The investment will support three new semiconductor facilities — two in Sherman, Texas, and one in Lehi, Utah.

The firm has pledged more than $18bn through 2029 to the projects, which it says will create 2,000 manufacturing jobs.

TI is also expected to receive an estimated $6bn-$8bn in investment tax credits from the US Treasury Department and an additional $10m in funding for workforce development.

“With plans to grow our internal manufacturing to more than 95% by 2030, we’re building geopolitically dependable, 300mm capacity at scale to provide the analogue and embedded processing chips our customers will need for years to come,” CEO Haviv Ilan said.

Semiconductor chips are needed in almost any electronic device, including cars, for safety and intelligence systems, medical equipment, and smart home accessories.

The US has been bolstering its semiconductor manufacturing in order to suppress dominance from countries such as China and Taiwan.

“With this proposed investment from the Biden-Harris Administration in TI…we would help secure the supply chain for these foundational semiconductors that are used in every sector of the US economy and create tens of thousands of jobs in Texas and Utah,” said US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo

US Senator John Cornyn said: “The chipmaking capabilities these resources will enable at Texas Instruments will help the US reclaim its leadership role in the critically important semiconductor industry.”

Texas Instruments added that the new facilities will be entirely powered by renewable electricity and that it will continually “invest in its fabrication processes and equipment to reduce energy, material and water consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions.”

The post Texas Instruments secures $1.6bn in US government chip funding appeared first on TechInformed.

In the recent UK general election, the NHS was seen as a key battleground, with then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak having pledged to reduce patient waiting lists, and his successor, Keir Starmer, vowing to make it a top priority for his incoming Labour government.

The Conservatives blame the Covid-19 pandemic for backed up appointments, and they have a point. NHS waiting lists skyrocketed due to the pandemic. Disputes with doctors over pay and working conditions that led to strikes have not helped either. But NHS Trusts have also been forced into trying a variety of solutions.

In Coventry Trust, based in the UK’s midlands, technology is playing a major role in reducing these waiting lists.

“Following Covid the waiting lists at all hospitals have increased significantly,” explains Coventry and Warwickshire Hospitals Trust head of analytical development Christopher Clark. “Some of them have even doubled.

“We are trying to be more productive – we need to do more with less – but even though more money has been invested, waiting lists and productivity have not returned to pre-Covid levels.”

Changes to procedures and processes – for example, how a hospital bed is cleaned – have contributed to a slowdown in service delivery on an NHS that had already many hours of treatment time due to the pandemic, he explains.

The NHS focuses on the “patient pathway” – what is that patient’s journey, from initial contact to recovery or, in some cases, other endings. And what is the right pathway to provide the best treatment for that patient, while considering efficiency?

“It is here that we came across process mining, which very much looks at the entire process, maps it as a footprint, and focuses less on the pathway, but can show us deviations within that. Whenever you get deviations, you get an opportunity to potentially eliminate some waste.”

Waiting patiently

UHCW provides more than 800,000 episodes of care to patients in the Midlands region of the UK. It is made up of two hospitals in Coventry and Rugby and is now listed as an NHS Centre of Excellence, thanks to its process mining project.

It had seen its waiting lists “almost double” Clark acknowledges, post-Covid, in line “with the national picture”. To put this into perspective, before the pandemic, UHCW had zero patients waiting more than 52 weeks for surgery (which is how waiting times are measured) but after the pandemic, this shot up to more than 5,000. It was then the first teaching hospital to bring patients waiting over two years back down to zero.

In the UK, hospital trusts are given some leeway to invest in services they need in order to meet targets. But waiting times were named by the then government as one of the most important goals – so how did UHCW achieve it?

It started with what Clark calls the “HEARTT tool” which the Trust was using to measure health inequalities and drive fairer care. It began to collaborate with IBM to launch a pilot scheme using AI and other analytics engines to identify areas that could benefit from other technologies to improve productivity and deliver better health outcomes.

