5 characteristics of AI technologies worth investing in

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are timely subjects that spark the public imagination. In 2016, between $26 billion and $39 billion was invested in AI, according to recent estimates from the McKinsey Global Institute, a leading private-sector think tank. That number is three times the amount spent just three years prior, an increase driven by entrepreneurial activity and technological advancements.

Although thousands of venture firms are investing in sexy machine learning projects, there are very real benefits that machine learning and AI are realizing now, not in a future timeline of self-driving cars and full home automation. Smart investors and observers should consider following companies that are solving these five issues.

We all have days where we have to do busy work: dull, boring tasks that may be necessary but are neither important nor valuable. Fortunately, machine learning and AI are beginning to address some of this through human-computer interaction technologies. Virtual assistants like Siri, Cortana, and Google Assistant perform basic tasks, conversing with the user in natural language.

More robust use of this technology can be found in companies like Dialogflow, a subsidiary of Google, and formerly known as Api.ai. Such companies build conversational interfaces that use machine learning to understand and meet customer needs. Want to send 5,000 calendar invites, or book a flight from San Francisco to Paris? Need a reliable method to answer basic customer questions online, instantaneously? Solutions like those offered by Dialogflow cut through the dull work that would otherwise require hours of human time.

Data informs every level of a modern company’s operation. Even small businesses have a lot of material to interpret, so a major enterprise consumes amounts of information at a scale equally awe-inspiring and terrifying.

The expanse of available data has gone beyond what human beings are capable of synthesizing, making it a perfect job for machine learning and AI. For example, Elucify helps sales teams automatically update their contacts. By simply clicking a button, information is pulled from a multitude of public and private data sources. Elucify takes all of that diffuse data, compares it, and makes changes where necessary.

Modern cybersecurity drives a need for comparing terabytes of inside data with a comparable amount of outside data.