Robotics

As artificial intelligence becomes more versatile, we’re entering an interesting moment of human-machine intermingling. The latest example? The negotiating table.A company called Pactum is a good example. Purveyor of an AI-based platform that enables global companies to automate personalized commercial negotiations at scale, the company has leapt into the fray with an $11M Series A, all with a focus on getting customers the best possible deal.”While other AI companies focus on reducing labor costs, Pactum focuses on adding value to the bottom line. All businesses make purchases, which means that any firm will be able to benefit from our automated Negotiation-as-a-Service (NaaS) offering,” said Martin Rand, CEO and co-founder at Pactum. “Although this technology has so far been limited to the most innovative enterprises, Pactum will open the door to all businesses to benefit from AI’s value generation potential – starting with Fortune 500 companies but by no means ending there.”The funding brings the company’s total investment to $15m, and the latest round was led by Atomico, with participation from commerce players like Metaplanet (Jaan Tallinn), Checkout.com CTO Ott Kaukver, TransferWise Chairman & co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, and Teleport co-founder Sten Tamkivi.The value proposition here is interesting because it marks a departure from the usual AI pitch. Pactum is a web-based tool and some of the brand language sounds similar to what you’d hear from other AI developers. The system is meant to “add value” and “save time” by aligning client values with their negotiation partners and then using best-practice negotiation strategies to secure “win-wins.”The novel part is that Pactum is less about driving efficiencies, which is the standard line for hawkers of AI, and more about unlocking existing capital through tangible savings. A spokesman cites a use case involving a Fortune 500 client that Pactum was able to save $1.5m per month, money that’s immediately available to be deployed elsewhere. It calls its flagship offering Negotiation-as-a-Service (NaaS).”Fortune 500 procurement leaders have told us that negotiated agreements are the backbone of their economic engagement, but that their practices for managing supplier contracts are currently filled with inefficiency, uncertainty, and untapped value,” said Ben Blume, Partner at Atomico. “Martin, Kaspar and Kristjan recognized this and, with Pactum, have pioneered a unique approach that makes the negotiating process more supplier-friendly and improves outcomes for both parties. Combining deep expertise in negotiation with world class AI talent, we believe Pactum is exceptionally well positioned to develop a new kind of automation solution, with the ability to create significant amounts of value for both buyers and suppliers of all kinds.”

Pactum will use the funding to scale deployment. More

The company behind a robot fast food cook has a new mission: Help humans cook burgers that won’t get customers sick.Miso Robotics, the firm behind Flippy, the robot-on-rails fry cook solution that’s been garnering big backing and has debuted at restaurants including Pasadena’s CaliBurger chain, has a new software-based offering for fast food restaurants that aren’t ready to go full robot just yet. Packaged as a standalone software as a service (SaaS) offering, the company’s new CookRight is billed as the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) powered cooking platform meant to keep human fry cooks from torching burgers—or worse, undercooking them, which can be a serious health hazard.That last is a particularly strong selling point in the wake of a global pandemic that’s left consumers more conscious than ever of safe handling practices. According to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), every year, an estimated 1-in-6 Americans (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases. A major culprit in these cases is exposure to bacteria found in mishandled or undercooked food. Businesses are particularly sensitive to the financial and public relations impact of illnesses associated with their service, as Chipotle can certainly attest. The restaurant recently agreed to pay $25 million in association with food-borne illnesses linked to its food between 2015 and 2018.Miso is making a smart play here by leveraging the data-driven platform behind its Flippy robot, which utilizes AI to optimize ingredient handling and cooking. According to the company’s product description, CookRight is an advanced AI platform that incorporates machine learning, sensors, and computer vision to allow cooks to track a food item on a grill and monitor cooking time automatically in order to deliver precision-level cooking. The idea is to simplify kitchen and inventory tasks while doing away with outdated methods of cooking, which include monitoring cook times via wall clocks or relying on employee experience to know when items are done cooking.The release is also significant because it suggests that Miso has determined it can’t thrive as a robotic platform alone. The adoption threshold for automation in industries that have heretofore relied on low cost labor is steep, and it’s likely Miso is making a strategic pivot in service to its longer term ambitions. If it can coax some major fast food customers to adopt its CookRight platform, the up sell to a fry cook robot that uses the same software architecture will be much easier. It’s a dynamic recalibration and, considering the litany of great robotics firms that have failed to find customers fast enough, it’s a smart move for a company full of potential.In addition to consistency and precision in cooking applications, the platform also leverages powerful analytics to improve food quality, drive efficiency, and save money by closely monitoring for supply chain issues. Robots may be coming for jobs in fast food, but for the time being, human augmentation seems to be the easier sell. More