The NHS has a “natural vice” to data, Clark says, meaning that the organisation often makes assumptions about healthcare that aren’t always correct. Working with IBM and tech partner Celonis – a process mining firm – offered “a fresh pair of eyes to look at the data and ask questions” that hadn’t been asked before.

The first project Clark and his team carried out was with outpatients.

“Celonis brought in the data mining element. We worked with them and IBM to come up with hypotheses for problems in the Outpatient experience and how we could fix it,” he explains.”

It started with communication with outpatients. Like many hospitals, UHCW communicates with patients who have booked an appointment via SMS messaging. Prior to the project with IBM and Celonis, the Trust would send a reminder message to patients the day before they were due to come in.

Taking a new a new approach, Clark’s team combined the IBM Garage model, Celonis’ AI-powered process mining with its own data analytics to assess over half a million pseudonymized patient journeys through the trust’s operational data, as well as in-person research and interviews with staff at the centre of the process.

“Through process mining, we discovered that if patients were likely to cancel an appointment, they would do it within 48 hours,” Clark explains. “By texting 24 hours ahead of the appointment, we were seeing more did not attends (DNAs) because there wasn’t time for cancellation, leading to unused appointment slots. OR if people did cancel, there wasn’t enough time for the team to rebook or reuse that slot, so it would go to waste.”

The IBM Garage team was tasked with determining how the Trust could improve rebooking of appointment slots. Off the back if these insights, which were revealed using Celonis’s data mining tool, UHCW changed its messaging process to include two messages. The first would go out two weeks before an appointment, and the second would be sent four days before.

“We saw our cancellation rate increase, as people had time to cancel, but this meant our rebooking rate also improved, and we saw our DNAs reduce. So, we are utilising our clinics in a much improved way and seeing a lot more patients because of it.”

The results were substantial. UHCW’s DNA rate went down from 10% to 4.4% for those eligible for two texts. Over one week, historically this meant that of those patients who received two text messages, some 1,800 would be DNA appointments.

This efficiency, in turn, helped support UHCW to see around 700 extra patients each week as part of its overall elective recovery interventions. Current projections conducted by the trust estimate that this extra activity could contribute to a 10%–15% reduction in the overall backlog.

Operating in new ways

This initial success opened the floodgates, allowing Clark and his team to launch several additional projects across the Trust in order to boost efficiency and care.

“We had buy-in from people at the executive level, but also from the people working in the hospital and from the patients themselves, and that made it much easier to involve the right people in the conversation,” Clark says.

The Trust workshopped various possible projects with Celonis and IBM in an effort to turn their internal data analysts from “report creators” who just offer an overview of what is going on, into analysts, who can offer detailed insights into what is needed to ferment real change.

Change, adds Clark, came quickly, too. Within 10 weeks, the Trust had begun to see a reduction in waiting times, thanks to changes made as part of the project with Celonis.

UHCW then moved on to operating theatres and in-theatre care, with the Trust working alongside Celonis and IBM to see how the AI Predictor tool can be used to benefit surgery.

The fixes aren’t just centred around data, either. Another challenge identified by Clark and his team was around incoming calls to the Trust’s booking centre. The centre received such a high volume of phone calls it was resulting in calls dropping, leaving patients dissatisfied and unable to take actions, such as cancelling or rearranging appointments.

To resolve this, the Trust introduced a chatbot that was developed to handle phone calls, reducing the call rate, meaning more actions were processed, while patient satisfaction improved.

“Patients and staff are much more invested in a project when they actually see it working for them at their level,” he adds. “This way, they can see a real difference being made.”

From the chatbot, further tools have been developed, including an AI solution that assesses a patient’s pathway to flag when a patient should be discharged. The decision is still carried out by a medical professional, but the AI helps reduce the number of people discharged from the pathway later than necessary, freeing up appointments and reducing waiting lists.

Celonis and IBM’s Watson AI also helped to identify discrepancies in the amount of time appointments were taking, which was leading to long delays or missed appointments.

“With Celonis, we developed a scheduling tool, which the consultants can use to predict a more accurate time of how long an appointment or procedure might take, based on things like the patient’s age, comorbidities, and other factors.”

