Case Studies - AI and Algorithms

“The next 10,000 business plans will be for an entrepreneur to take a domain and add AI to it.””  –Kevin Kelly, Founding Editor, Wired magazine

Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms have become part of daily life in most of the world. Today, they are so ubiquitous that we barely notice them: Google’s page rank, Amazon’s recommendation engine, airline pricing, newspaper financial stories, air-traffic control, etc. Let’s look at some brief case studies on these attributes.

• FutureScope. This marketing firm uses AI to generate engaging, customized daily newsletters designed to connect clients with their audiences, help generate targeted email lists, and convert audience members into paying customers.

• ProFinda is a workforce optimization platform powered by AI. The self-described leader of “the Future of Work,” ProFinda maps an organization’s skills, knowledge, expertise, connections, and availability to build a single view of its talent pool, allowing employees to find expertise internally and enabling more efficient team-building and production. 

• Cainthus. In 2014, brothers David and Ross Hunt set out to provide affordable digital measurements to farmers to make data-driven decisions. Cainthus, now a part of Ever.Ag, combines computer vision and Artificial Intelligence analytics to “enable individual animal management at scale.” “The whole point,” David told us, “was ‘How do you give farmers information that they can use, information where they can make more money by using it?’ Farmers could take the data that we gave them, implement it into their day-to-day activities, and then feel confident that those changes either saved them money or made them more. 

“When cows are stressed, they don’t eat, they don’t drink, they don’t produce milk,” explains David. “If you don’t treat your cows well, you earn less money because they don’t produce enough milk. If you have a higher cow comfort index, the more milk you’ll get.” 

The Hunt brothers and their engineers created a “cow comfort index” using Algorithms and applied computer vision to score large-scale bovine comfort. Insights from the data helped optimize feed management and pen-level monitoring of cow behavior to ensure maximum welfare and, therefore, milk production. The outcome was an average increase of $254,760 farm profit with an $82,500 cost—a more than threefold ROI, plus improved cow comfort. 

• Khanmigo is a new AI-powered guide from Khan Academy that aims to mimic one-on-one tutoring experiences by providing tailored support, prompting critical thinking, and suggesting relevant resources. Khanmigo is still under development, but the entire Khan Academy ecosystem is excited about the potential of a customized AI tutor for every child.