflect on a year of great podcasts, awesome guests, and some thought provoking content. In our inaugural podcast hosts Kathleen Walch and Ron Schmelzer discuss our reasons for Why AI Matters and we thought it was a great idea to go back and visit this topic again one year later.  Continue reading AI Today Podcast #054: Anniversary Podcast: Does AI Still Matter? at Cognilytica.

In recent years we have seen amazing advances in the field of conversational AI.  Machine learning, and in particular deep learning, has been getting a lot of attention lately. But this is not always the best method when building conversational AI.  In this podcast Cognilytica analysts interview Martin Reddy, Co-Founder and CTO at PullString.  We discuss 3 fallacies related to conversational AI, why machine learning isn’t always the best approach to solving conversations problems, and how PullString Converse provides an easy to use conversation canvas allowing companies who might not have a technical team in-house to create voice apps. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #053: The Three Fallacies of Conversational AI — Interview with Martin Reddy, PullString at Cognilytica.

Arizona State University (ASU) is trying something very interesting: in addition to giving their incoming students the usual handbooks and orientation materials, they’re also giving some of them an Amazon Alexa device preloaded with ASU-specific skills. The results of this test are quite remarkable and might suggest that voice assistants could be the future of providing knowledge and interaction to users. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #052: AI on the Campus — Interview with John Rome, Arizona State University at Cognilytica.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is making inroads into a wide range of industries, and there’s no exception even within the world of kid’s play. In this podcast, Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interview James Poulter, Head of Emerging Platforms and Partnerships at Lego. He explains how Lego is adopting AI in a wide range of ways including with its Alexa voice assistant skills and additional insights into adding elements of AI to the various Lego platforms, including Mindstorms and other play elements. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #051: Bringing AI to Lego — Interview with James Poulter at Cognilytica.

AI and cognitive technologies are enhancing many different industries and providing significant ROI for early adopters. However, AI is also providing benefit in improving our various experiences in life. In this podcast, Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interview Tom Edwards, Chief Digital & Innovation Officer at Epsilon Agency, who shares insights into how AI is impacting marketing, customer experience, and more. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #050: Enhancing Experiences with AI – Interview with Tom Edwards, Epsilon Agency at Cognilytica.

On July 31, 2018 Cognilytica released the latest iteration of the Cognilytica Voice Assistant Benchmark.  Conversational interface-based devices are quickly taking off with devices and technology such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, and an increasing number of new entrants into the space.  Cognilytica calls these devices “voice assistants”, rather than the less-useful term “smart speakers”.  Continue reading AI Today Podcast #049: Surprising Results from the Cognilytica Voice Assistant Benchmark at Cognilytica.

With the rise in popularity of AI has come the inevitable wave of those looking to take advantage of its popularity.  Startups are beginning to realize that simply saying they have “AI” capabilities leads to increased valuations, greater attention, and more possibilities.  But people are starting to get wise and it’s already starting to catch up with these firms.  Continue reading AI Today Podcast #48: Pseudo AI – Faking it Till You Make it in AI at Cognilytica.

Artificial Intelligence is allowing companies to improve customer service in ways not possible before.  Chatbots allow companies to have an always-on agent that can be integrated into customer support service teams to answer questions or help provide more relevant products and services based on customer preferences. AI enabled systems can help handle complicated, multi-step transactions that are often error-prone such as loan application or student applications or real estate.   Continue reading AI Today Podcast #47: AI in Customer Service — AI Use Case Series at Cognilytica.

If you’re ever worked in an office you know that there is much to be improved with back office processes.  It’s often discussed how AI can help the front office, but it’s doing just as much to improve back office operations as well.  AI can be a smart, augmented assistant that can help enhance data, provide research, and collect valuable information. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #46: AI in the Back Office — AI Use Case Series at Cognilytica.

Many governments worldwide are looking at using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other cognitive technologies as part of making their operations more efficient, better serving their citizens, and increasing the range of ways they can meet their missions. In this podcast, Cognilytica analysts Kathleen Walch and Ronald Schmelzer interview Jose Arrieta, Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisitions at the United States Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) who is working to bring AI and blockchain technology into reality in the US federal government. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #45: AI and Blockchain in Government: Interview with Jose Arrieta, US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) at Cognilytica.

AI is seeing increasing adoption across a wide range of industries, and banking is no exception. Founded in 1922, USAA is a Texas-based Fortune 500 diversified financial services company offering banking, investing, and insurance to people and families who serve, or served, in the United States military, with over 12.4 million members. As a result of their broadly geographically distributed customer base and needs for in-person as well as online and mobile offerings, the company has invested deeply in advanced technologies and is frequently at the forefront of emerging technology. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #44: AI in the Banking Industry: Interview with Casey Royer, USAA at Cognilytica.

