The Future Is Metaverse - No Surprise, You Are Already In The Game

 Facebook founder Mark Zukerberg has acted as a crazy scientist by trapping seven of his employees (part of an experiment) for six days in his metaverse laboratory. Alysa Taylor (CVO for Industry, App, and Data Marketing for Microsoft) joined a meeting with host Karuana Gatimu as a MS Teams Avatar. This is no surprise, as Mark has already expressed his desire to establish a "virtual dystopia of the Metaverse." And Taylor was part of a meeting at Microsoft Build 2022, where Microsoft brought together a panel of its experts to discuss the company’s future metaverse strategy.

Now the question is, are we ordinary people new to this feel-like-crazy virtual 3D world of Metaverse that creates a virtual social connection of rich user interactions that imitates the real-world scenario? Absolutely not, as we have already been introduced to simulated digital environments using augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and blockchain via games, aren’t we?

Well, by the time we interact with the virtual world, we are a step ahead of entering the metaverse, which is the future of all our activities. Next, simple questions can be how and why so?

From Old Game to A Slightly New Ball Game

Try to remember when the virtual reality-based game Second Life was introduced way back in 2003. How people go insane in order to start a new life in the virtual world! However, it was not the first introduction of virtual reality, though avatars gained popularity for giving people an extended life, which is nothing but a new way of creating better social connections via rich user interaction.

The world was first introduced to Augmented Reality (AR) in the year 1968 at Harvard by computer scientist Ivan Sutherland. He created an AR head-mounted display system. However, the first commercial AR application appeared in 2008 when German agencies in Munich designed a printed magazine ad for a model of BMW Mini. They showed how, by holding a piece of paper in front of a computer’s camera, a virtual model (it connects the markers on the physical ad with the computer) of the Mini can be controlled by a user on the computer screen by moving the paper around to view different angles of the car. It was one of the first marketing campaigns that allowed user interaction with a digital model in real time. Well, we can also recall our craze around Pokémon Go (2016) that engaged 45 million users! It showed the future potential of fast growth in virtual social connection of the future.

The Covid Fuel to the Rocketing Metaverse Journey

We have to admit that the pace of development towards the metaverse was indeed rocketed by the COVID-19 pandemic. People were forced to stay at home, and they could not simply keep playing games! They have to work to earn and live their lives without getting infected and affected. Multinational corporations have already begun to use the metaverse to onboard employees, and they see a brighter future to offer their customers as a result of these technological advancements.

We can site examples of Accenture, Capgemini, and other such MNCs that have launched metaverse-based hiring. While Accenture aims to introduce its newly hired 150,000 employees in India to interact in the metaverse world from the first day of their work at the virtual campus they named Nth floor, Capgemini hosted a "Metaverse Career Fair" for students from five universities in the U.S. The event gave potential job seekers the opportunity to interact with avatars to explore job opportunities and different elements on the platform. One step further, they talk about how Job Descriptions have evolved from text-based documents to picture-based videos and 3D experiences to showcase the "day in the life" of a typical employee.

A new Trillion Dollar Economy!

In a recent report PWC predicted that the metaverse ecosystem can go beyond 1.5 trillion USD by 2030. They identified how cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other blockchain-based digital currencies, assets, and exchanges will likely reinforce value exchange across the metaverse platforms. They also point out how innovation will be needed by governments and all other companies to build trusted digital monetary systems, offer new data monetization propositions, and conduct lending and payments, to sustain this fast growth taking place in the metaverse.

