This book is about innovation, big data, and data science seen from a business perspective. Big data is a buzzword nowadays, and there is a growing necessity within practitioners to understand better the phenomenon, starting from a clear stated definition. This book aims to be a starting reading for executives who want (and need) to keep the pace with the technological breakthrough introduced by new analytical techniques and piles of data. Common myths about big data will be explained, and a series of different strategic approaches will be provided. By browsing the book, it will be possible to learn how to implement a big data strategy and how to use a maturity framework to monitor the progress of the data science team, as well as how to move forward from one stage to the next. Crucial challenges related to big data will be discussed, where some of them are more general - such as ethics, privacy, and ownership - while others concern more specific business situations (e.g., initial public offering, growth strategies, etc.). The important matter of selecting the right skills and people for an effective team will be extensively explained, and practical ways to recognize them and understanding their personalities will be provided. Finally, few relevant technological future trends will be acknowledged (i.e., IoT, Artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc.), especially for their close relation with the increasing amount of data and our ability to analyse them faster and more effectively.

This book reflects the author's years of hands-on experience as an academic and practitioner. It is primarily intended for executives, managers and practitioners who want to redefine the way they think about artificial intelligence (AI) and other exponential technologies. Accordingly the book, which is structured as a collection of largely self-contained articles, includes both general strategic reflections and detailed sector-specific information. More concretely, it shares insights into what it means to work with AI and how to do it more efficiently; what it means to hire a data scientist and what new roles there are in the field; how to use AI in specific industries such as finance or insurance; how AI interacts with other technologies such as blockchain; and, in closing, a review of the use of AI in venture capital, as well as a snapshot of acceleration programs for AI companies.

This book is about innovation, big data, and data science seen from a business perspective. Big data is a buzzword nowadays, and there is a growing necessity within practitioners to understand better the phenomenon, starting from a clear stated definition. This book aims to be a starting reading for executives who want (and need) to keep the pace with the technological breakthrough introduced by new analytical techniques and piles of data. Common myths about big data will be explained, and a series of different strategic approaches will be provided. By browsing the book, it will be possible to learn how to implement a big data strategy and how to use a maturity framework to monitor the progress of the data science team, as well as how to move forward from one stage to the next. Crucial challenges related to big data will be discussed, where some of them are more general - such as ethics, privacy, and ownership - while others concern more specific business situations (e.g., initial public offering, growth strategies, etc.). The important matter of selecting the right skills and people for an effective team will be extensively explained, and practical ways to recognize them and understanding their personalities will be provided. Finally, few relevant technological future trends will be acknowledged (i.e., IoT, Artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc.), especially for their close relation with the increasing amount of data and our ability to analyse them faster and more effectively.

This book deals with artificial intelligence (AI) and its several applications. It is not an organic text that should be read from the first page onwards, but rather a collection of articles that can be read at will (or at need). The idea of this work is indeed to provide some food for thoughts on how AI is impacting few verticals (insurance and financial services), affecting horizontal and technical applications (speech recognition and blockchain), and changing organizational structures (introducing new figures or dealing with ethical issues). The structure of the chapter is very similar, so I hope the reader won't find difficulties in establishing comparisons or understanding the differences between specific problems AI is being used for. The first chapter of the book is indeed showing the potential and the achievements of new AI techniques in the speech recognition domain, touching upon the topics of bots and conversational interfaces. The second and thirds chapter tackle instead verticals that are historically data-intensive but not data-driven, i.e., the financial sector and the insurance one. The following part of the book is the more technical one (and probably the most innovative), because looks at AI and its intersection with another exponential technology, namely the blockchain. Finally, the last chapters are instead more operative, because they concern new figures to be hired regardless of the organization or the sector, and ethical and moral issues related to the creation and implementation of new type of algorithms.

Artificial Intelligence is a huge breakthrough technology that is changing our world. It requires some degrees of technical skills to be developed and understood, so in this book we are going to first of all define AI and categorize it with a non-technical language. We will explain how we reached this phase and what historically happened to artificial intelligence in the last century. Recent advancements in machine learning, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence technology will be addressed, and new business models introduced for and by artificial intelligence research will be analyzed. Finally, we will describe the investment landscape, through the quite comprehensive study of almost 14,000 AI companies and we will discuss important features and characteristics of both AI investors as well as investments. This is the "Internet of Thinks" era. AI is revolutionizing the world we live in. It is augmenting the human experiences, and it targets to amplify human intelligence in a future not so distant from today. Although AI can change our lives, it comes also with some responsibilities. We need to start thinking about how to properly design an AI engine for specific purposes, as well as how to control it (and perhaps switch it off if needed). And above all, we need to start trusting our technology, and its ability to reach an effective and smart decision.