AI Industry, Hotspots, & Companies to Watch

In 2020, the worldwide artificial intelligence revenue topped $281.4 billion US dollars. It is forecasted that growth rates for AI software platforms will exceed 40% in 2024.

In fact, it’s difficult to find pessimistic reports about the state of growth in the AI industry. Global tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Apple rely heavily on AI technologies to power their furious expansion and even companies outside the “traditional” tech sector are adopting AI technology at a rapidly increasing rate.

Several factors work together to fuel the incredible growth of the artificial intelligence sector.

Most importantly, computing power is more plentiful and cheaper than ever before. Memory is faster and more inexpensive, processors are more powerful, and data storage can be found for cents on the dollar.

At the same time, technologies used to manage and access all of this data is steadily improving, with distributed data systems becoming ever more affordable and accessible.

The growth of cloud computing services like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud allows companies and individuals to access technology the way we buy any other commodity, scaling their investments up and down as their needs expand and contract.

Finally, the impact of technology itself on the accelerating growth of artificial intelligence cannot be ignored. In other words, the technology built today acts as a foundation and an accelerator for the technology being designed for tomorrow.

Those industries, regions, and markets that succeed in investing in the right kinds of technology in the present will be in a much better position than their competitors when it comes time to develop the next round of artificial intelligence technologies.

The presence of artificial intelligence in industries once considered far removed from the tech sector is becoming increasingly ubiquitous. Whether it’s the inclusion of robotic process automation in “old-fashioned” manufacturing facilities or the pursuit of quantum computing technologies by traditional chip makers, the impact of AI is being felt across the economic spectrum.

Industries as disparate as financial services and healthcare are feeling the pressure to incorporate some of the revolutionary capabilities created by artificial intelligence technology.

And the investment in AI in most sectors seems to be remarkably resilient to dramatic market events. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, caused some firms to decrease their spending on AI technologies, but the impact was surprisingly muted.

In fact, the industry with the largest downturn in AI spending saw only 27% of firms actually decrease their AI investments during 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. A majority of firms in a majority of industries either held steady or increased their spending on artificial intelligence.

Change in artificial intelligence investment levels in organizations worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, by industry

Finally, the increasing trend toward hyper-automation will create ever more openings for AI technology. Automation and AI go hand-in-hand, as the predictive and analytical capabilities of the latter tend to drive the ability of software creators to produce the former.

Of course, “automation” is an enormous topic with poorly defined borders. But that’s the nature of the beast when one deals with artificial intelligence subjects. One topic tends to bleed into the next, with advances in one area accelerating developments in the next in a never-ending feedback loop. For that reason, it can be difficult to predict which areas in artificial intelligence will see the most growth and which will stagnate.

The artificial intelligence sector is not a homogenous collection of similar technologies. Instead, several markedly varied types of technologies are represented in this increasingly vibrant and promising field.

A recent report found that a handful of these technologies, in particular, are poised for tremendous growth and expansion over the coming years. Machine learning, robotic process automation (RPA), deep learning, and virtual agents are just a sampling of the technologies to keep an eye on.

In a recent report, Beijing, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Los Angeles, and Paris, all received high marks for the unusually high level of business activity in the artificial intelligence sector, including venture capital deals involving AI companies.

 

It’s noteworthy that, of these cities, all of them are situated in countries whose national governments have recently indicated commitments to incubating and supporting the burgeoning industry. They’ve done so in a variety of ways, from encouraging the growth of innovation hubs in Ontario, Canada to direct subsidies and grants to AI companies in Isreael. The Gazelle.ai platform also shows cities such as Barcelona, Stockholm, Anaheim, Chicago, and Vancouver as emerging AI hotspots.

It will be interesting to see how national, state/provincial, and municipal governments balance the increasingly tricky question of how to regulate artificial intelligence while at the same time creating a welcoming and competitive environment in which they can thrive.

Most of the cities that rank highly as an AI hotspot also excel at attracting venture capital for firms in other high-tech sectors, like augmented and virtual reality, blockchain, and computer vision. Cities that do well in supporting artificial intelligence firms also tend to excel in incubating other high-tech endeavors.

The artificial intelligence industry lies at the very cutting-edge of technological development and commerce. It’s difficult to pontificate about the future directions of the industry with full certainty, let alone make hard-and-fast predictions about exactly where the industry is headed.

It seems abundantly clear, however, that the promise and potential of this technology are so great that even significant challenges can’t put much of a damper on its accelerating growth. The applications of artificial intelligence are simply too broad and valuable to reasonably expect anything else. With that in mind, here are 20 fast-growing AI companies to watch! Or simply get the full list, by starting a free trial here.

1. Featurespace

Featurespace is the inventor of Adaptive Behavioral Analytics and Automated Deep Behavioral Networks technology for fraud and financial crime management.

2. Sparrho

Sparrho uses augmented intelligence to aggregate, curate and summarise the latest in scientific research.

3. DeepMind

DeepMind researches and builds safe AI systems that learn how to solve problems and advance scientific discovery for all.

4. Whisk

Whisk powers the creation, discovery, personalization, and monetization of food content online, in-store, and at home.

5. Wirewax

Wirewax uses a powerful combination of computer vision and artificial intelligence to help brands, creative agencies and broadcasters create highly engaging interactive video experiences..

6. Dayshape

Dayshape is an AI-powered planning and scheduling platform, built from the ground-up for professional services firms.

7. BenevolentAI

BenevolentAI unites technology with human intelligence to re-engineer drug discovery and deliver life-changing medicines.

8. Concured

Concured uses Artificial Intelligence to show you exactly what topics drive ROI, and what to write about next.

9. Mudano

Mudano’s mission is to reinvent Financial Services powered by data and AI.

10. Huma

Huma’s mission is to predict, diagnose and treat mental health disorders through listening to and harnessing artificial intelligence, user data and human insight.

11. Spixii

Spixii conversational robots execute quote & buy, insurance policy management and claims processes.

12. Silverbullet

Silverbullet reduces the friction across digital marketing, by empowering better, faster, and smarter marketing decisions.

13. Grakn

Grakn allows intelligent systems to interpret complex datasets as a single body of knowledge that can be logically reasoned over – a critical process in human cognition and until now not practicable for computers to do.

14. Chatterbox Labs

Chatterbox Labs focuses on explaining, tracing, actioning, scoring bias, testing and detecting weaknesses in AI models.

15. ProFinda

ProFinda is a pioneering Total Workforce Optimization platform, that intelligently organizes people and work.

16. Signal

Signal is a media monitoring, reputation management, regulatory compliance and market intelligence platform powered by artificial intelligence.

17. Re:infer

Re:infer is a communications mining platform that brings artificial intelligence into every conversation.

18. Celaton

Celaton applies Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) technology, inSTREAM, to deliver Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) resulting in efficiencies and reduction in Average Handling Times (AHT) within processes.

19. action.ai

action.ai’s technology enables companies to build conversational interfaces for their services, extending customer engagement opportunities via platforms like Alexa and Facebook Messenger.

20. Eigen

Eigen is a document intelligence platform that uses natural language processing to enable clients to quickly and precisely extract the data they need from their contracts and paperwork