Do Not Purchase Land on The Moon, Consider Metaverse Properties Instead…

The future of the metaverse is as versatile and vast as its name suggests, "beyond reality" for sure. The discussion has pages, touching many aspects of what it is offering us via its virtual and augmented presence that is overpowering the real world. The metaverse real estate is available to invest in and big companies are buying it. Such a purchase of virtual land came to light after US hip-hop recording artist Snoop Dogg partnered with The Sandbox last December to open sales of 122 LANDs and 67 premium LANDs plots. PWC has purchased such digital land for over $10,000 USD as a non-fungible token (NFT) using The Sandbox’s SAND cryptocurrency. So next time you dream of buying land on the Moon, consider the many available metaverse real-estate options available around you. Yes, if your budget does not permit such fantasies, search for easy-to-purchase avatars or merchandise from many other celebrities who sell online.

Sustainability An Important KPI for All Businesses - What Is Your Stand?

Once the word sustainability is heard, we directly relate it to the environmental issues. There is no harm in doing so, as it is a matter of a fact that the entire world is nowadays giving it serious thought.

A recent study from Nielsen shows that 66% of consumers are likely to spend on products coming from a sustainable brand, while 81% of consumers believe that companies should improve the environment. For instance, there is a huge area for potential business growth by investing in renewable resources apart from the energy market alone, which is expected to be $2.15 trillion by 2025...!

However, if we are to talk about the sustainability of a business and how it has become a key performance indicator, we have to broaden the idea to economic and social ground as well as environmental.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measured on many grounds, and sustainability as a whole has a great impact on businesses' ability to grow and keep pace with what is happening in the environment. After all, everything is interconnected, right?

Nothing Can Survive on Quicksand

When the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) covers an estimated surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers, how long can businesses keep the direction of their business vision or strategy aloof from environmental sustainability?

A recent report from The New Climate Economy, 95% of plastic packaging (worth $120 billion annually) goes to waste after the first use and results in the generation of microplastics that can be found in 114 aquatic species. Similarly, over 140 million people could be displaced from their homes by 2050 if such a scenario continues. Overall carbon emissions have to be reduced by 40% before 2060 to stop the overall increase of the earth’s temperature by two degrees Celsius or more! Another sad part is that another study revealed that only 100 companies are contributing to 71% of global carbon emissions.

After All, Businesses Revolve and Evolve Around Social Beings

All businesses know that customers are fast and last if they have to survive. In fact, they create their strategies while keeping customer satisfaction and retention in mind. Well, who is making these strategies and for whom—human beings, right? The strategy makers are out of society, the executing employees are not aliens, and the consumers are not dumb animals.

Studies again show that 90% of executives in companies globally think that overall sustainability is important for business growth, while only 60% of companies have proper sustainability strategies developed or applied.

A company that does not align its strategy towards sustainability is likely to gradually lose its revenue. A Nielsen 2019 study found that 73% of global consumers are ready to opt to change their buying habits to shift towards products that have a less negative impact on the environment. This has also shown that consumption/sales of sustainable products grew by nearly 20% until 2014 itself.

Good people make a company great. Nowadays, a large salary is insufficient to attract talent in any organization! A recent EY study indicates that 89% of executives believe an organization needs to have a sustainable outlook to increase employee satisfaction. It also points out that, out of 100 employees, 85 say general or buddy referrals go up if they find their chosen company has a strong purpose for others—the world at large.

When a business adheres to the well-known triple bottom line theory of caring for profits, people, and the planet as well, the overall business growth boosts up to higher percentages. A recent study of CPD finds that S&P 500 companies that inducted sustainability into their core business strategies have outperformed others that failed to adapt to sustainability.

Why Not Tap into The Trillion-Dollar Opportunities?

We all know that businesses will ignore anything that does not smell like profit! Small changes can have a great impact on business profitability. Studies show that thousands of commoners (including employees) waste 2.9 billion gallons of gas stuck in traffic (some reaching offices, others to whatever earning places they go), and each person forfeits close to $710 in productivity per year – doesn’t it affect profitability?

A2011 McKinsey survey on the business of sustainability points out towards 33% of businesses that have improved 19% in operational efficiency and reduced costs by integrating sustainable practices.

