Thursday, December 5, 2019

Specialists talk about the current greatest dangers presented by AI

A few specialists have given their contemplations on what dangers AI presents, and obviously counterfeit substance is the current greatest threat.

The specialists, who were talking on Tuesday at the WSJ Pro Cybersecurity Executive Forum in New York, accept that AI-generated content is of squeezing worry to our social orders.

Camille François, chief innovation official at online life examination firm Graphika, says that deepfake articles represent the most serious threat.

We've just observed what human-generated "counterfeit news" and disinformation crusades can do, so it won't be of a lot of shock to numerous that including AI in that procedure is a main risk.

François features that phony articles and disinformation battles today depend on a great deal of manual work to make and spread a bogus message.

"At the point when you see disinformation crusades, the measure of difficult work that goes into making counterfeit sites and phony web journals is enormous," François said.

"On the off chance that you can just robotize acceptable and connecting with content, at that point it's truly flooding the web with trash in a computerized and versatile way. With the goal that I'm entirely stressed over."

In February, OpenAI disclosed its GPT-2 apparatus which produces persuading counterfeit content. The AI was prepared on 40 gigabytes of content spreading over 8,000,000 sites.

OpenAI ruled against freely discharging GPT-2 dreading the harm it could do. Nonetheless, in August, two alumni chose to reproduce OpenAI's content generator.

The alumni said they don't accept their work presently represents a hazard to society and discharged it to show the world what was conceivable without being an organization or government with immense measures of assets.

"This enables everybody to have a significant discussion about security, and scientists to help secure against future potential maltreatment," said Vanya Cohen, one of the alumni, to Wired.

Talking on a similar board as François at the WSJ occasion, Celeste Fralick, boss information researcher and senior chief architect at McAfee, suggested that organizations join forces with firms gaining practical experience in distinguishing deepfakes.

Among the scariest AI-related cybersecurity dangers is "ill-disposed AI assaults" whereby a programmer finds and adventures a helplessness in an AI framework.

Fralick gives the case of a test before sun-up Song, a teacher at the University of California, Berkeley, in which a driverless vehicle was tricked into accepting a stop sign was a 45 MPH speed limit sign just by utilizing stickers.

As indicated by Fralick, McAfee itself has performed comparative examinations and found further vulnerabilities. In one, a 35 MPH speed limit sign was indeed changed to trick a driverless vehicle's AI.

"We broadened the center bit of the three, so the vehicle didn't remember it as 35; it remembered it as 85," she said.

The two specialists accept whole workforces should be taught about the dangers presented by AI notwithstanding utilizing systems for countering assaults.

There is "an extraordinary earnestness to ensure individuals have essential AI proficiency," François closes.

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Expand The Promise And Minimize The Perils Of AI

To be honest, I was trusting a artificial intelligence (AI) calculation would compose this segment for me, since who find out about AI than the secretive little beasts that make "AI" possible? That, oh dear, didn't occur; so I'm alone.

Like the vast majority in business, I needn't bother with any persuading that artificial intelligence (for most organizations in numerous territories of their activities) will turn into a distinct advantage.

In any case, it stays a liquid, if not shapeless, idea in numerous regards. What, precisely, would we be able to anticipate that AI should accomplish for us that we're not previously doing—or by what method will it improve what we're improving, quicker, less expensive, with more prominent knowledge or less blunders?

As a significant article ("Winning With AI") in the MIT Sloan Management Review set it back in October, "computer based intelligence can be progressive, yet officials must act deliberately. And acting deliberately implies choosing what not to do." That's not as simple as it sounds.

The issue I have with most discourses of artificial intelligence is that they accept the peruser or audience as of now comprehends the guarantees and risks of AI Engineering. Be that as it may, in view of my discussions with a great deal of wise individuals I don't imagine that is consistently the situation.

As Amir Husain, organizer and CEO of the Austin, Texas-based AI organization, SparkCognition, disclosed to Business News Daily the previous spring, "Artificial Intelligence is somewhat the second happening to programming. It's a type of programming that settles on choices all alone, that is ready to act even in circumstances not predicted by the software engineers."

Artificial Intelligence is so omnipresent we scarcely even consider it. As the Business News Daily article brought up: "The greater part of us communicate with man-made reasoning in some structure or another every day. From the unremarkable to the amazing, man-made brainpower is now disturbing for all intents and purposes each business procedure in each industry."