UHCW also has plans to expand the use of process mining to other areas of its care, including patients on its prostate cancer pathways, and those in need of emergency treatment.

Replicating the success

The success at UHCW has received national attention, with the Trust being awarded Centre of Excellence status by NHS England. This has allowed it to secure funding to provide licences to four other NHS Trusts to carry out similar projects.

As Professor Andy Hardy, CEO at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, explains: “Having applied this approach to our outpatient and theatres processes, UHCW NHS Trust is now leading in the adoption of process mining on behalf of NHS England. We are excited to see the results of harnessing IBM’s watsonx generative AI platform to the identified areas of these processes, which we hope will accelerate improvements even further.”

In 2024, UCHW is helping other hospital trusts to cut their waiting times, leveraging the lessons learned during the trial with Celonis and IBM, as part of a wider rollout of AI across the NHS.

Other Trusts, including Dorset, have done similar projects and found them beneficial, Clark tells TechInformed.

“Lots of other trusts have shown interest in what we’ve done,” adds Clark. “We feel confident that the results we have seen can be replicated and be of benefit to many other trusts.”

One challenge to this wider deployment is that UK trusts do not use a unified computing system, but in some fields, such as cancer, many use the Somerset Cancer Register, meaning scripts can be developed from those used by UCHW that can be applied in other organisations.

“We’re working with Celonis to develop this,” enthuses Clark. “Then you can have a one-stop-shop where you pop your data into the script, and it speeds up the transformation process for other places.”

For Clark, the ROI has been clear – though he did not disclose financial details, figured reported by Diginomica suggest the project could save the Trust up to £2.8 million per annum.

It can also be beneficial for a hospital’s carbon footprint because it reduces hospital visits by up to 52%, saving around 29 tonnes of carbon.

But most importantly, it is the benefits that the patients see that have really pleased Clark.

“As a result of the project, patients are generally waiting less. They are being seen quicker,” he smiles.

“They get much better communications and that means they feel more reassured. We can also discharge patients who don’t need appointments, helping us to identify wasted appointments, so patients are also waiting less time. And that can only be a positive thing for everyone involved.”

The post How a hospital used AI and process mining to reduce patient waiting lists appeared first on TechInformed.

The research, led by scientists from the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge, included a machine learning model trained on non-invasive, routinely collected patient data such as cognitive tests and structural MRI scans.

The team then tested the model using real-world patient data from 1,500 participants in the US, UK and Singapore.

According to the study, the algorithm distinguished people with stable mild cognitive impairment and those who progressed to Alzheimer’s disease within a three-year period.

It identified individuals who went on to develop Alzheimer’s in just over 80% of cases. It also correctly identified those who didn’t in a little over 80% of cases, too.

It categorised participants whose symptoms would remain stable, those who would progress slowly, and those who would progress more rapidly – as validated with follow-up data over 6 years.

The research team found that it was three times more accurate at predicting the progression of Alzheimer’s than the current standard of care.

Read: AI identifies early breast cancer that doctors missed

It claims this will help reduce misdiagnosis, improve new patient treatments, and better identify those who need closer monitoring.

It will also direct those struggling with memory loss, but predicted to remain stable, to a different clinical pathway as their symptoms may be due to other issues such as anxiety or depression.

“This has the potential to significantly improve patient wellbeing, showing us which people need closest care, while removing the anxiety for those patients we predict will remain stable.

At a time of intense pressure on healthcare resources, this will also help remove the need for unnecessary invasive and costly diagnostic tests,” said senior author, Professor Zoe Kourtzi from the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge.

Kourtzi added: “AI models are only as good as the data they are trained on. To make sure ours has the potential to be adopted in a healthcare setting, we trained and tested it on routinely collected data not just from research cohorts, but from patients in actual memory clinics. This shows it will be generalisable to a real-world setting.”

The post AI tool outperforms clinical tests at predicting Alzheimer’s disease appeared first on TechInformed.

“Safety and responsibility and the good use of something are not contradictory,” says Unicef’s Irina Mirkina.

