Balto, which is developing a conversational AI platform for call centers, today announced the close of a $10 million round. A spokesperson said the capital will enable Balto to triple the size of its go-to-market team while bolstering product development.
With customer representatives increasingly required to work from home in Manila, the U.S., and elsewhere, some companies are turning to AI to…
98point6, a telemedicine startup whose platform pairs clinicians with AI to provide text-based care, today closed a $119 million venture funding round. The company says it will use the proceeds to further invest in R&D and expand its practice as employers, health plans…
Access Now resigns from Partnership on AI due to lack of change among tech companies
October 15, 2020
International digital and human rights organization Access Now has resigned in protest from its role as a member of the Partnership on AI (PAI) due to a lack of change among businesses associated with the group or incorporation of opinions posed by civil society…
Google’s breast cancer-predicting AI research is useless without transparency, critics say
October 15, 2020
Back in January, Google Health, the branch of Google focused on health-related research, clinical tools, and partnerships for health care services, released an AI model trained on over 90,000 mammogram X-rays that the company said achieved better results than human radiologists. Google claimed that the algorithm could recognize more false negatives — the kind of images that look normal but…
For over a year, software giant Atlassian has been investing heavily in AI- and machine learning-powered tools across its portfolio. Today, the company detailed the recent fruits of its labor, revealing that it has analyzed patterns from over 174,000 customers to understand…
Since introducing the Google News Initiative in 2018, the company has used the $300 million journalism project to fight disinformation and help publishers make money. Now, Google is also investing in journalism-specific software with Journalist Studio, a suite of free tools…
Infiot emerged from stealth today with $15 million to develop its access platform for internet of things devices. The company says it will put the funds toward product R&D and accelerating its go-to-market efforts.
Parag Thakore, who has held product management jobs at VMware and Cisco, cofounded Infiot with chief architect Sunil Mukundan and CTO Anupam Rai. The trio most recently worked…
If you’re not done with presentations after Apple’s iPhone 12 launch earlier, set some time aside on Thursday afternoon to find out what’s new in search. Google just sent out invites for a live stream event on October 15th at 12 PM PT / 3 PM ET where “you’ll hear…
Spotify open-sources Klio, a framework for AI audio research
October 13, 2020
This week at the 2020 International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference, Spotify open-sourced Klio, an ecosystem that allows data scientists to process audio files (or any binary files) easily and at scale. It was built to run Spotify’s large-scale audio…
Google's Duplex AI can book your haircut appointments
October 13, 2020
Google first showed off Duplex by having the AI book haircut appointments, but the Assistant feature was unexpectedly left by the wayside in favor of making restaurant reservations. It appears to have come roaring back, though. VentureBeat has discovered that Duplex is now ready to book haircut appointments in the real world. When you find a barber or hairstylist that requires a phone call to book…