Examples abound: online pursuits, spam channels, brilliant individual aides, for example, Alexa, Echo, Google Home and Siri, the projects that ensure our data when we purchase (or sell) something on the web, voice to content projects, shrewd auto innovations, programs that consequently solid alerts or shut down working frameworks when issues are distinguished, security caution frameworks, even those irritating spring up advertisements that tail us for the duration of the day. To some degree, they're altogether founded on or affected by AI.

At the end of the day, the vast majority of us are unmistakably increasingly acquainted with AI—personally so—than we give ourselves acknowledgment for.

The business question is (as the Sloan article accurately put it): How would executives be able to abuse the chances, deal with the dangers, and limit the troubles related with AI? Put another way, how might they use it to further their potential benefit, maybe even in a transformative way, without transforming the quest for AI advantage into an eccentric mission—remembering that acting deliberately includes "choosing what not to do" just as pushing ahead and taking risks in certain regions?

A few recommendations from the MIT Sloan Management Review article:

First: Don't regard AI activities as regular innovation gambits. They're a higher priority than that. Run them from the C suite and firmly facilitate them with other computerized change endeavors.

Second: Be certain to arrange AI with the organization's general business procedure. Probably the surest approaches to miss the mark—as most AI activities do [from 40% to 70%, as per the Sloan article]—is to concentrate AI barely on one lot of needs while the organization is similarly or increasingly worried about others. While AI can assist organizations with diminishing expenses, for instance, by distinguishing waste and wasteful aspects, developing the business might be a higher need.

The Hartford, Conn.- based insurance agency, Aetna (presently an auxiliary of CVS), for instance, has been utilizing AI to forestall extortion and reveal excessive charges—regular insurance agency concerns. It's likewise been utilizing AI to structure items and increment clients and client commitment. In one Medicare-related Aetna item, the article notes, fashioners utilized AI to redo benefits, prompting "180% development in new part procurement." More long haul, Aetna's head of examination, VP Ali Keshavarz, advised the writers' Aetna will probably utilize AI to turn into the primary spot clients go when they "are contemplating their wellbeing."

Third: This might be clear to the nerds among us, yet maybe less so to the more innovation tested: Be certain to "adjust the generation of AI to the utilization of AI."

Fourth: "Put resources into AI ability, information and procedure change notwithstanding (and regularly more so than) AI innovation." Recognize that each effective AI undertaking is the result of an incredible gathering of individuals. While a portion of this ability ought to be home developed, you'll likewise need to procure all things considered: get individuals to create and upgrade your inside capacities. That is a reality of current business life.

As with everything else in business, all organizations are unique. Their needs are extraordinary. Their accessible assets (budgetary, ability, tolerance) are extraordinary. What's more, their objectives and desires ought to appear as something else.

It's essential to require some investment to see how to expand the guarantee and limit the traps of AI. In the event that you do, you're bound to succeed.

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

An artificial intelligence algorithm can learn proficiency with the laws of quantum mechanics

Artificial intelligence can be utilized to anticipate atomic wave capacities and the electronic properties of particles. This creative AI strategy created by a group of scientists at the University of Warwick, the Technical University of Berlin and the University of Luxembourg, could be utilized to accelerate the structure of medication particles or new materials.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms are routinely used to anticipate our obtaining conduct and to perceive our countenances or penmanship. In logical research, Artificial Intelligence is building up itself as an essential apparatus for logical revelation.

In chemistry, AI has gotten instrumental in foreseeing the results of examinations or reproductions of quantum frameworks. To accomplish this, AI should have the option to efficiently fuse the key laws of material science.

Engineer.ai for IT solutions

An interdisciplinary group of scientific experts, physicists, and PC researchers drove by the University of Warwick, and including the Technical University of Berlin, and the University of Luxembourg have built up a profound AI calculation that can anticipate the quantum conditions of atoms, alleged wave capacities, which decide all properties of particles.

The AI accomplishes this by figuring out how to tackle major conditions of quantum mechanics, as appeared in their paper "Bringing together AI and quantum science with a profound neural system for sub-atomic wavefunctions," distributed in Nature Communications.

