Top AI and ML Trends in 2019!

Introduction

Since, John McCarthy coined the term AI way back in 1955; AI has come a really long way. Fast forward 63 years and artificial intelligence is transforming industries like healthcare, fintech and various other industries across the spectrum.

The end goal to achieve the most human like AI is still a little far from reach. However, machine learning (ML) and Big Data advancements have aided AI to go mainstream.

Let’s have a look at the top AI and ML trends in 2019.

1. Health

A report by Accenture suggests that the AI Healthcare market in the US is expected to reach 6.6 billion $ by 2021. In the health technology space, diagnostic and medical imaging companies are fueling the majority of AI’s growth. There is even proof to this statement.

A cloud based AI assistant called Arterys is being used by radiologists today. Arterys received FDA clearance to analyze images of tumors in the liver and lungs making use of its Oncology AI suite in Feb 2018.

Researchers from University of Singapore made use of AI to identify and optimize different drug combinations for the treatment of myeloma.

This proves that Ai is taking personalized healthcare and precision medicine to another level.

2. Fintech

Cash advance loans, mobile payments, asset management and the whole gamut of technologies have already established fintech as a disruptive force in its own right.

When you add artificial intelligence to this mix, the fintech industry begins to soar. You can now deposit checks using image recognition to your preferred bank via your mobile device.

If that wasn’t enough, the first AI powered Exchange Trade Fund was released last October.

Another example from this space is Quantopian which is a community of quantitative traders who look to test and share trading algorithms.

A few of these are powered by Machine Learning.

3. Energy

From the deep pockets of oil and gas to the rather greener pastures of renewable green tech, a lot of data is generated from this industry.

From the viewpoint of energy producers and consumers, their aim is to use the electrical grid optimally.

For this to happen, AI is ideal as it processes large datasets and produces actionable insights with ease.

Take the case of Athena which is a storage optimizer. Athena streamlines the timing of energy use by processing 400 MB of energy data per minute across close to 800 energy storage systems and saves its customers 8 million $ annually.

Another example is the smart thermostat called Nest. It reduces the consumption of energy as it adapts to the habits of the occupants of the house.

The application of AI has come so far that Great Britain’s National Grid and Google’s DeepMind are on the verge of a partnership to streamline UK’s electrical grid.

4. Enterprise

Technavio’s market research reveals that the global enterprise AI market is going to grow at 45% CAGR from 2018 to 2022.

This growth is actually due to the increasing number of businesses using customer service chatbots.

This substantial growth can also be attributed to ML solutions that help process big data. The big guns like Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and IBM provide and support the AI frameworks and tools which have helped bring ML to the masses.

Google uses DeepMind, AWS combined with Apache Spark and IBM Watson help big enterprise handle extremely large volumes of data.

5. Retail

The dumping ground of innovation in the AI space is the retail industry. Chatbots are retailers answer to reducing customer overheads.

Predictive analytics is used to optimize product pricing and build customer personae making use of the reservoir of data.

Ai in retail is so common today that almost all of us are aware of it. The AI technology has matured and businesses have gotten more and more creative with this technology.

Chatbots have become old and that is hard to believe. In physical retail spaces, actual AI powered robots are used to boost footfalls by 70%.

It has even gone so far that Kairos, an AI uses facial recognition to learn a customer’s preference as soon as they walk through the door and notify the store executives.

When SoftBank is willing to invest 750 million $ in Zume which a robot pizza delivery service, you definitely know that the future is now!

I just spoke about a few trends, a few industries and a few applications of AI and ML. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are technologies that are revolutionizing each and every sector and industry as we know.

In this blog, I just scratched the surface of how far AI and ML have reached how far they can go. 

From being a myth which wasn’t to be, to becoming the most disruptive technology to ever being invented, the world of machine learning and artificial intelligence has literally become an integral part of our world and lives!