If it were, Mirkina adds, then it would be like believing “that cars should not have seatbelts because seatbelts somehow intervene with how good cars are.”

In other words, she believes that AI regulations will not prevent it from becoming a technology that will benefit the world, but, like a car, without any safety precautions, AI can be hazardous, particularly if mishandled.

“If we are building algorithms that supposedly help humans in their work, lives, healthcare, education, but in a way that harms some people, we are not actually helping,” she says.

Speaking at London Tech Week, Mirkina explained that, as a humanitarian aid organisation aimed at helping children globally, Unicef approaches artificial intelligence from a human rights perspective.

“When we are talking about technology of any kind, including AI, it’s about where it makes human lives better,” she says. “Where we are building a world in which humans will have better lives. Not robots, not machines, but humans and children.”

Last year, Unicef found that growing inequities, conflicts and climate change have slowed progress in aiding children’s health around the world.

For lack of access to food specifically, the organisation found that food poverty affects 181 million children under five in its most severe form, and around 200 million children under five suffer from stunting or wasting (caused by malnutrition).

Additionally, while the under-five mortality rate has fallen by over half since 2000, almost five million under-fives died in 2022.

Unicef managed to reach 6 million children with severe wasting treatment in the 15 acutely affected countries last year, exceeding the target of 4.5 million.

With statistics like these, reaching more children with support from technologies such as AI may help – but it needs to bring value for social good, health, education, as well as saving and protecting lives, says Mirkina.

“It also means using technology responsibly,” she adds. “Making sure that the systems we are building are safe, explainable, unbiased, and trustworthy.”

Where charities and enterprises align

From Mirkina’s perspective, there is not a big difference between Unicef’s approach to AI as a public international company and what private enterprises do.

“It’s still about building a robust system of processes and governance on top of ethical principles,” she says.

Three years ago, Unicef published policy guidance on AI for children, which Mirkina believes is still valid today.

The guidance, published in November 2021, a year before the breakthrough of generative AI solutions such as ChatGPT, outlines the opportunities and risks around AI, as well as “requirements for child-centred AI.”

The report suggests firms, governments and policymakers that develop and implement AI ensure that the tool is child-inclusive, fair, secure, and accessible.

But “how do we operationalise the policies in practice?” says Mirkina.

According to the AI lead, each day the team reviews and mitigates risks as it builds its products.

“It’s all about assessing and mitigating risk and impact for every solution and building proper accountability systems.”

AI use cases

Like many other organisations, Unicef is creating its own tools in partnership with technology firms.

“We are not a technology company, we never will be, but what do we actually do with AI?” asks Mirkina.

She reveals that the charity is building software tools that range from support for healthcare systems, and assistive technologies in education, social work and sustainability.

For instance, it’s combining satellite data and science to identify where underground, clean water is in dry regions of the world. Called ‘Unicef’s More Water More Life’, the initiative uses satellite imagery and conventional exploration techniques to map deep “aquifers” – bodies of permeable rock which contain groundwater.

According to the charity, this data-driven approach saves time and money that may have been spent unsuccessfully drilling for water in other locations.

In fact, in 2021, in a pilot the technology found drilling success rates almost doubled in Ethiopia, increasing from 50% to 92%, improving water access for 1.2 million people, including 74,000 children.

Similarly, the charity is using satellite imagery to map every school in the world, and together with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), it’s ensuring children have access to education and knowledge.

According to Mirkina, the organisation’s global map of schools, as well as its deep learning techniques, will help identify gaps in internet connectivity, and serve as evidence when advocating for connectivity and to help national governments optimise their education systems.

The map will also help Unicef measure vulnerabilities and improve its emergency response and resilience against natural disasters and crises.

“For us, it’s balancing the impact and finding valuable use cases,” says Mirkina.

“The value is what we can achieve together when we bring expertise together, ethicists, technologists, human rights workers, with actual practical expertise on the ground, and scale this across many countries, I think that’s incredible.”

The post How Unicef balances disruptive AI with safety appeared first on TechInformed.