Settling these conditions in the customary manner requires monstrous superior registering assets (long stretches of processing time) which is regularly the bottleneck to the computational structure of new reason assembled particles for therapeutic and modern applications. The recently created AI calculation can supply exact forecasts inside seconds on a workstation or cell phone.

Dr. Reinhard Maurer from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick says, "This has been a joint multi year exertion, which required software engineering know-how to build up a man-made consciousness calculation adaptable enough to catch the shape and conduct of wave capacities, yet additionally science and material science know-how to process and speak to quantum substance information in a structure that is reasonable for the calculation."

The group met up during an interdisciplinary three-month association program at IPAM (UCLA) regarding the matter of AI in quantum material science.

Prof Dr. Klaus Robert-Muller from the Institute of Software Engineering and Theoretical Computer Science at the Technical University of Berlin says, "This interdisciplinary work is a significant advancement as it shows that, AI strategies can proficiently play out the most troublesome parts of quantum atomic recreations. Inside the following barely any years, AI techniques will build up themselves as basic part of the disclosure procedure in computational science and atomic material science."

Educator Dr. Alexandre Tkatchenko from the Department of Physics and Materials Research at the University of Luxembourg says, "This work empowers another degree of compound plan where both electronic and basic properties of an atom can be tuned all the while to accomplish wanted application criteria."

Thursday, November 14, 2019

The USPTO needs to know whether AI can possess the content it creates

The US office liable for patents and trademarks is attempting to make sense of how AI may call for changes to copyright law, and it's approaching people in general for suppositions on the point. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) distributed a notice in the Federal Register a month ago saying it's looking for remarks, as spotted by TorrentFreak.

The workplace is gathering data about the effect of computerized reasoning on copyright, trademark, and other licensed innovation rights. It traces thirteen explicit inquiries, going from what occurs if an AI makes a copyright-encroaching work to if it's legitimate to sustain an AI copyrighted material.

It begins by inquiring as to whether yield made by AI with no inventive contribution from a human ought to qualify as a work of creation that is protectable by US copyright law. In the event that not, at that point what level of human inclusion "would or ought to be adequate so the work fits the bill for copyright insurance?"


Different questions inquire as to whether the organization that prepares an AI should possess the subsequent work, and if it's alright to utilize copyrighted material to prepare an AI in any case. "Should creators be perceived for this kind of utilization of their works?" asks the workplace. "Assuming this is the case, how?"

The workplace, which, in addition to other things, prompts the legislature on copyright, frequently looks for general supposition to see new improvements and get notification from individuals who really manage them. Prior this year, the workplace comparably requested general conclusion on AI and licenses.

None of these inquiries have solid answers in US law, however individuals have been discussing the potential results for a considerable length of time. The circumstance may be a little more clear when you're seeing something like an AI-based application where a client needs to settle on a great deal of choices to shape the final product. "I believe what's protectable is cognizant advances made by an individual to be engaged with initiation," Zvi S. Rosen, teacher at the George Washington University School of Law, discloses to The Verge. In any case, in the event that somebody utilizes an AI that lets out an outcome with a solitary snap, that could be an alternate issue. "My supposition is if it's extremely a push button thing, and you get an outcome, I don't believe there's any copyright in that."

However, it's not constantly straightforward. As of now, coders have asserted origin over the "push button" works their AI programming makes, which happened not long ago in a conveyance bargain Warner Music handled with the startup Endel. "That is the place it gets increasingly confused," Rosen says. "I don't have an unmistakable answer on that."

As The Verge recently analyzed, questions like these are at the core of progressing exchanges around AI and copyright law. It's an out and out muddled subject with no reasonable answers. There is some essential direction in the Compendium of US Copyright Office Practices, which says that works delivered by a machine with no imaginative info or mediation from a human can't be given initiation. Be that as it may, it would seem that the Patent and Trademark Office feels this definition won't hold up as AI's turn in innovative works keeps on getting increasingly convoluted and nuanced.
For the most part, the USPTO possibly gets a couple of reactions from the open when it makes these kinds of request, with the mass originating from law offices, organizations, and different intrigue gatherings. Yet, anybody can send in a remark, and Rosen says it would be gainful for singular makers to contribute. "[The office] is searching for explicit concerns and connections," he says, "so if, for instance, a performer has worked with AI and can validate a specific encounter or complaint, that is useful."
As AI turns out to be progressively best in class, typical in the innovative work process, and equipped for making its own material, the inquiries the workplace is presenting have stopped being hypothetical and should be replied. "It's not astonishing [the office] is doing this," says Rosen. "I think everybody sees it coming. Given to what extent these things take, any administrative reaction will be late, however by attempting to get out before it on the examination end, it won't be as late. That is exactly how things work."