Since October 2019, Alphabet’s Wing has operated a drone delivery service five days per week in the tiny hamlet of Christiansburg, Virginia; a community of just over 20,000. The early testbed has been one to watch for a delivery drone sector that’s just emerging from in a slowly evolving regulatory regime. Key to the future of drone delivery is positive consumer sentiment. So how do the people of Christiansburg feel about the delivery drone service that’s made their community one of a small number of canaries in the coal mine for the consumer drone sector? In short, they love it.Virginia Tech announced the results of a survey gauging attitudes around drone delivery in Christiansburg, VA — where Wing runs a residential drone delivery service. Nearly 90% of those surveyed say they support drone delivery. This is particularly significant because it marks a massive increase over prior national and international surveys, which have generally found support around 50%. In those surveys respondents were asked about drone delivery in a vacuum, without the benefit of experiencing it first hand. But the residents in Christiansburg have had the opportunity to experience drone delivery for a protracted period of time, and it turns out that makes a big difference in consumer sentiment.According to Virginia Tech’s survey of over 800 residents, 89% of respondents report that they would likely use the service if it were available. Interestingly, 87% say they view drone delivery equally or more favorably than other drone applications, implying that delivery may lead the pack in consumer sentiment when it comes to commercial drone adoption across various sectors.COVID likely played some role in the positive reception, mirroring the general surge in online shopping during the pandemic. Wing has been conducting pilots in four cities across three continents since late 2019, and it found that deliveries in 2020 increased by 500%. In markets where there are few restrictions, such as Australia, the use of Wing’s service has continued to increase, marking greater than 5X growth in the first three months of 2021 compared to the same period a year ago. The results are noteworthy in light Wing’s eye toward growth in the U.S. In April, the company asked U.S. regulators to grow its U.S.-based drone delivery footprint with the addition of a centralized hub from which remote operators can control flights without direct line of sight, a major sticking point in the past between the FAA and commercial drone advocates.

The requests, which amusingly include a request to be checked on less regularly by the FAA, are still pending, but no doubt Wing is pressing its case that consumers seem to be responding favorably to its service. More

Here’s an alarming statistic that seems to fly under the news radar. Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death in the US, with a reported 250,000 annual deaths due to medical mistakes. This results in as many as 4 in 10 patients harmed in healthcare settings, with up to 80% of those medical errors preventable.

A company called MedAware is hoping to combat these grim statistics with AI and is part of a growing number of developers—including companies like Activ Surgical, which we’ve covered—hoping to use technology to bolster doctors’ decision making and root out errors using machine learning and pattern recognition algorithms.Helmed by CEO Dr. Gidi Stein, part of a new generation of experts adept both in medicine and computer science, MedAware has developed an algorithm to help doctors prevent medication errors when using electronic health records, a common source of error. The algorithm acts as a type of spell check for doctors. When a doctor prescribes a medicine that doesn’t match the patient or doctor profile, the doctor gets alerted at the point of prescription. In addition, the system can alert a doctor if the patient is prescribed a medication that has a negative interaction with another. The system, which has been implemented in hospitals in Israel and America, has caught mistakes such as fertility drugs being prescribed to an 85 year old and Viagra to a two year old. It has also helped prevent many life threatening mistakes. A Harvard study found that 80% of the alerts generated by MedAware are clinically valid and that 68.2% would not have been generated by existing rules-based systems. The high rate of clinically valid alerts is a crucial factor for doctors dealing with alert fatigue.The problem is persistent and enormous. Medication-related errors are responsible for direct annual costs of over $20 billion and medical liability costs of more than $13 billion. Healthcare systems are incentivized, therefore, to find every opportunity to drive efficiencies from a financial perspective, and that’s created a wave of startup interest around the complex problems associated with medical error.Artificial intelligence seems to be a particularly promising tool. Rule-based solutions mainly focus on drug interactions, like dosage and allergies, not addressing typographical errors (patient or drug mix-up) or evolving adverse events post-prescribing (lab or vital irregularities). According to a recent study, most of these clinical decision support systems hold a 16% or lower accuracy rate, resulting in “alert fatigue” associated with blanket dismissal of alerts by the providers, even when an alert is warranted.”As expected, this study shows that long shifts with heavy workloads lead to increased physician prescribing errors,” said Dr. Stein, co-author of the study. “Even in high-stress situations, our system is shown to ensure patient safety and prevent significant harm by accurately detecting and mitigating these risks. With the COVID-19 pandemic straining healthcare systems worldwide and pushing prescribers and clinical care teams to their limits, the need for advanced decision support systems is critical.”