Well, sustainability is always going to leave its mark on the overall future growth of businesses. Sometimes the impact is related to reputation (not supporting environmental or humanitarian causes), as in the case of Shell, which faced massive protests over its oil purchase from Russia despite being aware of Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine. Otherwise, there will be huge areas for growth possibilities, just like investing in the renewable energy market can alone open up more than $2.15 trillion by 2025.

To sum up, we can see how China's initiative to fight air pollution has the potential to create investment opportunities worth more than $3 trillion through 2030. There is almost no path that a business can take without considering sustainability - in general, in strategy.

India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) - Once Again Postman to Introduce Latest Banking Technology to Commoners

Thanks, Mr. Prime Minister to rely on people who are serving commoners for more than centuries.  To ensure financial inclusion of masses no other service provider (public or private) than India Post could act better. If latest payments banking system must reach every single Indian, Department of Post has to “work” with its existing 1.55 lakh post offices and its “strong manpower” which includes those beloved “Gang of Postmen and Grameen Dak Sewaks” (more than 3 lakhs in number) who “keep connecting” far-flung relatives residing at extreme miles in some distant corners of 1000s of Indian villages.

Knock, knock… Postmannnn: “here is a letter for you”

I can still remember Peon Kaku (Postman Uncle) calling me aloud “choto babu, your letter has arrived!” The man, clad in Khaki dress, used to come riding a bicycle with a side-bag full of letters and papers. Most of us can hardly deny that he was the first banking personnel we knew. The invasion of the Cell phone, Email and better banking services, depopularized those men in mass. But still today you can find them paddling from one house to another carrying love, hatred, order, blessings, joy, tears which are all put down on papers and sealed inside envelops send to deliver.

Stop, stop… Postman Uncle, what is this IPPB?

However, envisaging an accessible, affordable and trusted banking for the common man and to help speedily achieve the financial inclusion objectives of the Union Government, India post need to work hard. India is moving fast, so its government departments are trying to catch up the speed. Still, how can I forget the letters bringing the sad demise of a person reaches latest by a month from its sending date – factually, the last rites of the person got over and the relatives are not even ready to give a cold reaction!! Forget those miserable days… but attracting youth to visit a post office to use a new postal banking system or making them inquisitive to stop a postman for knowing how India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) work – could be a challenge – isn’t it?

Will you ask a student at the fourth standard to teach his own classmates? I must not remind you how simple it was to handle money orders in comparison to today’s mobile or computer-based payment banking system! Whatever user-friendly the platform becomes, still the postman with a basic school education or on the verge of retirement, must undulate his grey cells despite limited training is promised to be provided. They shall overcome someday! But shouldn’t we have to stick to the belief that “patience is a virtue”?

Give me light, I shall show you a New India…

The post office may be more than lakhs in number, but will it be possible to deliver services like ‘money transfer’, ‘direct benefit transfers’, ‘bill and utility payments’, ‘enterprise and merchant payments’ through ‘counter services’, ‘micro-ATM’, ‘mobile banking app’, ‘SMS’ and ‘IVR’ at the last mile in a village where still electricity has not reached  every household?

Some recent government data from (Saubhagya) shows us only 38.81% or 1,28,56,074 household out of targeted 3,31,29,506 household got connectivity. Let me remind you, the government deems a village “electrified” when power cables from the nearest power grid reach a transformer in a village and 10% households of the village have electricity to use. And more on that, keep another point in mind, those “household” include public places such as schools, health centers, and post office!!

Let post offices at those villages have electricity and get enabled to digital facilities to utilize state-of-the-art banking system?? I strongly believe, one day a 10th pass student askes Postman uncle- “Uncle how can I use IPPB to pay the electricity bill?”

Will IPPB’s “Aapka bank, aapke dwaar” survive “Paytm Karo”?

