![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/12\/shutterstock_228897490.png?w=738\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
How to join the network<\/a><\/div>\n Artificial intelligence is one of the most exciting and transformative opportunities of our time. From my vantage point as a venture investor atPlayfair Capital<\/a>, where I focus on investing and building community around AI, I see this as a great time for investors to help build companies in this space. There are three key reasons.<\/p>\n First, with 40 percent of the world\u2019s population now online, and\u00a0more than\u00a02 billion smartphones being used with increasing addiction every day (KPCB<\/a>), we\u2019re creating data assets, the raw material for AI, that describe our behaviors, interests, knowledge, connections and activities at a level of granularity that has never existed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Second, the costs of compute and storage are both plummeting by orders of magnitude, while the computational capacity of today\u2019s processors is growing, making AI applications possible and affordable.<\/p>\n Third, we\u2019ve seen significant improvements recently in the design of learning systems, architectures and software infrastructure that, together, promise to further accelerate the speed of innovation. Indeed, we don\u2019t fully appreciate<\/a> what tomorrow will look and feel like.<\/p>\n We also must\u00a0realize that AI-driven products are already out in the wild, improving the performance of search engines, recommender systems (e.g., e-commerce, music), ad serving and financial trading (amongst others).<\/p>\n Companies with the resources to invest in AI are already creating an impetus for others to follow suit \u2014 or risk not having a competitive seat at the table. Together, therefore, the community has a better understanding and is equipped with more capable tools with which to build learning systems for a wide range of increasingly complex tasks.<\/p>\n With such a powerful and generally applicable technology, AI companies can enter the market in different ways. Here are six to consider, along with example businesses that have chosen these routes:<\/p>\n There\u2019s more on this discussion here<\/a>. A key consideration, however, is that the open sourcing of technologies by large incumbents (Google, Microsoft, Intel, IBM) and the range of companies productizing technologies for cheap means that technical barriers are eroding fast. What ends up moving the needle are proprietary data access\/creation, experienced talent and addictive products.<\/p>\n I see a range of operational, commercial and financial challenges that operators and investors closely consider when working in the AI space. Here are the main points to keep top of mind:<\/p>\n Operational<\/strong><\/p>\n Commercial<\/strong><\/p>\n Financial<\/strong><\/p>\n There are two big factors that make involving the user in an AI-driven product paramount. One, machines don\u2019t yet recapitulate human cognition. To pick up where software falls short, we need to call on the user for help. And two, buyers\/users of software products have more choice today than ever. As such, they\u2019re often fickle (the average 90-day retention for apps is 35 percent<\/a>).<\/p>\n Returning expected value out of the box is key to building habits<\/a> (hyperparameter optimization<\/a> can help). Here are some great examples of products\u00a0that prove that involving the user in the loop improves performance:<\/p>\n We can even go a step further, I think, by explaining how machine-generated results are obtained. For example, IBM Watson<\/a> surfaces relevant literature when supporting a patient diagnosis in the oncology clinic. Doing so improves user satisfaction and helps build confidence in the system to encourage longer-term use and investment. Remember, it\u2019s generally hard for us to trust something we don\u2019t truly understand.<\/p>\n To put this discussion into context, let\u2019s first look at the global VC market: Q1-Q3 2015 saw $47.2 billion invested, a volume higher than each of the full year totals for 17 of the last 20 years (NVCA<\/a>).<\/p>\n We\u2019re likely to breach $55 billion by year\u2019s end. There are roughly 900 companies<\/a> working in the AI field, most of which tackle problems in business intelligence, finance and security. Q4 2014 saw a flurry of deals into AI companies<\/a> started by well-respected and achieved academics: Vicarious<\/a>, Scaled Inference<\/a>, MetaMind<\/a> and Sentient Technologies<\/a>.<\/p>\n So far, we\u2019ve seen about 300 deals into AI companies (defined as businesses whose description includes such keywords as artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, NLP, data science, neural network, deep learning) from January 1, 2015 through\u00a0December 1,\u00a02015 (CB Insights<\/a>).<\/p>\n In the U.K., companies like Ravelin<\/a>*, Signal<\/a> and Gluru<\/a>* raised seed rounds. approximately\u00a0$2 billion was invested, albeit bloated by large venture debt or credit lines for consumer\/business loan providers Avant<\/a> ($339 million debt+credit), ZestFinance<\/a> ($150 million debt), LiftForward<\/a> ($250 million credit) and Argon Credit<\/a> ($75 million credit). Importantly, 80 percent of deals were < $5 million in size, and 90 percent of the cash was invested into U.S. companies versus 13 percent in Europe. Seventy-five percent of rounds were in the U.S.<\/p>\n Financing and exit markets for AI companies are still nascent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n The exit market has seen 33 M&A transactions and 1 IPO. Six events were for European companies, 1 in Asia and the rest were accounted for by American companies. The largest transactions were TellApart\/Twitter ($532 million; $17 million\u00a0raised), Elastica\/Blue Coat Systems ($280 million; $45 million raised) and SupersonicAds\/IronSource ($150 million; $21 million raised), which return solid multiples of invested capital. The remaining transactions were mostly for talent, given that median team size at the time of the acquisition was 7 people.<\/p>\n Altogether, AI investments will have accounted for roughly\u00a05 percent of total VC investments for 2015. That\u2019s higher than the 2 percent claimed in 2013, but still tracking far behind competing categories like adtech, mobile and BI software.<\/p>\n The key takeaway points are a) the financing and exit markets for AI companies are still nascent, as exemplified by the small rounds and low deal volumes, and b) the vast majority of activity takes place in the U.S. Businesses must therefore have exposure to this market.