The report, conducted by cyber security firm KnowBe4, found that in the first three quarters of last year, the sector experienced 1,613 cyberattacks per week.

Additionally, the average cost of a breach reached nearly $11 million over the past three years, more than three times the global average – making the healthcare industry the costliest for cyberattacks.

According to KnowBe4, healthcare and pharmaceutical firms are among the most vulnerable to phishing attacks – particularly in large healthcare organisations, where employees have a 50% likelihood of falling victim to a phishing email.

In other words, criminals have a better than 50/50 chance of successfully phishing an employee in the sector.

“The healthcare sector remains a prime target for cybercriminals looking to capitalise on the life-or-death situations hospitals face,” said Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of KnowBe4.

“With patient data and critical systems held hostage, many hospitals feel like they are left with no choice but to pay exorbitant ransoms. This vicious cycle can be broken by prioritising comprehensive security awareness training,” Sjouwerman advised.

One recently reported breach was the ransomware attack on pathology firm Synnovis, which processes blood tests for NHS hospitals across London.

Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme , National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) chief, Ciaran Martin said that it was unlikely the gang behind the attack (Qilin) would receive any ransoms.

This is because the UK government has a policy of not allowing public sector organisations to pay ransoms, although he acknowledged that Synnovis isn’t under the same restrictions as it is a public/private partnership.

In the second week after the attack, more than 320 planned operations and nearly 1,300 outpatient appointments were postponed at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

On top of this, over 1,100 operations were cancelled after the attack.

Reports claim Qilin had demanded up to $50 million in ransom to release the data. Martin added that the gang likely expected a quick pay-off and may not have anticipated such disruption when it attacked Synnovis.

The breach eventually saw patient names, dates of birth, NHS numbers and descriptions of blood tests exposed online. Business account spreadsheets were also uploaded, exposing arrangements between hospitals, GP services, and Synnovis.

“This situation underscores a few critical points that organisations – not just in healthcare, but across all sectors – need to internalise,” said Javvad Malik, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4.

Malik enforced that regular security assessments, prompt patching of vulnerabilities, effective incident response plans, and robust data encryption are “just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to securing data.”

“This event should serve as a catalyst for broader conversation on cybersecurity legislation, inter-organisational cooperation, and the sharing of threat intelligence,” he added.

“There’s a pressing need for a unified response to cyber threats and building of a strong security culture facilitated by government agencies, the private sector, and international bodies.”

The post Healthcare sector experienced 4x global average of cyberattacks last year appeared first on TechInformed.

Before the outage, TechInformed met with John Hudson, chief technology officer for Manchester Airports Group (MAG) at DTX Manchester, to find out how they are transforming the customer experience.

Even when things are running smoothly and even when travellers are experienced, a single flight can raise thousands of questions.

Where do I drop my bag? How long is the queue for security? Where can I fill my water bottle? Where’s my gate? Do I have time to get a coffee? How long has my flight been delayed? When do I arrive? Can I get a transfer?

For business or for leisure, the in-between of home and relaxing at a hotel is vital, and for many, stress-inducing.

Additionally, answers can’t always be found quickly on websites, the information desk is shut outside office hours – or the staff may not speak the passenger’s language. And a query on whether there’s a McDonald’s in the airport and whether it is before security or after it may seem too trivial.

For these reasons, Hudson, who joined Manchester Airports Group as chief technology officer (CTO) in 2022, claims that a friendly AI chatbot can provide the necessary assistance.

AI takeoff

As the UK’s biggest airport group, MAG serves sixty million passengers a year in its three airports: Manchester, London Stansted, and East Midlands.

According to Hudson, for 70% of people in the UK, one of its airports is a two-hour drive away.

“One of the things we realised is that we have a lot of information, but it’s not easily accessible,” he says.

“Some of it is flight information, queue times, or where water fountains, toilets, prayers rooms are.”

With this, it is building an AI chatbot that can be the front face of all its information and offer it to passengers on kiosks within the airport, or as a mobile application.