Dr. Stein comes to the problem from a particularly useful vantage. He was a computer scientist until his late 20s. Then he decided to go to medical school and become a doctor, eventually joining the faculty at Tel Aviv University. While serving as a practicing physician he heard about a nine year-old boy who tragically passed away because a doctor misclicked on the Electronic Health Record system and prescribed blood thinners instead of asthma medicine. Gidi decided to combine his talents to prevent these kind of errors.MedAware’s AI engine is designed to act as a smart safety layer within any health information infrastructure to prevent dangerous medication-related risks. By leveraging advanced machine learning algorithms, its technology identifies medication errors, opioid dependency risk, and evolving adverse drug events during the patient encounter and beyond, potentially saving lives.Inevitably, the problem of medical errors is a complex one requiring a dynamic response. But it’s becoming clear that technology, and particularly, AI will be an important part of addressing the issue.  More

A company that develops autonomous drone technology for industry and defense achieved a milestone heretofore reserved for land-based vehicles: Level 4 autonomy. This appears to be the first successful demonstration of level 4 autonomy in an aerial system.We’ve tracked the company, Exyn Technologies, particularly its national defense aspirations. As I wrote in early 2020, Exyn began developing for the enterprise and is active in sectors like oil and gas and infrastructure inspection. The company’s drones are designed to work in complex, GPS-denied environments where unknown terrain and uncertain ground conditions can make flying perilous. This mission brief has also led Exyn to explore defense industry applications.

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At Level 4A Autonomy, Exyn’s drones are now capable of free-flight exploration of complex spaces at speeds of two meters per second or later while collecting data from the environment.”Exyn’s latest technology demonstration pushes the boundary of what can be done with autonomous flying systems in situations where GPS is not available. Getting aerial systems to fly reliably in cluttered environments is extremely difficult and manual piloting in underground settings is often impossible.” said Camillo J. Taylor, Raymond S. Markowitz President’s Distinguished Professor, Computer and Information Science Department at University of Pennsylvania. “Having a solution that allows human operators to task these systems at a very high level without needing piloting expertise opens up a number of applications in autonomous inspection of mines and other critical infrastructure.”UAV have a considerably more difficult task achieving useful autonomy than their terrestrial counterparts. Whereas defined roads offer a somewhat structured environment, complex three-dimensional spaces require near-instantaneous responsiveness and path mapping within three axes. Drones also have limited payload capabilities, making the challenge of equipping them with complex sensor suites and computing power all the more challenging.”People have been talking about Level 4 Autonomy in driverless cars for some time, but having that same degree of intelligence condensed onboard a self-sufficient UAV is an entirely different engineering challenge in and of itself,” said Jason Derenick, CTO at Exyn Technologies. “Achieving Level 5 is the holy grail of autonomous systems—this is when the drone can demonstrate 100% control in an unbounded environment without any input from a human operator whatsoever. While I don’t believe we will witness this in my lifetime, I do believe we will push the limits of what’s possible with advanced Level 4. We are already working on attaining Level 4B autonomy with swarms, or collaborative multi-robot systems.”

