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The ludicrous press release awards - AI game changers edition

Jon Reed Profile picture for user jreed September 15, 2017
Summary:
It's time to hand out some awards of dubious quality. This time, the winners are the AI hypoholics, who gleefully blast us with hyperbole, unaware that their moment of reckoning has arrived.

kid-with-award
I've already had fisticuffs with some smart PR peeps about why I think press releases are useless. But it doesn't matter what I think - companies will continue to issue press releases, often with ludicrous language that wouldn't pass the smell test in an actual article - or human-to-human chat.

What better place to start with my awards than the absurd deluge of "Artificial Intelligence" announcements that are automagically transforming our quality of life, while adding massive profitability to the bottom line of every business that buys the shiny new toy dabbles in it - without any downside or ethical concerns worth mentioning?

Here are the rules of my competition:

  1. Head over to PRnewswire.com at 5:30 pm ET on Sept 15, 2017.
  2. Enter the search phrase "AI intelligence" (AI alone generates too many false positives).
  3. Evaluate the first twenty results for consideration. No company is excluded, no matter how large or how small, no matter their relationship, financially or otherwise, to diginomica.

I now present my finalists, in no particular order. To ensure I don't give in to the cement shoes of total cynicism, I will also include, in the last section, a few decently-executed press releases also.

The finalists - don't throw your AI hype festival without them!

AI in Fintech Market Worth 7,305.6 Million USD by 2022
from: MarketandMarkets
snark: looking forward to counting my millions in 2022!

award qualifications: no one writes a better report title than these folks! Looking forward to getting my hands on their new market research report:

“AI in Fintech Market by Component (Solution, Service), Application Area (Virtual Assistant, Business Analytics & Reporting, Customer Behavioral Analytics), Deployment Mode (Cloud, On-Premises), and Region - Global forecast to 2022"

bonus points: nice mentions of "proactive collaboration" and "flagship competitive intelligence" (I hate non-proactive collaboration).

Wolters Kluwer Introduces AI-Powered Predictive Analytics to Federal Developments Knowledge Center
from: Wolters Kluwer
snark: it's always a bummer when your predictive analytics aren't AI-powered....

award qualifications: ecological metaphor:

The new features are the latest in what has been a continual stream of innovation and harnessing of analytics and AI across several Wolters Kluwer product lines.

But what happens when that stream becomes a river?

bonus points: for continually leveraging the branded synergies:

We are continuously searching for ways to put cutting edge technology – integrated with our rich content expertise – into the hands of our customers.

CloudMinds Shines at MWCA 2017 with Cloud-based Intelligence
from: CloudMinds
snark: we'll have to take your word for that.

award qualifications: energizing us with visions.

"Populate thousands of households with household robots in the coming decade" - this has been a vision of CloudMinds.

Umm - why? Maybe next time explain why we need thousands of household robots.

bonus points: How the heck did they get this phrase onto the forklift?

Cloud-connected intelligent robots based on large-scale neural networks, sophisticated algorithms and a lot of training by fusing artificial intelligence and machine intelligence to achieve cloud-based autonomous deep learning

Did I hear a bingo???

IBM and IBC Report: Increased Viewing of Mobile Video Content is Driving Consumer Demand for Better Content Experiences
from: IBM
snark: you say that like it's a good thing.

award qualifications: more ecology:

Today, the explosive growth of new digital content available via online video distribution networks such as YouTube competes directly with traditional broadcasting creating a new connected landscape with data at the center.

That's one landscape I hope to never see on a gallery wall.

bonus points: "Digital video consumption is viral" - thanks for that. #trenchant

p.s. looking forward to working with you to "deliver audience-tailored services in the moment."

p.p.s. somewhere in here is a useful study with data points.

Deloitte announces record revenue of US$38.8 billion
from: Deloitte
snark: re: "building tomorrow's workforce, today" - not everything you write on the back of a napkin should leave the bar.

award qualifications: pass the hubris:

Deloitte professionals represent the workforce of the future: top talent with different life experiences, viewpoints and skill sets," said Renjen. "In creating an inclusive, collaborative, purpose-led culture, we inspire our people to make an impact that matters for each other, our highly diverse and sophisticated client base, and society."

I'm just glad that the culture is collaborative because it really bugs me when inclusive, purpose-led cultures lack collaboration. By the way, what is the purpose?

p.s. does Deloitte have a separate division for unsophisticated clients, or was that Touche?

bonus points: Do the "incredible efforts underway" include whoever wrote this?

Developing integrated cloud based solutions that, among other things, will leverage advanced machine learning techniques, natural language processing, and graph-based algorithms on big data to enable cognitive and predictive capabilities.

Looking forward to that...

p.p.s. I liked the quote at the end about preparing millions of people for the new economy, maybe push that up top next time. Sounds almost like a purpose!

Honorable exclusions

Finally, a competition where being excluded is a good thing. Here's a few announcements that weren't half-bad, or at least, not horrible.

That's a wrap. Maybe next time around I'll do... blockchain?

 

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