Earlier this week, the cabinet had approved an increase in spending for IPPB to Rs 1,435 crore. It hopes that this monetary armament will help IPPB to compete with aggressive private players like Airtel Payments Bank, Paytm Payments Bank, and others. The sources or information reveals that this investment will fuel improvement of payment bank related technology and recruitment/strengthening of human resource. Well, the biggest question stands here is the channel of utilization of these funds.

Will it be possible to create a strong strategy line for winning the race? Will there be no reservation (Quota for SC, ST, and OBC) applied in the selection of the human resource? Can we expect bright minds who are already working in this technology field, will be invited to join to bring “my bank to my door”?

Postman Uncle … are you bringing my bank to my doorstep today or Paytme karu?

Will someone stops asking me “Paytm Karo” or how soon will I be saying “wait… Mera bank he na (my own bank is there), bulaya he (I have asked my bank to my house)” …

Let me bring a scenario: “Hello, Post Office? Can I speak to Postman Uncle?” 

[Let me guess some answers from the opposite side:]

“Postman is on leave today”;

OR

“Yes, speaking, Ok, but… today I would not be able to visit your house…. Some urgent work is there…. Can I come tomorrow?”

OR

“I forgot, today is my last day at the post office, someone will visit tomorrow”

OR EVEN

Pray, this last assumption does not prove true in most of the cases -  “Sare jahann se accha, Hindositan hamara…. Ham bulbuleṉ haiṉ is ki, yih gulsitaṉ hamara ……THE NUMBER YOU ARE TRYING TO REACH IS NOT ANSWERING ANY CALL, PLEASE TRY SOMETIME LATER”…

For those who could not understand the ringtone, the translation stands like this: -

"Sare jahann se accha,Hindositan hamara…. Ham bulbuleṉ haiṉ is ki, yih gulsitaṉ hamara" …. (Better than the entire world, is our Hindustan, We are its nightingales, and it (is) our garden abode)

The line are from poetic song from poet Muhammad Iqbal and it is proven that a poet never lies.

I BELIEVE, AND STRONGLY 
BELIEVE IT that the lines would prove true for my country …

Salesforce CPQ Software - Configure Price Quotes Fast, Accurately and Personalized at Real-time

Recently, I came across the name Salesforce CPQ software that is making my friend’s sales and marketing job role easy! He claims that Salesforce Configure Price Quote software (or Salesforce CPQ software) is the sales tool that is helping his organization create accurate, personalized, targeted sales quotes for its customers. He also adds that reduced time in delivering personalized quotes utilizing centralized customer data in real-time help building customers’ confidence.

I was satisfied with his elaboration of Salesforce CPQ software benefits when I could make my own view out the benefits:

Comprehensive & configurable data streamlined on mouse clicks: In conventional manual quoting scenario sales teams need to run pillar to post to gather any vital information required for drafting the quotes. Now, with CPQ, quotes related to selling, up-selling or cross-selling groups of products or services can be configured easily. Anytime sales team can personalize products and services, and their components in aggregated forms to meet customer demands. Salesforce CPQ software helps in configuring packages and bundles to offer to customers with the clicks of a mouse in real-time. Availability of centralized data streamlines the process of preparing quote faster than any conventional method.

No guesswork, only accurate information: There should never be any point of guesswork when it comes to quoting a price. Due to accurate centralized database availability through Salesforce CPQ software customers are delivered highly accurate, specific and requirement oriented quotes. In later stages, confusions and conflicts do not arise, as all the information provided are genuine and backed by the database. Sales representatives cannot deny promises made in quotes. On the other hand, executive get authentic data sourced from the centralized database instead of relying on lesser dependable information gathered from different individual resources. What they used to do in past - guesswork quickly to complete the quotes and later try to match/rectify that info with available resources – those possibilities are minimized to almost nil with the use of CPQ software.