Currently, Exyn is commercializing industrial-grade drone autonomy with customers in mining, construction, and logistics, and its new Level 4 autonomous capabilities will come online in the next few months. But military applications could become more prevalent as well.”We’re most proud of our robots’ ability to identify threats, reduce operational risks and save soldiers’ and civilian lives in unknown and volatile situations,” Nader Elm, CEO of Exyn Technologies, commented last year. “Now you can send a drone to perform highly sensitive missions that are far too dangerous for human soldiers, and acquire data that is unprecedented in its level of detail, accuracy and timeliness.” More

Given the EU’s leaked plans for AI regulation, which calls for a ban on specific types of AI systems, such as those that directly track individuals and create social credit scores, the topic of regulation in the U.S. has been on people’s minds. AI is coming, so what can regulators do—and what should they absolutely not do—to protect citizens and consumers while also encouraging technological development?For insights I reached out to Haniyeh Mahmoudian, Ph.D., Global AI Ethicist at DataRobot, a Boston-based company that enables customers to create and validate machine learning models from their data. As an AI bias and ethics expert, Haniyeh is well-placed to speak about the new regulations and what they means for the U.S., as well as the risks inherent in unchecked AI and what actions should be taken by regulators going forward.GN: What are the biggest takeaways from the EU’s leaked plans for AI regulation? What surprised you?Haniyeh Mahmoudian: Speaking on side of practitioners, one thing we really appreciate about leaked draft is the assistance in clearing up some ambiguity. In the absence of legislation, there’s been a lot of ambiguity on defining use cases that will impact individuals’ lives, or what we call high-risk use cases. Having those high risk use cases defined is really useful, and it’s important to call out that they recognize it’s an evolving list as technology continues to advance.The auditing requirement of the regulation was unexpected but not surprising. Here at DataRobot we have implemented frameworks and processes around risk and impact assessment that is applied to the projects we are working on.GN: Why is the EU getting so serious about regulation? What are the big concerns and the big goals, based on your understanding of the plan?Haniyeh Mahmoudian: The EU has always been serious about tech regulations and protecting its citizens from data victimization, and already has a strong regulatory foundation in place with GDPR to expand upon into AI. The driving factor is one of protection for citizens, even at the expense of economic prosperity that could be enabled by some of these technologies.

GN: Where is the U.S. with regards to considering AI regulation? Can you briefly explain the range of opinions on the matter from various constituencies/stakeholders?Haniyeh Mahmoudian: The U.S. is balancing multiple priorities and stakeholders while working towards legislation that ensures the technology is built with our democratic ideals in mind. The U.S. Congress has proposed legislation like the Algorithmic Accountability Act, which would move our current state more towards the EU’s regulations—which may be the most robust in the world. There are also institutions like the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence that have stated that AI is needed as a security concern. Aside from government entities, we also know that organizations see AI as an economic catalyst—which means regulators need to strike the right balance between ensuring ethical, fair, and unbiased AI without stifling innovation. GN: What should the U.S. take away from the EU plan? Anything U.S. regulators should do differently, in your opinion?Haniyeh Mahmoudian: It’s important that regulations focus on making sure the technology is built with certain societal ideals and ethics in mind, enabling organizations to leverage AI to the world’s benefit in an equitable, ethical, and explainable manner. The EU’s new regulations show great promise by instantiating a collaborative committee to evaluate the technology and define ‘high-risk AI’ uses as the technology evolves. As previously stated, the regulations also clear up some ambiguity around what is defined as high risk AI – something that would be very valuable in the U.S. Some may consider the EU regulations to be too prescriptive. Additionally, some of the requirements may hinder small businesses and start-ups. It’s certainly a balance we have to strike. GN: What’s at stake if we don’t regulate AI soon? What’s a realistic timeline for regulation within the U.S.?Haniyeh Mahmoudian: I do think we need to open our minds to some regulation in the space because of the humanistic impact of these systems. In a company, a biased hiring manager, while unethical, has a limited impact since it is a single person and a single company. However, an AI-enabled system used in the same hiring situation has the potential to really do harm to both the company and the applicants. The same is true for use cases in government or public safety – there’s a risk that if we don’t regulate, there could be real harm done to people. At the same time, we also have to remember that AI can be used to help with problems facing our very existence—such as food insecurity, climate change, and healthcare. It’s certainly a balance to figure out how much regulation is too much or too little.  As mentioned before, the U.S. has already moved towards the regulations and there have been legislations proposed by Congress. We are moving in the right direction but it’s important to ensure the technology is built based on our ideals. More

