Yelp and three other companies debuted new artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and detailed some old ones at the latest iteration of the Mobile Beat (MB) conference which started earlier this week. The business discovery service revealed how it previously started using machine learning to not only help customers find new product and service providers, but also assist them in communicating with those companies. The AI technology powering the platform essentially acts as a reviewer of all data that Yelp manages to amass, making sure that a review written by a user is legitimate and identifying dishonest information that someone would want to submit for any reason. Yelp has been using AI solutions to improve its offerings for a while now, though it wasn’t until now that the company detailed the scope of their applications. Apart from its discovery feature, the San Francisco, California-based firm also opted to ennoble the quote-requesting functionality of its service with AI, revealing that this technology verifies every request and confirms that it’s appropriate for a company that’s being contacted.
Another company detailing its AI endeavors at MB 2017 is Hopper, a traveling service that turned to machine learning to improve its booking platform, providing travelers with the best possible deals by not only constantly reviewing prices but also by having its system interact with customers in a human-like manner in an effort to be more accessible than its alternatives. The Mezi chatbot was also recently improved through AI tech, with its creators announcing the Mezi for Business service at this year’s MB conference, claiming that their latest solution will help travel agents and representatives work more efficiently. Though it isn’t entirely reliant on AI and is also maintained by Mezi’s employees, Mezi for Business utilizes machine learning to find the best deals on flights and help minimize related expenses, the company said.
The final AI-powered service detailed during the first day of MB 2017 is called Neural Sandbox, a tool for creating neural networks developed by GobTech that’s meant to make this emerging technology more accessible and is currently available as an Android app in beta. With a wide variety of industries now being in the process of adopting AI solutions, an update on the advancements in this field will likely follow shortly.