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Tamil Nadu at work on safe and moral AI strategy

Tamil Nadu will reveal an arrangement for protected and moral utilization of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a top state government official stated, in what is ostensibly a first-of-its-sort move in the nation.

“While there is a great deal of talk around AI, to gather it as strategy has not been done previously, to be best of my insight,” Santhosh Mishra, Chief Executive Officer of Tamil Nadu e-Governance organization, said.

The office executes savvy administration ventures utilizing boondocks advancements such AI, rambles, increased reality, among others.

The administration will likewise draw out a standard book for state offices and merchants who use AI for administration administrations, to help handle private individual information in a delicate way.
The approach will be discharged alongside the blockchain and gadgets equipment arrangement in around three weeks, as indicated by another top government official.

“Government offices will start to utilize AI dynamically. We have made a framework which will demonstrate if the AI is utilized in a protected and moral manner. Government divisions, when they do a delicate, need to ask themselves these inquiries. I ought not be doing AI on your information; things like that and the sky is the limit from there,” the authority said.

Moral execution of AI goes past information security. AI calculations, an occurrence of AI, give various outcomes for various information, which means the information encouraged into such programming should be free of a wide range of personality inclinations.


The subject of morals in AI has two perspectives — logic and sacred legitimacy, said Anindya Chaudhuri, senior financial analyst with the Global Development Network, a Delhi-headquartered system of strategy foundations.

“One of the focal issues with AI calculations is that they experience the ill effects of what’s known as ‘Reasonableness Problem.’ Essentially, there’s a black box between the information and the yield,” Chaudhuri stated, alluding to the basic leadership forms in AI being too hard for some specialists to get it.

“The other is that the utilization of AI requires or winds up in circumstances that abuse other fair sacred standards — protection, equity under the steady gaze of the law, assumption of honesty until demonstrated liable.”

Chaudhuri had given a talk at the e-administration organization in September on the difficulties looked by offices that actualize AI for individuals.

The e-administration organization has held interviews with private programming firms, government offices, and resident gatherings to work out the arrangement.

The office had before joined forces IIT Madras’ Robert Bosch Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence with sway territories, for example, instruction, wellbeing and farming.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

An Engineering AI drove approach

Artificial Intelligence – Cloud and Edge usage adopts a designing drove strategy for the organization of AI to Edge gadgets inside the structure of the cloud.

We regularly utilize the word 'engineering' in easygoing discussion. Be that as it may, in this unique circumstance, we connect a particular importance to Engineering. Building is the utilization of logical standards to plan and manufacture machines, structures, and different things, including spans, burrows, streets, vehicles, and structures. The American Engineers' Council for Professional Development characterizes designing as: (explicit accentuation of intrigue featured)

The innovative utilization of logical standards to plan or create structures, machines, mechanical assembly, or assembling procedures, or works using them
  • separately or in mix; or
  • to develop or work the equivalent with full perception of their plan; or
  • to gauge their conduct under explicit working conditions;
all as regards a proposed capacity, financial matters of activity and wellbeing to life and property.
Building has numerous controls, for example, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical designing and so on.
Yet, when we think about the organization of Engineer AI to Edge gadgets, we consider an interdisciplinary designing methodology. Artificial intelligence on Edge gadgets could incorporate numerous regions like Drones, Edge investigation, installed FPGA and so on.

Friday, November 8, 2019

10 Artificial Intelligence Startups in India

We are really living in the period of artificial intelligence. Organizations are burning through billions of Dollars just to remain significant in the present regularly evolving condition. In case you’re not AI-compatible, the accord is that you will before long be a likewise ran in the business.

This made me think - would I be able to draw out the AI new businesses in India really achieving a worldwide upheaval? It was a fascinating mission. I put down a structure or criteria to channel the top AI new companies in India

Along these lines, this article features the top Indian AI new businesses, the top initiators, that are utilizing AI to assemble a superior future for us. Prepared to make a plunge and take a gander at the system I used to make this rundown?