Only required and personalized quotes: When time is of higher importance in drafting quotes along with the accuracy of information, there should be equal weight to personalization of quotes. Earlier, sales team had to wade through huge information pile-ups (case studies and similar collaterals) to pick out particular matching information for any specific requisite. Due to the shortage of time, they in most of the cases had to rely on similar but non-specific information to draft the quotes. As a result, clients used to mark those quotes generic. Sales teams had to miss the bus due to the shortage of time to analyze the information manually. Salesforce CPQ software has relieved them from this situation. Now data are on click, can be analyzed quickly, and added immediately as per requirements. Let the customers demand adjustments to their purchase as per requirements, ask discounts, or anything specific - sales representatives can update quotes in real-time.

Reduced time to response: Hope reading up to this, one thing is clear – time plays an imperative role in drafting price quotes. Salesforce CPQ software has condensed the time to respond largely. The availability of vital data and option to draft quotes in real-time with available templates has improved the turnaround time to reach customers in grabbing the opportunities.

Automation & retention: There are generally several processes of price quoting. In some cases, quotes are to be converted to contracts. However, in other situations, customers demand to get proposals in specific proposal templates. With Salesforce CPQ software now sales team can get approvals and convert quotes to contracts quickly due to automation and use of tools like DocuSign, Echosign. There are ready and quickly customizable templates also to meet the demand of template specific proposals. In both the cases percentage of retaining customers with quick quote to contract conversion has improved a lot while tools transform any quoting automated.

Trust of Salesforce resource: Salesforce CPQ software is native to the Salesforce platform. Consequently, sales teams can utilize standard Salesforce dashboards, workflows and reports to gain accurate visibility into opportunities and even get quick automated approvals. Salesforce CPQ software is considered as one of the best risk mitigation tools. Salesforce data and CPQ software ensure deals are won with fast, error-free quotes. Nurture all up-sell opportunities relying on up-to-date data. After all, the sales team has right intelligence and reporting opportunity to quote the prices.

Finally, what I understood is that Salesforce CPQ software is not only a great addition to Salesforce customer relationship management platform, it is empowering sales team with quote pricing ability. CPQ software is a tool or can be called a suite for making price quoting fast, accurate, easy, reliable and even automated. Personalized price quoting is now on a mouse click and done in a real-time scenario. Thanks to Salesforce to acquire SteelBrick CPQ and providing option to use CPQ software in Salesforce CRM.

Cracking Nutshell – What Stops Professionals from Becoming Entrepreneurs

It took quite a few months to sit and write for my blog again. What I was doing by this time has less importance to really know; whereas it would not be a bad idea to share the experiences I have been collecting to write this post!

I have been a professional in the Indian IT industry for more than half a decade, and the life was not that colorful to keep on writing for others – with a purpose may be for marketing or for entertainment, if not solely for information. Well, sometimes you go are forced to go technical while you wanted to be creative.

 

Everyone is born entrepreneur

Someone told me that a young man has a father sleeping inside, whereas I believe that an entrepreneur sleeps inside every grown-up guy or a woman. Especially, when you are in a developing country like India and suddenly getting to be almost flashed out of your stereotype life by a gusty wind or wave of Narendra Modi spread ‘Make in India’ or the type of enthusiasm. You get your hand dirty – this time trying to be an entrepreneur. Sometimes dirty affairs are not that dirty - at least one of the detergent power in Indian FMCG market claim that "dag achhe he[to get some dirt on your clothing]"

Trying to place some eggs in multiple baskets

As I mentioned earlier, I have few eggs and want to keep them in different baskets; at least a few would survive the unfriendly tussles while I would be trying to dawn a new avatar of being an entrepreneur.

I should not say that I have failed or succeeded in my entrepreneur run and now sitting to share those sweet and sour feelings. I am here while I am in the midway of my journey to become an entrepreneur. I thought to share a few points that may help you to understand how tough it could be to become an entrepreneur when someone is still a working professional of any organization!