These five tools can actually think and write just like humans! (Or at least they can passably get you started.)It would have been hard to miss the buzz around AI-powered text generation, and in spheres like content marketing a host of tools are now broadly used for day-to-day tasks. Journalists are no doubt next, so it’s with trepidation that we call out some of the top tools currently in use to generate articles, blogs, and relevant words automatically (and without, ahem, a well-trained writer at the switch).But the praise comes with a caution, as well: Be realistic about the capabilities of GPT-3 and other text generation tools. It’s not a magical salve for all your company’s writing woes but rather a useful tool that can be integrated within a professional content generation structure. Yes, that means you should probably keep a few ink-stained wretches around for the foreseeable future.So what is AI-assisted writing good at? Well, we’ve come a long way since spellcheck. Consistent brand voice is one particularly valuable functionality, particularly if you have multiple contributors in your content stack. Some of these products can help with SEO, which is a moving target but still coin of the realm for many publishers. Chat is also an important area of exposure between companies and customers. AI can help customer service teams stay on brand and can refine messaging based on latest information and use cases. Whatever your reason for exploring writing assistance tools, there are currently many tools out there capable of assisting with articles, blogs, and relevant words automatically. Here we’ve tried to narrow down some of the popular options after taking a broad survey of what content marketing professionals are actually using.

GPT-3 powered for high-performing blogs and descriptions

Writesonic, an AI copywriter that helps generate high-performing ads, blogs, landing pages, product descriptions, ideas, and much more in seconds. It uses GPT-3 technology to provide content that connects with the readers. Helpfully, it can take your one-liners and quickly convert them into appealing and compelling content to help you boost sales. It maintains a conversational style to engage the readers and increase interaction. Writesonic analyzes and matches the patterns from the input that you provide. It further uses them to generate a unique and high-quality output. One of Writesonic’s features is that it can write comprehensive blog posts. It is one of the first AI copywriters that offers content for Facebook and Google Ads. Writesonic also helps in generating startup ideas, YouTube video titles, and video descriptions. The starter plan is available currently for $9.99/month with 75 credits and a professional plan at $35/month with unlimited credits. It provides a seven days money-back guarantee. It also offers a free trial and a business plan for companies that need copywriting at scale.

$10 at Writesonic

Turns data into an insightful narrative

Wordsmith is a natural language generation tool that turns data into an insightful narrative. You just have to insert your data and Wordsmith quickly converts it into productive narratives via its millisecond-fast API, which can also update and publish your content instantly.Wordsmith offers businesses complete control over unlocking the contextual relevance of data quickly. It generates written analytics that are used by industry giants like Yahoo, Microsoft, and PwC to generate around 1.5 million articles every year. Wordsmith offers a paid plan where you will get over 1000 articles per month priced at the cost of $250. Thousands of businesses trust Wordsmith to generate rich and superior content.

$250 at Wordsmith

Top-notch content for your marketing needs.

AI Writer, a tool to generate unique text automatically, provides great content for your marketing needs. It helps generate articles from scratch or improves existing articles. You can simply input a headline or a group of keywords related to your content, and it generates a unique article using its writing bot. AI Writer is especially useful for blogs and other website content for generating better search engine results. One of AI Writer’s many features is that you can set up auto-blogging projects.If short-form writing is your goal, this is a simple tool that can augment your human-powered writing team. The basic plan is perfect for your small company or personal blog and is priced at $19/ month. The standard plan works as your personal AI content creator and costs $49 for a monthly subscription. The third option can be customized and offers content on an enterprise scale.

$19 at 19

Paraphrasing tool with great integrations

QuillBot is all about strengthening writing by culling out unnecessary words and via effective paraphrasing. Use it to help you rewrite and enhance any sentence, paragraph, or article using state-of-the-art AI for word choice and short, concise content that delivers the message. A natural language generation platform, works exactly like the human brain and produces insights to revive every business angle and generate the best results. Helpfully, QuillBot integrates directly into Google Docs and Chrome. A free version comes with a 700 character limit but the premium version, available via three tiered plans, starts at $6.67/month.

$7 at QuillBot

Article Forge

Insightful algorithms to rewrite and enhance content.

