AI Sector Overviews Articles and Reports

Deep Learning plays a vital role in the early detection of cancer. A study published by NVIDIA showed that deep learning drops error rate for breast cancer diagnoses by 85%. This was the inspiration for Co-Founders Jeet Raut and Peter Njenga when they created AI imaging medical platform Behold.ai. Raut’s mother was told that she no longer had breast cancer, a diagnosis that turned out to be false and that could have cost her life.

When businesses make investments in new technologies, they usually do so with the intention of  creating value for customers and stakeholders and making smart long-term investments. This is not always an easy thing to do when implementing cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Business intelligence case studies that show how these technologies have been leveraged with results are still scarce, and many companies wonder where to apply machine learning first (a question at the core of one of Emerj's most recent expert consensuses.)
Artificial intelligence and machine learning have certainly increased in capability over the past few years. Predictive analytics can help glean meaningful business insights using both sensor-based and structured data, as well as unstructured data, like unlabeled text and video, for mining customer sentiment. In the last few years, a shift toward "cognitive cloud" analytics has also increased data access, allowing for advances in real-time learning and reduced company costs. This recent shift has made an array of advanced analytics and AI-powered business intelligence services more accessible to mid-sized and small companies.
In this article, we provide five case studies that illustrate how AI and machine learning technologies are being used across industries to help drive more intelligent business decisions. While not meant to be exhaustive, the examples offer a taste for how real companies are reaping real benefits from technologies like advanced analytics and intelligent image recognition.

The rise of AI industrial robotics experienced record double-digit expansion in various countries in 2014 and 2015, but such large scale segments i.e. 'industrial' versus 'medical' or 'military', were more or less one amalgam of parts a couple of decades ago. Examples of medical and military applications can be found in our updated machine learning in robotics guide. There was a time before the early 1980s when it was possible for AI researchers to keep up with all that was going on in the AI and the robotics industry as a whole, but it seems the tides had changed by 1982.

When it comes to effectiveness of machine learning, more data almost always yields better results—and the healthcare sector is sitting on a data goldmine. McKinsey estimates that big data and machine learning in pharma and medicine could generate a value of up to $100B annually, based on better decision-making, optimized innovation, improved efficiency of research/clinical trials, and new tool creation for physicians, consumers, insurers, and regulators.
Where does all this data come from? If we could look at labeled data streams, we might see research and development (R&D); physicians and clinics; patients; caregivers; etc. The array of (at present) disparate origins is part of the issue in synchronizing this information and using it to improve healthcare infrastructure and treatments. Hence, the present-day core issue at the intersection of machine learning and healthcare: finding ways to effectively collect and use lots of different types of data for better analysis, prevention, and treatment of individuals.
Burgeoning applications of ML in pharma and medicine are glimmers of a potential future in which synchronicity of data, analysis, and innovation are an everyday reality.
At Emerj, the AI Research and Advisory Company, we research how AI is impacting the pharmaceutical industry as part of our AI Opportunity Landscape service. Global pharma companies use AI Opportunity Landscapes to find out where AI fits at their company and which AI applications are driving value in the industry.
In this article, we use insights from our research to provide a breakdown of several of the pioneering applications of AI in pharma and areas for continued innovation.

Though yet to become a standard in schools, artificial intelligence in education has been taught since AI's uptick in the 1980s. In many ways, the two seem made for each other. We use education as a means to develop minds capable of expanding and leveraging the knowledge pool, while AI provides tools for developing a more accurate and detailed picture of how the human mind works.

There is a certain level of stigma that exists around using machine learning and location data in business applications, understandably due to risks inherent in exploitation of individual privacy. But if we look under the hood of society's daily web of interactions, we see that the location information economy—from GPS to radio signal based-triangulation to geo-tagged images and beyond—is now almost ubiquitous, from the moment we track our morning commute to the end-of-day search for healthy and convenient take-out for dinner.

Human resources has been slower to come to the table with machine learning and artificial intelligence than other fields—marketing, communications, even health care. But the value of machine learning in human resources can now be measured, thanks to advances in algorithms that can predict employee attrition, for example, or deep learning neural networks that are edging toward more transparent reasoning in showing why a particular result or conclusion was made.

With all the excitement and hype about AI that’s “just around the corner”—self-driving cars, instant machine translation, etc.—it can be difficult to see how AI is affecting the lives of regular people from moment to moment. What are examples of artificial intelligence that you're already using—right now?