It is not cocoon but a nutshell

Below I have shared my own struggling situation to dawn the role of an entrepreneur, in other words, what situation as a professional I have faced in doing own business is shared in this blog post. Gone are the days when you happen to consider yourself inside the cocoon – break out the shell easily eating the protein/food inside the shell – now it’s more of staying inside a nutshell that is quite strong to creak from within – you may get yourself killed inside like the insect inside the walnut. Yes, the pesticide spread outside the walnut would not hit you directly, rather makes the shell harder and difficult to break from inside.

Lose your bread in hand to earn a piece of cake nearby

There should not be any doubt in an entrepreneur’s mind that he or she must invest maximum time possible to get things placed on the right track or planned path. It is one of the beginner’s mantra to climb the ladder of success.

Well, investing enough time in the entrepreneurial efforts could be a challenging option for someone who is earning his daily bread from servicing an organization. Your serving organization needs more output than the stipulated/tabulated time limits ask you to invest in. If you could not innovate or contribute differently to the role you are serving, your primary bread earning machine- job could be in trouble!

 

Getting confused!

Now, this makes you feel helpless and confused to choose between the new or the old source of earning. You could see that investing a few more hours in your new step towards a new professional role (an entrepreneurship) may take you to new heights. However, your existing job responsibility demands more time to keep its promise of delivering the piece of bread that eventually running the engine within you.

Is it tough enough to decide between bread and cake while you are hungry? A piece of cake would douse the burning appetite within and can satisfy your testbeds. However, you must walk a mile to get it. While walking a few steps, you could get a piece of bread. The decision is yours.

Lose some of the eggs collected for the winter season

Someone, who beings their career with an entrepreneurial effort, could gamble anything to reach the target. What about you who has been in a service and collecting (saving) some hard-earned money for the future in the form of bonds or deposits in bank cellar?

When you are on an entrepreneurial journey, capital is something you would ever need to make liquid as and when to pour in different cups to offer in a lookout to gain some returns. Well, you can never make it assured to get back the way you could from the banks or other money-making instruments.

Putting eggs into boiling water

Are you ready to risk eggs by putting it into the boiling water and see those eggs starting to bounce suddenly? You should be careful enough to strain them out at the right moment without burning your hands or broking them! Either you risk your earning to see a brighter future or brace yourself to lose a chunk of savings that could have made your future relaxing without stoning at the hive of the honeybees!

Losing patience before seeing the seed transform to sprout

Patience is a virtue my dear and you must keep it remembered until you have explored all the means and spent time waiting to the extent possible to become an entrepreneur. Can you remember those days of searching job and not losing your nerves while being rejected time and again? Well, this situation is nothing of any sort for an early bud into entrepreneurial fleet. But these do matter to someone in the midway of their professional career. They have some money to invest into something that brings quick results. Well, the time they do not see the immediate outcome from the investments; now people are habituated to an environment where their managers ask for quick results. They lose their will to stick to anything. People must stay ready giving some time to the seed to sprout.

The zigzag road ahead

When you are on an entrepreneur journey, the destination is fixed but the roads may keep turning - pass through the tunnels, take on the zigzag shape – ultimately, the roads take your time making you impatient to reach the destination. There may not be the ‘on time’ reaching situations. If you can have unlimited faith in God whom you have never seen to help you directly, why are you not ready to have patience on something done by yourself? You should wait for the possibility of seeing the fruit. There are possibilities of getting a positive outcome in higher proportion than getting answers to your prayers from God. If you believe that God is busy to fulfil the desire cum wish of someone’ else, your entrepreneurial efforts will also bring results provided you give it sometimes. You got to be ready to carry a certain amount of patience – are you?

I am not done yet

Well, I am amid my entrepreneurial journey, and have found these three major roadblocks that tried to prevent me; in fact, still pulling me from behind. Next time I come across other such obstacles, I promise to share them here. Till then wish you good luck if you are an entrepreneur or have thoughts in mind of trying to be one in future. Bye for Now see you sometime or some days later with something poking me to write here for sharing with my readers.