The conversational chatbot will be able to answer any question, whether it be flight time, where a toilet is, or if there’s a Starbucks in the vicinity.

Most importantly, Hudson says that the aim is to provide information more accessible.

Airports host many passengers of differing nationalities, so while the staff at the information desk may not be able to answer questions in a particular language, the AI chatbot will.

Another challenge the team is tackling is to ensure that the chatbot remains unbiased, ethical, and safe.

Hudson says that this means strict monitoring, testing, and ensuring that the correct policies are in place.

“As tech leaders, as engineers, as people in tech, we need to avoid the kind of issues that we’ve seen in the past,” Hudson says. “You need a diverse team; you need to understand all aspects of your application.

“Go out of your business and find people who are going to be using it. Diverse backgrounds, ages, genders, and sexualities. Give them your application and say, ‘Can you test it for me’,” Hudson advises other firms building AI applications.

“Guaranteed, if you have the same people who all look the same in the room testing something, it’s going to fail.”

For MAG’s chatbot, it was easy to tell it what not to talk about – politics, for example – but his team had to consider many other questions that could trip it up, such as ‘What can and can’t I take on a plane?’ and ‘Who should get given priority boarding access over someone else?’

“If people start asking these questions, we need to be able to answer them,” he adds – ensuring that the AI chatbot isn’t led astray.

Hudson also explains that the team is putting guardrails up to ensure it isn’t telling a customer their flight is late when it’s not, or a water fountain is on the opposite end of the airport to where it really is.

Partnership with AWS

The Manchester Airports Group chatbot is being built in partnership with cloud hyperscaler AWS. It follows the airport’s migration to the cloud.

“AI is one of those things where it’s so new, and I’ve got people in my team that want to build with it, but they don’t really know where to get started,” Hudson explains.

“What’s really good about the work with AWS is that its people come in and help the team understand what the problem you’re going to solve is, and what value the chatbot is aiming to bring.”

Hudson continues that AWS not only helps with understanding but also building, testing, deploying and then also standing by during the run and monitoring phase.

Alongside this, AWS is educating the team, “so they’re not just leaving a knowledge vacuum when they exit the project.”

Says Hudson: “I know by the time the application is up, and AWS leave, if I’ve got a new request for a new feature, the team I’ve got will be able to do it.”

The post Will an AI chatbot solve passenger queries at Manchester Airport? appeared first on TechInformed.

The report “The Connected Health Revolution” finds a sixfold increase in market-ready connected health products since 2021, with three in four MedTech organisations already offering such products.

Preventive care and fitness remain top priorities for most biopharma organisations, followed by diagnosis and monitoring.

Most biopharma companies are focusing on oncology, immunology, and cardiology, with areas such as mental health, diabetes, obesity, and dermatology now showing growth since 2021.

The report says the anticipated revenue will only be realised in the UK if organisations upgrade their data management capabilities.

It reveals that while nine in ten (92%) of UK organisations are developing a roadmap, only about a third have achieved maturity in connected health adoption.

It also finds that nearly 70% of organisations report having low maturity levels in ensuring security.

Further, while virtual and augmented reality solutions are ready for industry training, only 20% have an adequate supply of skills in the AR/VR area and even fewer (16%) for generative AI.

In addition, just over a third (36%) of UK industry players feel prepared for regularity compliance and complexities in cyber security. Over half (56%) feel prepared for data protection regulations and almost 50% for regulations related to quality control.

US nurses claim patient safety at risk with healthcare AI

“Life sciences organisations, across biopharma and MedTech, are making real progress towards realising the potential of connected health,” says Thorsten Rall, global life sciences industry leader at Capgemini.

“Establishing robust data-driven frameworks will be key in ensuring that data is accessible and reliable, laying the groundwork for advanced AI analytics and insights generation required to reinvent healthcare,” he adds.

The post “Real progress” in MedTech could see connected health solutions account for a fifth of pharma revenue appeared first on TechInformed.

Last year, the US CRM giant – set to deliver $38bn worth of revenue this year – signalled its intention to invest $4bn in the UK to fuel AI innovation over the next five years.