Article Forge is an advanced AI-powered platform to generate unique, on-topic, high-quality articles in a few seconds. Article Forge uses insightful algorithms to rewrite and enhance the content just like a human being. Ease of use is key. You just have to enter your keyword, optional sub-keywords, article length, and other requirements into the Article Forge system and it will effectively generate a high-quality article that ranks higher in the search engine results. Its technology is trained using the same artificial intelligence used by Google. You can also control the topic and focus of each article written by Article Forge.Article Forge is fully geared to put your website on auto-pilot mode with its robust API and integration with other useful tools. It also has the superpower to generate bulk content whenever you need multiple articles related to the same keyword. This tool offers a five-day trial, and the paid plans are priced at $324/year and $57/month, along with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Many copywriters, bloggers, journalists, content marketers, students, and small business owners are using writing assistants to save time and money while honing messages and keeping content relevant and on brand. Tools like Writesonic and Article Forge work as personal copywriters and offer content in multiple languages, whereas tools like AI Writer and QuillBot make life easier with their auto-blogging and easy integration. But if you’re looking at writing assistance tools you need to be realistic and focused. Start by identifying your use case and work backward through this guide to find the best match. And don’t expect miracles: The technology is developing, and these writing assistants still spit out plenty of clunky text. They’re great tools to use in conjunction with a sharp staff, but thankfully we haven’t reached a place where journos and content creators are obsolete.

There’s always next year!

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Shelf-scanning robot Tally will be donning a new apron soon. Simbe, the company that makes the robot, announced its first deployment with Save Mart, the largest family owned grocery chain in California, which acquired 132 Albertsons stores in 2006 + has continued growing. Tally robots will be rolling out to 7 stores across all three Save Mart banners in the Bay Area to bring greater visibility to inventory, streamline operations for store teams and improve the customer experience.This is an important milestone for a sector that’s been fixated on wider adoption and sees a real opportunity in the shadow of COVID-19, despite notable setbacks and some in the industry questioning the value of retail robotics late last year. In November 2020, Walmart killed a large contract with Simbe competitor Bossa Nova, which also makes a robot for inventory auditing and data-driven inventory insights.”The pandemic has further illuminated the critical need for strong on-shelf inventory data, and no retail solution provides this data with greater accuracy and fidelity than Tally,” said Brad Bogolea, CEO and Co-Founder of Simbe Robotics. “Retailers are facing an ever-evolving landscape, and Tally provides a cost-effective solution that enables them to stay ahead of the curve, with improved operations and efficiency. Through our partnership together, The Save Mart Companies will build a more resilient supply chain and ensure the best possible experience for customers and store teams across all three of the company’s banners.”Tally robots autonomously audit store shelves to ensure products are in stock and in the correct location on the sales floor. The real-time data and inventory insights collected by Tally help retailers reduce out-of-stocks by up to 30% and enable store teams to focus on servicing customers. As part of the pilot program, The Save Mart Companies will deploy Tally in three Save Mart stores in the Modesto area; two Lucky California stores in Dublin and San Ramon; and two FoodMaxx locations in Modesto and Tracy.The data that these robots collect while roving aisles at retail locations, combined with powerful analysis, is meant to increase efficiency by solving for the $1.75 trillion “ghost economy,” defined by out of stocks, inaccurate price execution, and lack of product location optimization industry-wide. With up-to-date inventory information, managers using robots like Simbe’s flagship Tally robot can enact faster operational decisions at the store level and more nimble inventory management. The problem of poor stock management is so pervasive that inventory mishaps account for more lost revenue than theft.A study conducted last year by a leading management consulting firm found that Tally has reduced out-of-stocks by 20%, ensuring customers find the items they’re looking for and freeing up time for store employees to prioritize other tasks like assisting customers.

But effective technology doesn’t always find its market, which is why partnerships are key right now and why pilots like the one with Save Mart is key to build necessary momentum as retailers embrace automation anew.”Deepening our commitment to innovation with this pilot program is a reflection of The Save Mart Companies promise to our customers to ensure the best in-store experiences,” said Hal Levitt, SVP of retail operations at The Save Mart Companies. “We’re pleased to have a strong technology partner in Simbe to support us in testing a new, effective inventory management solution in our stores and allowing us to provide better product availability.” More