Our Pick of the Best AI Startups in India:

Conversational AI Startups
  • Haptik.ai
  • Avaamo
Healthcare Startups
  • Niramai
  • Doxper
Logistics Startups
  • LogiNext
  • Locus.sh
Fintech Startups
  • Rubique
  • LendingKart
Other Awesome AI Startups

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Stealth fintech startup digits raises $10.5 million funding

Stealth fintech startup Digits, from a similar group that constructed Crashlytics to scale at that point offered to Twitter for more than $100 million, has raised a $10.5 million round of Series A subsidizing, the organization is reporting today. The round was driven by Benchmark and has the support of 72 heavenly attendants, including organizers and CEOs from organizations like Box, GitHub, Tinder, Twitch, StitchFix, SoFi and a few others.

With the round, Digits additionally increases another board part, Peter Fenton, who has served on the sheets at AirTable, Twitter, NewRelic, Yelp and somewhere else.

The financing is a major wagered on sequential business people Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert, who propelled and sold their accident announcing administration to Twitter, which itself later offered it to Google. At Twitter, the group stayed to work out the item and dispatch new administrations, similar to Answers. After the deal to Google four years after the fact, it was then collapsed into Google’s own designer stage to turn into the accident announcing instrument for Android. Today, it’s still on about 5 billion month to month dynamic gadgets and utilized inside a great many applications.


Presently, the Crashlytics fellow benefactors have come back with a large portion of their unique group to build up another fintech startup, Digits, which portrays itself ambiguously as “an including organization.”

The organization’s center plans to take care of an issue the authors had confronted themselves when building Crashlytics.

“As manufacturers, there is nothing more energizing than splitting the following building riddle; than idealizing the following plan; than conveying the following capacity to clients. Furthermore, there is nothing more personality desensitizing than the administrative work, and spreadsheets, and money related reports, and questionable exchange records that are altogether required to really work the business,” a Digits blog entry not long ago clarified.

“Universally, most business visionaries today have no proper preparing in business fund. We surely didn’t. Today, you start an organization to take care of a genuine issue for genuine individuals, or to offer an assistance you’re gifted at, or to give a living to you and your family. You don’t begin an organization since you need to work a business — however you need to in any case,” the originators said.

Netcore purchases AI startup Boxx.ai

Netcore Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which offers undertaking correspondence and advanced showcasing administrations, said on Thursday it has gained Bengaluru-based man-made brainpower (AI) startup Boxx(.)ai for an undisclosed sum.

The exchange made ready for the exit of Mumbai-based funding firm Unicorn India Ventures from Boxx(.)ai, an individual up to date advised VCCircle however declined to outfit money related subtleties.

Netcore said in an announcement the procurement will empower its AI-controlled development showcasing stage, Smartech, to assist brands with improving transformation rates by as much as 15% and upgrade the conduct and buy forecasts by 20%. It will likewise increase the promoting rate of profitability by 10-15 times by means of hyper-customized and relevant item and substance suggestions.

The whole Boxx group, including fellow benefactors Ajay Kashyap, Prakhar Raj and Shitiz Bansal, will join Netcore.

This is Netcore's second obtaining this year. In April, Netcore purchased Quinto.ai, which furnishes firms with chatbot administrations fuelled by AI.


Netcore, which was established in 1997 by Rajesh Jain, offers answers for help brands and endeavors in client securing, commitment and maintenance. It has a client base of more than 3,000 ventures, for example, Thomas Cook, Go Air, Cleartrip, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, MakeMyTrip, Lenskart, Swiggy and Myntra.

Boxx(.)ai was propelled in July 2016. It had raised $500,000 (Rs 3.2 crore) from Unicorn India Ventures and a grip of speculators the next year.

The Netcore-Boxx(.)ai bargain was encouraged through Propeluss, a savvy exchange stage propelled by venture bank Equirus Capital, as indicated by the press articulation. Propeluss claims it interfaces new businesses, corporate houses and speculators through its proposal stage that has been constructed utilizing restrictive AI calculations.