With the UK AI market predicted to reach over $1 trillion by 2035, the firm said that the Salesforce’s AI Centre – which will be based at the Bluefin building near London’s Waterloo – has been designed to “foster collaboration by bringing together industry experts alongside providing critical upskilling opportunities.”

At a subsequent press conference, Bahrololoumi revealed that the 40,000 sq. ft space, which has eight collaboration rooms and the capacity to house 300 people, was a pilot that the company hopes to replicate in other territories.

“It will be a collaborative space to enable customers and partners to innovate…we do that anyway in our offices, but to have that dedicated space to talk AI and work on AI challenges and business challenges that we solve will be pivotal to our growth,” she added.

According to the CEO the centre, which is due to hold its first event on June 18,  would also be key to its upskilling opportunities.

“We made a commitment to skill 100,000 developers globally – for us to be able to launch that, and dedicated training and learning for 100 plus developers on day one, means that we’ll be able to start as we mean to go on.”

At this year’s UK tour, held at London’s Excel, more than 17,500 attendees gathered to learn about new Salesforce features and customer testimonies from the likes of Aston Martin and delivery service DPD.

According to the Salesforce senior VP UK Industries Justin Wilson, the firm’s research has found that over 80% of IT leaders said that one of their main AI pain points are data silos that hinder digital transformation.

Many of the firm’s announcements, therefore, were around deploying the kinds of tasks that enterprise AI has proven proficient at.

These include the sorting and contextualising of structured and unstructured data; creating a “single source of truth” and ensuring that different teams within the same organisation are unifying their data and operating under “a single pane of glass.”

What’s new?

New Salesforce products announced at the show include Data Cloud Vector Database, which claims to help businesses unify and unlock the power of the 90% of customer data that is trapped in PDFs, emails, transcripts, and other unstructured formats.

There was also a new product from Slack, the productivity platform that Salesforce acquired in 2021.

Slack Lists claims to enable users to eliminate context switching between apps so that teams can collaborate and stay aligned on cross-functional projects, requests, approvals.

Summaries and search have also now been supercharged with AI on Slack, making it easier for leaders to look at channel summaries and search for updates on projects via Slack channels.

Driving data insights

Trailblazing customer testimonials came from British car maker Aston Martin, which is using Salesforce’s revamped AI product, Einstein1, its analytics product Tableau and Slack for a data reunification project to transform its marketing and sales operations.

Aston Martin said that it could now visualise customer insights in one place, enabling employees to offer personalised support and experiences.

An opening keynote demo given by Salesforce architect at Aston Martin Kent Packman showed how the car firm is pulling in data from various sources including vehicle telematics and the customer’s social media feeds or preferred modes of communications, to formulate a better picture of their customers’ needs.

Predictive analytics powered by Salesforce’s Data Cloud, suggest the next step sales staff need to take in terms of engagement.

This data can also potentially be shared externally with dealerships to help tailor communications and offers to individual customers based on preferences and purchase history.

The post Salesforce launches its first AI centre and accelerates with Aston Martin appeared first on TechInformed.

The polling found that 46% of UK workers are worried about their likeness being used in deepfakes – 9% more than those worried that AI will replace them in their roles (37%).

However, AI remains a real fear for most workers, who are concerned that the burgeoning technology might be used to steal confidential information through digital scams.

In its latest study, CyberArk commissioned Opinium Matters to carry out a survey of 2,000 workers across the UK to gather insights and understanding about how AI-powered attacks on digital identities are affecting UK employees.

It found the top three cyber scams causing anxiety among British workers are payment fraud (59%), incorrect use of sensitive data (57%) and unauthorised logins to confidential systems (47%).

Deepfakes are currently high on the agenda ahead of the UK’s general election on 4 July. Today’s Infosec Conference in London was set to be headlined by expert Henry Ajder, who told TechInformed that this will be the UK’s first “Deepfake election”, although he added it was unclear if use of deepfakes will actually win any votes.

He also warned that businesses must make sure employees are aware of potential deepfake threats and how they can happen at scale.