Peering into The Future: Artificial Intelligence is The next Step in Online Advertising

A close look at the business expansion and diversification strategies of technology giants like Google, Apple, and Facebook have led me to a simple conclusion – Artificial Intelligence (AI) is trending and is going to dominate the future technological development. In the month of September 2016, Google acquired API.AI which developed ‘Siri’ like bot that can recognize speech, intent, and context of the commands. While in July 2016, Twitter Inc. had already acquired Magic Pony which works on improving User Experience through better image and videos search.

I was thinking about one thing, why the tech giants were spending crazy amounts to acquire these startups who were working on AI developments? Suddenly one notification popped up on my phone from online shopping marketplace Amazon and it was suggesting me the slashed prices of books on technical writing.I could connect things then! I understood that the era of suggestive advertising may be soon over with application of interactive advertisements.

Surpassing online AI already reached out of the home

A little research on AI led me to the world’s first artificially intelligent poster campaign which ran at a bus shelter outside Selfridges on Oxford Street in the month of July 2015. Though it appeared to be a simple poster for an instant coffee brand created by M&C Saatchi in partnership with Postercope and Clear Channel UK, a camera was integrated with the poster to capture peoples’ engagement based on their emotional reactions (happy, sad or neutral) after seeing the advertisement and the poster was writing creative copies at per those reactions.

I realized the AI has started spreading its influence quite a few years back on advertisement industry to give actionable insights of audience reactions, far from being suggestive; the campaign was a part of the trial which was putting AI to create self-writing ad campaigns in the interactive method!

SMS: Prices slashed by 30% for technical writing books - visit www.amazon.com today!

Coming back to Amazon notification again. I began to think how suggestive advertisements are influencing me? Are such ads still suggestive or the use of AI already has made them interactive? Data analysis is a part of AI and the big data analysis has made filtering of social sentiments, product pricing, predictive customer segmentation and sales forecasting easy. Added to the analysis and prediction is the use of image recognition, speech recognition, and content generation to push the boundary where creativity meets technology.

Is it advertising agencies or technology firms trying to add the human mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding (through thought, experience, and the senses) to mechanical processes? Well, my understanding of AI in the ad creation tells me thatAI is trying to give importance to what works than what a human being thinks it should be. I doubt the creative heads and copywriters must have started scratching their heads!

Let us try to understand few aspects of how AI is putting forward result-oriented advertisements with complete and accurate view on performance against every ad displayed online:

AI is helping to identify pattern of users’ decision making

Millions of people are active online and they have different mindsets towards products, services, and related advertisements. It is difficult to analyze their decisions; when people click on ads there could be predictions following the activities thereafter but what about people who stay neutral? Here comes AI with its deep learning process. The high level of abstraction methodology is put to understand data; the process involves analyses of deep graphs with multiple processing layers to craft features that recognize attitude, intention and overall mindset of the visitors of any web page or website (in any version of display – desktop, mobile or tablet).Added to these is a deeper analysis of historical data available from different e-commerce sites.

Here the funda of AI lies in an analysis process that uses a mathematical structure which is inspired by biological neurons in our brain to interpret user description, for example, in buying or selling analysis.

AI is personalizing ads with self-learning algorithm

A good example of machines learning from mistakes and developing self-learning algorithm could be of Yann LeCun, director of AI research at Facebook, who taught a computer system how to recognize the differences between images of dogs and cats. Every time the machine fails to recognize the difference, he would correct it until the program figured out (learned) the reason for its failure.

Deep data mining to segment content per location, weather, time and even gender, age, profession or interest of the user have been made a projection of adverts possible in a personalized version. AI has started newly to add speech recognition with natural language, and image recognition alongside search analysis. Such processes help in customer segmentation with personalized outlook.