Fintech SaaS Startup Using Automation

Propelled in 2017, Recko works with organizations to help take care of effectiveness issues with installments compromise

Recko is utilizing AI models to break down exchange information and robotization for compromise forms

Working with Indian web organizations, it accommodated exchanges worth $2 Bn in its first year

India has in excess of 120 Mn online customers (starting at 2018). Today, with an additional layer of various installment alternatives, with the approach of fintech players, the checkouts on online stages are quicker than at any other time. Be that as it may, a great deal of designing goes into the procedure from the time a client looks at to the real move of cash to the shippers or venders. What's more, the time slack in this compromise in the bookkeeping records is a major agony point for organizations, since it brings about absence of clearness about the income earned and the income pending.

On account of the ascent of fintech plans of action and the utilization of man-made brainpower, AI and information examination, tech new companies can mediate and assist organizations with acquiring productive compromise strategies. Bengaluru-based fintech SaaS startup Recko is looking the disturb this space.

Engineer.ai Software Marketplace

"The money office on the shippers' end is constantly managing this unpredictability of coordinating the perfect add up to correct request, returns/substitutions and a great deal of requests likewise move between months. All they have exceeds expectations, spreadsheets and conventional ETL (separate, change, load) devices which are awkward and blunder inclined. This is the place we come into the image," said Saurya Prakash Sinha, Recko fellow benefactor and CEO.

Worked around the domain of offering budgetary security to the organizations with high volumes of exchanges, for example, online business stages, protection suppliers and banks, Recko plans to mechanize the whole compromise process. Being a free outsider exchange compromise layer, it guarantees that every exchange is represented and all settlements should be possible in an auspicious way.

"This additionally causes when clients must be discounted as we utilize a wide range of approaches to make a solitary installment nowadays (counting wallets, vouchers, gift vouchers, net banking and CC)," included Prashant Borde, fellow benefactor and CTO at Recko.

As asserted by the originators, Recko accommodated exchanges worth $2 Bn in the initial a year of activities. Their customer base incorporates organizations, for example, Grofers, Dunzo, FreshMenu and Meesho. It likewise has a few monetisation models set up dependent on volume and per exchange charges relying on the prerequisites of the customer. Subsequent to raising seed subsidizing of $1 Mn as of late, the organization is currently hoping to grow its group, scale-up activities and adventure into unexplored segments for new business.

Friday, October 4, 2019

Microsoft Advertising listens : Feedback for 2019

At Microsoft Advertising, our mission is to work with each of you to identify opportunities and solve business challenges. Listening to you, our clients, and solving the problems that are most important to you, is at the heart of this mission. We review feedback that you've shared on our UserVoice feature suggestion forumOpens in new window, and through other listening forums and use these ideas to continually improve our product.

Thank you for partnering with us to reshape Microsoft Advertising.

The first half of 2019 has been exciting.  Lots of product improvements and exciting platform announcements — we celebrated 10 years of Bing, Bing Ads became Microsoft Advertising and we announced a strengthened partnership with Verizon Media.

Over this period, we also made several improvements based on your valuable feedback that we are confident will help you take your existing campaigns to the next level; especially with the holiday season right ahead.

Read full article @ https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/post/september-2019/microsoft-advertising-listens-your-feedback-for-the-first-half-of-2019

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Darren Huston, Business Person Of The Year

Darren Huston has been at the Priceline Group since only 2014, but the CEO is making big moves and they’re already paying off: The company sold $50 billion worth of travel in 2014 and posted an 11% increase in profits in its most recent quarter. Darren Huston shapes the company in two ways:

  • First, his experience in digital at Microsoft and consumer services at Starbucks have made him a meticulous, hands-on operator.
  • Second, Darren Huston’s made some promising acquisitions in his short reign.

Read full article @ https://fortune.com/businessperson-of-the-year/2015/darren-huston/

Darren Huston Good Year For The Company

Darren Huston, The Priceline Group is the dominant online player based on its scale, speed, search engine marketing strategy, and conversion skills, but perhaps its compensation policy should be added to the list of factors, as well.

  • Priceline’s stock price increased 87% in 2013.
  • Its gross bookings jumped 37.7% year over year.
  • Priceline’s adjusted EBITDA climbed 35.9% year over year, and
  • Priceline retained its position as the leader in global room nights booked.