In this week’s episode of the AI Today podcast we interview Doba Parushev, Senior Associate at Edison Partners.  It’s no secret that companies with an AI focus has been receiving lots of funding these days and Edison Partners is a very active VC firm in the AI industry.  It’s always interesting  to get VCs perspectives on the market and how new technologies are trending.  Continue reading AI Today Podcast #43: A VC’s Perspective on AI: Interview with Doba Parushev, Edison Partners at Cognilytica.

In this week’s episode of the AI Today podcast we interview Antoine Desmet, Analytics Manager at Komatsu.  Many people might not realize just how much technology is involved in mining.  We discuss the concept of the “Digital Mine” and how Komatsu uses Internet of Things (IoT) in combination with AI and ML to enable a large range of capabilities.  Continue reading AI Today Podcast #42: AI in the Digital Mine: Interview with Antoine Desmet, Komatsu at Cognilytica.

In this week’s episode of the AI Today podcast we interview Jorge Sanchez, Director of Product Strategy at Appian.   It seems that everyone these days is taking notice of AI.  We discuss how AI is transforming modern enterprises and  how low-code platforms like Appian can help reduce the dependency on highly technical staff to build applications and greatly reduce the time to go from application concept to deployment.  Continue reading AI Today Podcast #41: Appian’s Low-code AI Environment: Interview with Jorge Sanchez at Cognilytica.

In this week’s episode of the AI Today podcast we interview Oliver Mitchell who is a Founding Partner of Autonomy Ventures and syndicated writer and host of local tech events in NYC.  As a seasoned professional who has been involved in tech for 20+ years, Oliver shares insights into the future of the AI industry, with a unique focus on hardware and robotics. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #40: Interview with Oliver Mitchell, Autonomy Ventures at Cognilytica.

Artificial Intelligence is on most everyone’s radar these days. And it’s no different with governments as well. In this podcast we interview Michael Hayes, Senior Manager of Government Affairs at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA.) We discuss laws and regulations surrounding AI, why it’s important to create workable definitions now for various terms related to AI (such as defining narrow AI), and where he sees AI taking us in the years to come. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #39: Interview with Michael Hayes, Government Affairs @ Consumer Technology Association (CTA) at Cognilytica.

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere and in all industries. In this podcast, we interview long-time AI researcher and thought leader Dragos Margineantu, AI Chief Technologist at Boeing, who shares with us how Boeing is using AI and Machine Learning (ML) for its operations, manufacturing, supply chain, and Internet of Things (IoT) interactions and some thoughts on what the future of autonomous aircraft might be. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #38: Interview with Dragos Margineantu, Boeing at Cognilytica.

Ever wonder how fully autonomous vehicles at Level 5 on the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) classification will impact your life? How will the way you live, work, interact socially, and care for the needy, disabled and elderly change when vehicles that can drive themselves safely from point to point and be beckoned at any time become prevalent? Continue reading AI Today Podcast #37: Life with Level 5 Autonomous Vehicles at Cognilytica.

Companies of all sorts are increasing their investment in AI. Toyota has a wide range of applications of AI, so it’s no surprise that they are interested in helping to spur further growth in the industry by investing in early stage startups that are focused on AI and Machine Learning technology. In this podcast, we interview Jim Adler, Founding Managing Director, of Toyota AI Ventures. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #36: Interview with Jim Adler, Toyota AI Ventures at Cognilytica.

In this wide ranging podcast, hear from Professor Tom Davenport, Distinguished Professor at Babson College, fellow of MIT initiative on digital economy, and senior advisor to Deloitte’s Analytics & AI practice. Tom Davenport recently wrote a piece for the Harvard Business Review on “Artificial Intelligence for the Real World”, as well as the widely promoted “Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century”. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #35: Interview with Tom Davenport, Babson College, MIT, and Deloitte — Augmented Intelligence, GDPR, Data Science, and More at Cognilytica.

Occupational fraud is not a small issue. On average, a company loses 5% of its revenues to employee financial fraud each year, with the annual median loss at $140,000 and over 20% of companies reporting losses of $1 million or more. The key to keeping a lid on this fraud is identifying the fraud before it takes too much of a bite out of the company’s bottom line, or even further, to put processes and controls in place that automatically audits, monitors, and accepts or rejects transactions that don’t fit an recognized pattern. Continue reading AI Today Podcast #34: Interview with Anant Kale, AppZen — Preventing Employee Expense Fraud with AI at Cognilytica.