One threat concerning workers is scams that involve emails or calls impersonating their bosses or higher-ups at their employers. Just over a third (35%) said they were not confident they’d be able to spot if a very convincing phone call or email from their boss is actually fake.

This is made even worse due to a lack of confidence in IT security, with just 30% believing their organisation’s defences are prepared to deal with this kind of deceit.

Brits are surer that they could spot a fake video recording showing their CEO exchanging cash with criminals (70%). Women are also more fearful about AI being used to impersonate them than men (50% vs 40%).

“The rise and continued uptick in quality of AI-generated “deepfakes” to realistically manipulate someone’s identity – be it video, audio, or image – is an extremely worrying trend, not only for celebrities and politicians but for UK PLC also,” said Rich Turner, president, EMEA at CyberArk.

“The components of our digital identities are as much a part of who we are as a physical fingerprint is. If aspects of our digital identity are stolen or faked, the consequences can reverberate in both our personal and professional lives.

“Deepfaked audio and other AI-powered attacks can not only sway public opinion, they can also be a way of compromising our employers’ sensitive data and assets. CISOs and other IT leaders must be prepared to address these identity security challenges in 2024.”

The post Only a third of Brits confident they could identify a deepfake call from their boss appeared first on TechInformed.

Tesla boss Elon Musk has criticised Joe Biden’s decision to quadruple tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China, despite previously calling for trade barriers himself.

The multi-billionaire said via video link, “Neither Tesla nor I asked for these tariffs,” at a technology conference in Paris.

Last week, the White House said new measures, including a 100% tariff on EVs from China, were a response to unfair policies and intended to protect US jobs.

Musk has previously warned that Chinese car makers could “demolish” competitors unless governments imposed trade barriers. However, at the conference on Thursday, the Tesla chief expressed surprise at the move, adding: “Things that inhibit freedom of exchange or distort the market are not good.”

Read more…

FTX exec jailed for 90 months

Ryan Salame, the former right-hand man of jailed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, has been sentenced to 90 months in prison, US federal prosecutors said.

Salame, who had served as co-CEO of FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary, pleaded guilty in September last year to violating political campaign finance laws and operating an illegal money-transmitting business.

“Salame’s involvement in two serious federal crimes undermined public trust in American elections and the integrity of the financial system,” Damian Williams, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

It follows Bankman-Fried’s 25-year conviction for stealing $8bn (£6.3bn) from FTX customers, which was revealed when the crypto exchange collapsed in 2022.

Read more…

PwC becomes first ChatGPT reseller

PwC has signed a deal with OpenAI to offer its ChatGPT Enterprise licences to its business partners.

OpenAI has not previously offered Enterprise licences through a third party, and the agreement means PwC can also upsell its portfolio of services to those who want to use ChatGPT to optimise their workloads.

Not only does the management consulting giant become OpenAI’s first reseller partner, but it will also become the tech firm’s biggest customer to date, covering 100,000 users.

Read more…

Former OpenAI board member sheds light on Altman firing

A former board member of OpenAI has defended the ChatGPT firm’s shock decision to sack founder Sam Altman last year, accusing the CEO of “outright lying to the board.”

OpenAI quickly reversed its November decision to remove Altman following an outcry from inside and outside the organisation, but according to former board member Helen Toner, the directors had not taken the initial decision lightly. They claimed the founder had lied to, obstructed, and retaliated against those who criticised him, creating “a toxic atmosphere.”

“The [OpenAI] board is a nonprofit board that was set up explicitly for the purpose of making sure that the company’s public good mission was primary — was coming first over profits, investor interests, and other things,” Toner said to The TED AI Show host Bilawal Sidhu.

“But for years, Sam had made it really difficult for the board to actually do that job by, you know, withholding information, misrepresenting things that were happening at the company, in some cases outright lying to the board.”

When Altman returned to the company just days after his sacking, he brought with him an entirely new board of directors.

Read more…

The post FTX exec jailed and PwC named first ChatGPT reseller appeared first on TechInformed.