Google has been pushing hard on the machine learning and artificial intelligence front with direct consumer and developer propositions.
Having troves of data hauled from our daily digital excursions, they employ talent at their subsidiary Deep Mind, to help build more utility and personalisation of services for its billion plus user footprint.
This month has been dominated by the General Data Protection Regulation going live with many users of online platforms and services that have elements domiciled in the European Union receiving communication on updated terms highlighting a privacy by design model.
Two of the more visible global platforms Google and Facebook also held their iconic annual events –Google I/O and F8 where they made a notable set of announcements that pointed to the future by way of new product and service lines or improvements on existing ones that every executive whether technical or business inclined should be watching closely or if strategy calls for it, implementing.
From the Facebook stable, first up is that the chat bot ecosystem continues to grow and the conversation driven economy does not look like it will slow down any time soon with over eight billion messages exchanged daily and 300,000 bots out in the wild.
Second was that augmented and virtual reality is going mainstream with better tools released to help developers craft unique and immersive experiences for consumers across different industry segments with the hardware to support this also being affordable and readily available.
Google has been pushing hard on the machine learning and artificial intelligence front with direct consumer and developer propositions. Having troves of data hauled from our daily digital excursions, they employ talent at their subsidiary Deep Mind, to help build more utility and personalisation of services for its billion plus user footprint.
The more exciting stuff is however found in what they are making available for developers. Firebase, it’s mobile and web development platform that provides tools and infrastructure to build and scale services that support over 1.2 million apps monthly has rolled out machine learning kit - ML Kit with ready to go API’s that can run in the cloud or even on device, the latter being key for the processing of extra sensitive information and probably offline user experiences.
The on-demand and sharing economy continues to transform different sectors and maps is a critical part of discovery and fulfillment of services, core to the user experiences that allow for profitable businesses to be built on top.
The Google Maps Platform has been simplified to three core products: Maps, Routes and Places with a single pricing plan and full access to support. They are also building industry specific solutions, with ride sharing, asset tracking and gaming seeding the initiative.
Two announcements of many that in my opinion have immediate local business relevance and context.
Njihia is the head of Business and Partnerships at Sure Corporation | www.mbuguanjihia.com | @mbuguanjihia
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