<\/p>\n Healthcare<\/b><\/p>\n I spent a number of summers in university and three years in grad school researching the genetic factors governing the spread of cancer around the body. A key takeaway I left with is the following: therapeutic development is\u00a0very challenging, expensive, lengthy and regulated, and ultimately offers a transient solution to treating disease.<\/p>\n Instead, I truly believe that what we need to improve healthcare outcomes is granular and longitudinal monitoring of physiology and lifestyle. This should enable early detection of health conditions in near real time, driving down cost of care over a patient\u2019s lifetime while consequently improving outcomes.<\/p>\n Consider the digitally connected lifestyles we lead today. The devices some of us interact with on a daily basis are able to track our movements, vital signs, exercise, sleep and even reproductive health. We\u2019re disconnected for fewer hours of the day than we\u2019re online, and I think we\u2019re less apprehensive to storing various data types in the cloud (where they can be accessed, with consent, by third-parties). Sure, the news might paint a different story, but the fact is that we\u2019re still using the web and its wealth of products.<\/p>\n On a population level, therefore, we have the chance to interrogate data sets that have never before existed. From these, we could glean insights into how nature and nurture influence the genesis and development of disease. That\u2019s huge.<\/p>\n AI-driven products are already out in the wild.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Look at today\u2019s clinical model.\u00a0A patient presents into the hospital when they feel something is wrong. The doctor\u00a0must conduct a battery of tests to derive a diagnosis. These tests address a single (often late-stage) time point, at which moment little can be done to reverse damage (e.g., in the case of cancer).<\/p>\n Now imagine the future. In a world of continuous, non-invasive monitoring of physiology and lifestyle, we could predict disease onset and outcome, understand which condition a patient likely suffers from and how they\u2019ll respond to various therapeutic modalities. There are loads of applications for artificial intelligence here: intelligence sensors, signal processing, anomaly detection, multivariate classifiers, deep learning on molecular interactions\u2026<\/p>\n Some companies are already hacking away at this problem:<\/p>\n A point worth noting is that the U.K. has a slight leg up on the data access front. Initiatives like the U.K. Biobank<\/a> (500,000 patient records), Genomics England<\/a> (100,000 genomes sequenced),HipSci<\/a> (stem cells) and the NHS care.data program<\/a>\u00a0are leading the way in creating centralized data repositories for public health and therapeutic research.<\/p>\n Enterprise Automation<\/b><\/p>\n Could businesses ever conceivably run themselves? AI-enabled automation of knowledge work could cut employment costs by $9 trillion by 2020 (BAML<\/a>). Coupled with the efficiency gains worth $1.9 trillion driven by robots, I reckon there\u2019s a chance for near-complete automation of core, repetitive businesses functions in the future.<\/p>\n Think of all the productized SaaS tools that are available off the shelf for CRM, marketing, billing\/payments, logistics, web development, customer interactions, finance, hiring and BI. Then consider tools like Zapier<\/a> or Tray.io<\/a>, which help connect applications and program business logic. These could be further expanded by leveraging contextual data points that inform decision making.<\/p>\n Perhaps we could eventually re-image the new eBay, where you\u2019ll have fully automated inventory procurement, pricing, listing generation, translation, recommendations, transaction processing, customer interaction, packaging, fulfillment and shipping. Of course, this is probably a ways off.<\/p>\n Artificial intelligence is one of the most exciting and transformative opportunities of our time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019m bullish on the value to be created with artificial intelligence across our personal and professional lives. I think there\u2019s currently low VC risk tolerance for this sector, especially given shortening investment horizons for value to be created. More support is needed for companies driving long-term innovation, especially considering that far less is occurring within universities. VC was born to fund moonshots.<\/a><\/p>\n We must remember that access to technology will, over time, become commoditized. It\u2019s therefore key to understand your use case, your user, the value you bring and how it\u2019s experienced and assessed. This gets to the point of finding a strategy to build a sustainable advantage such that others find it hard to replicate your offering.<\/p>\n Aspects of this strategy may in fact be non-AI and non-technical in nature (e.g., the user experience layer\u200a). As such, there\u2019s\u00a0renewed focus on core principles: build a solution to an unsolved\/poorly served high-value, persistent problem for consumers or businesses.<\/p>\n Finally, you must have exposure to the U.S. market, where the lion\u2019s share of value is created and realized. We have an opportunity to catalyze the growth of the AI sector in Europe, but not without keeping close tabs on what works\/doesn\u2019t work across the pond.<\/p>\n http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2015\/12\/25\/investing-in-artificial-intelligence\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How to join the network Artificial intelligence is one of the most exciting and transformative opportunities of our time. From my vantage point as a venture investor atPlayfair Capital, where I focus on investing and building community around AI, I see this as a great time for investors to help build companies in this space. … Continue reading Investing In Artificial Intelligence<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aireligion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aireligion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aireligion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aireligion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aireligion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aireligion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238,"href":"https:\/\/aireligion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aireligion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aireligion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aireligion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How Might You Apply AI Technologies?<\/h2>\n
\n
Which Challenges Are Faced By Operators And Closely Considered By Investors?<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
Build With The User In The Loop<\/h2>\n
\n
What\u2019s The AI Investment Climate Like These Days?<\/h2>\n
\n<\/div>\nWhich Problems Remain To Be Solved?<\/h2>\n
\n\n
\n