McDonald’s Is Bringing AI to it’s Drive Thrus

McDonald’s Corporation (MCD) announced today an agreement to acquire Apprente, an early stage leader in voice-based, conversational technology. 

Apprente was founded in 2017 in Mountain View, California, to create voice-based platforms for complex, multilingual, multi-accent and multi-item conversational ordering. In McDonald’s restaurants, this technology is expected to allow for faster, simpler and more accurate order taking at the Drive Thru with future potential to incorporate into mobile ordering and kiosks.

The Apprente team will be the founding member of a new, integrated, internal group within McDonald’s Global Technology team called McD Tech Labs. Over time, McDonald’s expects to grow its presence in Silicon Valley with the hiring of additional engineers, data scientists and other advanced technology experts to join McD Tech Labs to meet future business needs and support deployment.

HACKING

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Patrick Berlinquette says:Google provides marketers like me with so much of your personal data that we can infer more about you from it than from any camera or microphone

For as long as you’ve been using Google, Google has been building a “citizen profile” on you. This profile contains:

• Your voice search history
• Every Google search you’ve ever made
• Every ad you’ve ever seen or clicked on
• Every place you’ve been in the last year
• Every image you’ve ever saved
• Every email you’ve ever sent

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A complete checklist of everything Google knows about you—thereby all the ways you’re tracked—as of December 2018:Every internet search contains keywords, and the keywords you just entered into Google are fought over by advertisers.

• Your age
• Your income
• Your gender
• Your parental status
• Your relationship status
• Your browsing history (long-term and short-term)
• Your device (phone, tablet, desktop, TV)
• Your physical location
• The age of your child (toddler, infant, etc.)
• How well you did in high school
• The degree you hold
• The time (of day) of your Google usage
• The language you speak
• Whether you’ve just had a major life event
• Your home ownership status
• Your mobile carrier
• The exact words you enter into Google search
• The context and topics of the websites you visit
• The products you buy
• The products you have almost bought
• Your Wi-Fi type
• Your proximity to a cell tower
• Your app installation history
• The amount of time you spend on certain apps
• Your operating system
• The contents of your email
• The time you spend on certain websites
• Whether you’re moving (e.g., into a new home)
• Whether you’re moving (e.g., walking or on a train)

* The above targeting methods are made available to search engine marketers by Google within marketers’ Ads UI. Info is also freely available here

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What’s Trending In Retail

IKEA Place is a mobile app that allow shoppers to plant & view digitally rendered products in their own home.

ALIBABA + INTIME Shopping mall’s AR mirrors allows visitors to try on beauty products. Visitors can virtually test the makeup product and purchase through a vending machine.

Discover meals matched to your instagram Knoor’s

eatyourfeed

Walmart filed a patent for tech that will detect the emotional state of shoppers as they walk around the store. The technology uses video cameras and store checkout lines that monitor facial expressions and movements to determine varying levels of dissatisfaction. If the system detects an unhappy shopper, it will ping employees in other parts of the store and order them to report to a checkout register, in the hopes of alleviating consumers’ distress. According to a patent filing, the largest brick-and-mortar retailer in the world (likely looking for ways to compete with Amazon)

Consumers are concerned about automation-fueled unemployment. But never underestimate the human ability to feel multiple and contradictory things at the same time! Many of the same consumers worried about job displacement are already hunting out brands that harness automation to make their lives better.

Google Duplex will soon be booking haircuts for users around the globe

Target will begin to test a service that uses Bluetooth-connected household devices to monitor your supply of toilet paper, paper towels and hand soap, and automatically order more when you need it.

The subscription service is called Target Fetch, and Target will launch a campaign May 1 on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo to solicit 250 beta testers in the US for the service.

 

 

Artificial Intelligence(AI) & Customer Service

 

Big Data & Workforce Science

Currently, web-browsing, location tracking, and social networks can help deliver automated, meaningful measurement of people and predict their behaviors. Our e-mails, social network interactions and mouse clicks are able to be mined for ‘programmatic’ insights. Insurance companies can now learn more from our Internet histories than from a blood test. Personality-based assessment tests accurately measure worker behavior and predict fit and performance.

This ability to measure on a grand scale promises to transform organizational management. There is a  relatively new field of workforce science, which adds predictive analytics to a hiring and talent development playing field that’s long been dominated by gut intuition. 

 

Retailers Spending $ On AI

Retailers are planning to spend more on AI, with customer service and sentiment analytics receiving the most attention.  A key tool for retailers seeking to improve their customer experience will be applying AI to understand customer reaction to the products purchased and the service received.

Breaking down retail spending in 2022, three types of technology tools lead the list in a study customer service and sentiment analytics by 54%, AI-based automated marketing by 30% and demand forecasting by 16%.

AI-backed demand forecasting is rapidly becoming a key tool for retailers. For example, major, specific shopping days like the Black Friday phenomena, make understanding customer demand and correct planning more important than ever.

With the rise of the internet, many thought that physical stores would become outmoded and irrelevant, but this has not occurred, although some retailers are under pressure by the rise of e-commerce. Many are, of course, with Toys R Us entering bankruptcy protection last fall as a prime example, while still others are expanding their physical presence including many direct-to-consumer brands. 

 

 

Internet of Things & Insurance

Health is an area where Internet of Things devices are already being used to lower insurance premiums for those who agree to wear the devices and to share data with insurance companies.  wearables like FitBit have been tied to several insurance premiums.

 Other areas of consumer related lifestyle data include the use of vehicle telematics devices (devices that enhance navigation, safety and communication features). Those who agree to have these devices integrated with their vehicles can see lower car insurance costs.

Networked smoke detectors for informal settlements, in the townships of South Africa have been developed by the company Lumkani. Lumkani is described as “the world’s first networked heat-detector designed specifically for a slum environment.

Lumkani devices are networked to each other using radio frequency. When a fire is detected, the alarm sounds in all homes within a 40 meter radius. A variable sound is used signal to users when a fire is in a separate dwelling.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips are tracking livestock for insurance, such as the IFFCO-Tokio system. IFFCO-Tokio is piloting a cattle insurance project targeting more than 25,000 poor farmers and their families in the Indian states of Gujarat, Punjab, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Orissa.

Healthcare and Technology

Government incentives are the reason so many healthcare organizations and hospitals are embracing EMR technology to obtain the goals needed for meaningful use objectives. Hospitals are now installing systems capable of  of data comparison and forecasting. Clinical intelligence is not just producing a result it can interpret these results, trend them, and then provide predictions for the likelihood of the patients continued improvement or decline. This information can give an immediate feel for the patients well-being and can alert to potential critical situations before  they occur.  Other industries already rely on data mining to forecast consumer behavior for their target populations. Their technology tools are no longer incomplete, inaccurate systems of tape drives and archived data relating only to customers’ names and telephone numbers. Instead, they are large data repositories containing information relating to every facet of what a known customer does in relation to the product offered. Hospitals are now installing systems capable of this level of data comparison and forecasting.

What does this mean?

 Healthcare is gearing up to begin leveraging this same pool of information that traditional businesses use for actionable insights and decision making. The trend is nurse informaticists and  higher education offering medical informatics programs. The production of  leaner markets and tougher competition among healthcare providers and the race for better information will increase. Clinical data and business intelligence will coincide with healthcare and the business of healthcare. Prevention and intervention with immediate bedside reporting on multiple pieces of data will empower nursing with information to improve the patients’ health or prevent onset of a critical decline. This information will ultimately be the difference between who will and who will not have the ability to provide better nursing and hospital care and therefore continue to stay in the healthcare business.