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2014/04/24/priceline-ceo-huston-earned-17-9-million-in-2013-a-very-good-year-for-the-company/

Darren Huston Challenges In Travel

Darren Huston said “What an asset, but on the other hand it’s a little bit of baggage for us because we’re the Priceline Group. Every time I do an interview, they show a picture of William Shatner. We’re just so much more than that. I hope people start to learn that. I love our legacy namesake business, but look, we’ve got OpenTable, Booking.com, Kayak. We’re now listed as one of the best companies to work for in the Internet segment in Fortune.

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2016/02/01/challenges-in-travel-booking-2016-booking-com-needs-to-steal-expedias-thunder/

Darren Huston Have Double The Hotel Bookings Of Expedia

darren huston
While Expedia dominated headlines with its more than $6 billion worth of acquisitions in 2015, the Priceline Group needs to win the narrative back and CEO Darren Huston made his case about his company’s competitive advantages.

“Our capabilities and scale in partner acquisition, customer experience, and efficient demand generation plus our large installed base of accommodations and loyal travelers give the Priceline Group a competitive moat that is deep and wide,” Darren Huston said.

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2016/02/17/priceline-group-ceo-we-have-double-the-hotel-bookings-of-expedia/

Darren Huston runs BlackPines Capital Partners

darren huston
Darren Huston, who now runs BlackPines Capital Partners. Operto Guest Technologies, a property automation system for vacation rentals, hotels, and serviced apartments, disclosed that last year it raised about $2 million in funding from angel investors.

The Vancouver-based startup, which has 15 employees, automates guest entry by programming unique codes for every reservation onto keypad locks. Its other tools monitor noise, occupancy, air quality, and thermostat control. The company has debuted a new dashboard for workers to use. In the next three months, Operto will add integrations with leading hotel property management systems.

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2019/02/08/2nd-address-raises-10-million-for-rental-bookings-travel-startup-funding-this-week/

Darren Huston Not Acquire HomeAway

darren huston
Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston touts his company’s organic growth versus Expedia Inc.’s strategy of mostly acquiring companies that need to be put back on track. Rest assured, however, that Priceline would plunk down a few billion dollars on the right acquisition target. It just wasn’t HomeAway, and TripAdvisor and Airbnb are too expensive.

CEO Darren Huston says his company didn’t get involved when HomeAway put itself up for sale because “we’re quite picky” and HomeAway’s model of allowing vacation rental owners to wait 24 hours before confirming a booking and charging travelers a booking fee “just didn’t fit us.”

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2015/11/30/interview-priceline-ceo-on-why-he-didnt-spend-4-billion-to-acquire-homeaway/

Darren Huston Doesn’t Appreciate Direct-Booking Moves

darren huston
Darren Huston is that chains are shooting themselves in the foot and their properties aren’t happy when the chains offer lower rates on their own websites because then their listings on Booking.com won’t convert as well as they should. But as Darren Huston says in a different context, perhaps the hotels would reply that they are “playing the long game.”

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2016/02/17/priceline-group-ceo-doesnt-appreciate-hotel-chains-direct-booking-moves/

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

An Engineer.ai Assembly line for apps

Conventional thinking says that one needs to know coding or be an engineer to create an application. Engineer.ai proves it otherwise, getting Artificial Intelligence (AI) to do the job, or at least most of it. Says Sachin Dev Duggal, CEO and founder of Engineer.ai, “I am an engineer and many like me don’t want to do repetitive codes like Facebook login. We have to utilise engineers to do the important things—like the logic and flow of an application and actually thinking through a customer’s problem,” he explains.

Engineer.ai treats app creation as an assembly line production process. When an app needs to be designed, the majority of it is done in the first couple of hours by the AI on his platform. And then, software engineers (from a workforce of 26,000) work on the little parts remaining to complete the app (like how technicians fix a car’s chassis, engine and wheels in a car assembly line), thereby leaving the repetitive work to AI and focusing on the creative parts that actually need human attention. The AI in Engineer.ai platform, called the Builder, draws from a library of ‘Components’ to build the repetitive blocks which have already been built before.

sachin duggal

Some 60% of software is ‘Components’ which need not be done again. This could be Facebook login or integration with an analytics provider,” says Sachin Duggal. The rest 40% is business logic and design. To do this, Engineer.ai partners with a number of software companies from whom developers are brought on board, depending on the complexity and features of the project/apps that need to be delivered. The developers’ time do not overlap with their original employers.

