At HR Tech 2018 “Artificial Intelligence” was the phrase of the week, slapped onto as many tag lines as possible. But after demo-ing many technologies at the Expo, I’m not convinced we’re there yet. HR tech tends to lag most other industries, and according to research by Future Workplace only 6% of TA leaders are […]
This week marks the 25th annual Customer Service Week, a nationally recognized event that celebrates the importance of customer service and the people who are associated with this increasingly significant business element. This blog celebrates the technology that allows these people to do an exceptional job – and where and how it should be leveraged […]
The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) is red hot and dominates the headlines for much of the daily tech news cycle. There’s been some intriguing (and attention grabbing) themes running between these headlines including the potential for AI to end humanity (which included a public feud between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg). Another key theme […]
AI in the real world – a snapshot of what’s to come
There’s no denying that machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are invading the enterprise at warp speed. Almost every industry is affected by the technology, and the innovation it inspires is fascinating. According to Gartner, machine learning is one of the top 10 strategic technology trends for 2016. Most of us are already — often […]
Machine learning, a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building, is at the top of the “hype curve” for emerging technologies and is one of the top 10 strategic technology trends for 2016, according to Gartner. It’s safe to say that most of us are already interacting with machine learning applications on a […]
Today I’m happy to announce Ascent’s newest portfolio company, RapidMiner. In leading the $15M Series B financing of RapidMiner, we are following through on an investment theme I’ve been pursuing for several years – bringing advanced analytics to the business analyst. As we’ve all seen, there’s been tremendous hype around big data, but unfortunately many […]
There’s a common misconception that engineers and data scientists are “number crunchers,” and are not creative. They use the left side of their brains, as the popular opinion goes, to present stodgy, black-and-white data, trends, ideas, etc. The “creatives” reside on the other side of the company, immersed in the innovative and artistic work – […]
Since the advent of IBM’s punch cards in the 1920s, the information technology industry has fostered improved decision making through data analysis. But the pace of progress has accelerated dramatically over the last decade, with storage costs dropping at an incredible pace (the price for a gigabyte of storage has fallen 99.5 percent since 2000), […]
Ascent portfolio company StartApp has been on an incredible ride over the last 18 months, and recently achieved its biggest milestone yet in its young history: one billion downloads. (As the linked video clip persuasively notes, this is a very big number.) The rapid growth of StartApp speaks to the mobile industry problem it solves. […]