The aim is precision in advertisement campaign management

All the AI elements right from deep learning process to image or speech recognition aim at providing a complete and accurate view of advertisement performance. Detailed reporting enables optimized delivery of ads to the targeted audience. It helps the businesses to invest in buying or selling of advertisement space in real-time at per their value to users. The AI has also made real-time bidding of advertisement space to generate more revenue without affecting the interest of the advertiser/investors.



To conclude, some questions would always remain open for the use of mechanical reaction or the Artificial intelligence in an advertisement. Even if it becomes possible to write code for any unlimited number of situations to present personalized advertisements via AI, how long it will take to rectify wrong mechanical manufactured expressions (“It’s late excellent blend time” and “Bahio is the new steam” as found in AI driven poster ad campaign mentioned earlier)? Will it be possible to add a genuine emotional (human) touch in presenting copies and content of advertisement through machine/program? AI developers and users are hopeful. I found Neil ChapmanfromClear Channel (though he is basically from out of home ad agency)being quoted in Marketing Week: “We know that this is merely scratching the surface of the potential for artificial intelligence in the digital out of home arena and are very much looking forward to exploring the possibilities this kind of technology presents for advertisers in the near future."



image courtesy - www.tech.co/

video courtesy - www.thedrum.com/

video courtesy - www.finance.yahoo.com/

2016 Saw Large Corporates Finding Reasons to Acquire Promising Start-ups

In the year 2016,the world of Information Technology, along with us, sawthe giants like Apple, Google, and Intel acquiring promising start-ups Turi, Moodstocks, Itseez and the likes. Should we identify these as acts of killing the competition and competitor or gaining grounds in the field of nascent technology? Let’s script a drama around some acquisitions in anew unconventional structure.

Denouement (intention and outcome)

The general outcome of any acquisition and merger is the increased strength of acquirer and dilution of the acquired. Under the name of acquisition the act of silent butchery of growing competitors and establishing market supremacy take place. It would not be an exaggeration if we mark the year 2016 as breeding and budding time of machine learning, artificial intelligence and similar technologies that grew and showed its promising future from the nests of IT start-ups?

Let’s have a look at the activities of some giant corporates who acquired many start-ups. These may help us to understand what made them acquire rapidly growing and promising start-ups. Salesforce alone acquired 12 companies spending $5 billion; in other words, every month it acquired one company!

(set –Data Analysis, Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning)

Act I, scene I:
Intel Corporation acquired computer vision and machine learning start-up Itseez in the month of May 2016 as part of its strategic shift from PC chip to cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and analyzing data from devices.

Scene II:
It seemed as if Google was waiting for a few months to analyze the outcome of Intel’s acquisition. In the month of September, it acquired API.AI which developed ‘Siri’ like bot that can recognize speech, intent, and context of the commands.

Act II, Scene I:
In Jan 2016 Apple acquired Emotient that works on Artificial Intelligence to develop technology for detecting emotion from facial expressions. After a few months, in July 2016, Twitter Inc. acquired Magic Pony which works on improving User Experience through better image and videos search.

Scene II:
How can any other company think something that relates to search bypassing Google! Yes, Google could not tolerate Twitter’s move and in the same month of July 2016, it acquired Moodstocks which develops machine-learning based image recognition technology.

Prolog (break the convention)

An Acquisition is no sudden incidents only from the likes of Google, Apple, Twitter or Intel. Cloud computing and king of CRM, Salesforce, was found to acquire PredictionIO in the month of February 2016. The start-up develops an open source-based machine learning server which would strengthen Salesforce’s grip in machine learning and data analytics. It also repeated the acquisition in April 2016 by acquiring MetaMind which works on predictive analysis to predict outcomes for language, vision, and database task. The end of the year 2016 saw Salesforce acquire Twinprime which works on app User experience optimization. Hat’s off to the aggressiveness of Salesforce for going to the ‘extreme’ level of acquisition (more than 40 acquisitions) which forced them to post a negative profit.

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