Read full story @ https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/an-ai-assembly-line-for-apps/1638580/

Monday, June 10, 2019

An interview with Sachin Duggal, CEO of Engineer.ai

Product Innovation: How AI helps bring your idea to life

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to democratize software development, and my guest is Sachin Dev Duggal, CEO of Engineer.ai.

Sachin Dev Duggal is an innovator, serial entrepreneur, and an advocate of enterprise software that touches lives and benefits the world at large.
sachin dev duggal


His profile is an unusual mix of experiences & serendipity. Sachin Duggal started his public foray very early in life. At the age of 12, he went on stage in front of 1200 people and the world media to demand something be done about the state of the environment. He worked for the United Nations and helped write the declaration of youth rights before he completed his first degree from Imperial College. At the age of 15, he co-founded nivio with a view to disrupt the old compute model. Four years later, nivio was selected as a technology pioneer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where at the same time he made history in being the youngest attendees.

Sachin’s an avid and recent believer of Vipassana and that life is a zero-sum game – so its essential to spend our time giving; this is one of the main reasons he and his partner put aside stock in all major businesses to their foundation that’s on their 100×50 mission i.e. educate 100m kids in 50 years.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers Leader of Tomorrow, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, the BBC Young Asian achiever of the Year and UNEP Global 500 Youth Award.

His aim is to build technology that simplifies the lives of everyday users and increases the penetration of information technology to those who do not have it today. And that’s what Engineer.ai is all about. Engineer.ai is on a mission to democratize software development. Their promise ‘Together we bring your idea to life. Twice as fast. 1/3 the cost. Enterprise-grade.’

Read full story @ https://www.valueinspiration.com/product-innovation-how-ai-helps-bring-your-idea-to-life/

Friday, February 1, 2019

Founder Of Engineer.ai Sachin Dev Duggal Talked About Budget

Being a global entrepreneur highly invested in the technology industry, with a zeal for AI, it’s excellent to hear the announcement from Finance Minister Piyush Goyal that India will create a National Centre for AI. Sachin Dev Duggal said considering the global market for AI is expected at around $190 billion by 2025, this puts Indian companies and organizations at the forefront of capturing the AI market. Well done.

Sachin Dev Duggal CEO of Engineer.ai said alongside a 2% interest subvention for loans to MSMEs, these actions can boost entrepreneurial development across India, which can continue to enhance the Indian economy. The idea of a strong, stable, entrepreneurial Indian economy will help retain and expand global investment capital, as well as increasing global operations across the country.

Read full story @ https://technuter.com/budget/post-budget-reaction-by-mr-sachin-dev-duggal-founder-chief-wizard-engineer-ai.html

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Engineer.ai Partners With DigitalOcean

Engineer.ai partners with DigitalOcean's award-winning Developer Cloud to let SMBs build affordable custom software

Engineer.ai, the human-assisted AI that empowers everyone to build and operate bespoke software, announced today at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, that it has entered a strategic partnership with DigitalOcean, the cloud of choice for developers creating modern applications, globally.

The partnership provides small & medium businesses and developers a completely scalable way to create bespoke / made-to-order software products.  Engineer.ai's Builder platform is an AI-powered Software Assembly line that breaks projects into small building blocks of re-usable features customized by elastic human capacity (professional software engineers) from across the world. The result is high-quality custom software at a fraction of the price and time of traditional development. DigitalOcean's Developer Cloud provides a simplified app setup and deployment experience allowing developers to spend more time on innovation vs. managing complex server infrastructures.

"Our mission is to allow anyone with an idea to build bespoke software, regardless of technical expertise, and we're big believers in DigitalOcean's commitment to bringing their award-winning Developer Cloud to our CloudOps marketplace, giving our customers an affordable and easy cloud alternative," said Sachin Dev Duggal, Founder & CEO at Engineer.ai.

"At DigitalOcean, our focus is on making the lives of developers easier by abstracting away the complexity of infrastructure, so users of all skill levels can build powerful applications," said Mark Templeton, CEO of DigitalOcean. "Engineer.ai's Builder is a natural extension of our mission.  We believe this partnership will further bridge the technical gap for customers, so they can bring their ideas into reality."

Read full story @ https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/engineerai-partners-with-digitalocean-to-expand-its-cloudops-marketplace-300775339.html