Techfastly June 2021

June | 2021

Everything You Need to Know about Programmatic Advertising Deep Learning Technique for Object Detection

Complete Guide: 8 Mistakes You Must Avoid in Your Content Marketing Campaigns 5 Ways Companies Improve UX with AI

In conversation with

Uday Akkaraju

CEO,BOND.AI

| International Innovator | Titans of Tech

www.techfastly.com

CONTENTS

JUNE 2021

Five Technology Tips for Dark Factories Installation: Vibha Soni :P-02 Cyber Attack Leads to Shut Down of the US Fuel Pipeline: Anjali Prabhanjanan : P-10 Cybersecurity risks Associated with Smart Cities: Pranita Herwade : P-27 6 Artificial Intelligence Trends Reshaping the Field of Marketing: Krisha Bhupatani : P-87

Everything You Should Know About Cybersecurity Automation Anjali Prabhanjanan : P-19 In conversation with Uday Akkaraju: P-33 Deep Learning Technique for Object Detection Aditi Laha : P-50 5 Ways company Improve UX With Ai Ambika Bhandari : P-40

Story of the Machine Series: A Connected World – Owing to a Talking Dog, Cadaver Ears, and a Bowl of Acid Barkha Sheth : P:53 Complete Guide: 8 Mistakes You Must Avoid in Your Content Marketing Campaigns Dhruv Maheshwari: P-72

Editor’s Note The world is digitizing, and most businesses have moved to digital platforms. The need for advertising and reaching the target audience at the right time is crucial for the success of your business. Content being the king of all marketing activities worldwide, content marketing has gained popularity over time as one of the best investments a brand can make. We have listed out the mistakes you need to avoid in your marketing campaigns and what you can do about them. Another article focuses on Programmatic Advertising, which explains everything about the automated buying and selling of Ads for your business.

A recent cyber-attack on the US oil and gas pipeline highlights how the critical infrastructures are also at high risk of ransomware and cyber threats. We have covered an article to share all about this recent attack and how you can protect your organization. As you would read further, you can find ways for cybersecurity automation.

We have also looked discussed how technology is helping in building dark factories. Also, we talked about the ways in which artificial intelligence can help with user experience.

In our interview series, we had the founder of an award-winning human-centered artificial intelligence platform for banks, Uday Akkaraju. Uday was recognized as an ‘International Innovator’ by the New York City Economic Development Corporation and as ‘Titians of tech’

by Arkansas Money & Politics. He talks about the vision he has for Bond.AI, their recently launched products, how fintech can reshape our lives, and shared some tips for young entrepreneurs.

In our ‘Story of Machine’ series, we bring you the story of Graham Bell’s Invention, Telephone, ‘A Connected World – Owing to a Talking Dog, Cadaver Ears, and a Bowl of Acid’.

We would appreciate your feedback and are always open to suggestions.

Here is your edition. Do read it, enjoy it, and nourish in the knowledge.

Thank you Srikant Rawat COO, Techfastly

Srikant Rawat

1 Techfastly | June 2021

Five Technology Tips For Dark Factories Installation Vibha Soni

The current scenarios are driving the concept of dark factories. Industries have been interested in dark factories or lights-out factories to bring efficiency to complex operations within factories. Effective usages of technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Augmented Reality, and IoT while establishing dark factories would help companies increase production. So, here I am going to discuss a few tips beneficial for dark factory establishment.

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Introduction We have already reached a stage where robots are manufacturing objects without human intervention. But have you heard that these robots can also perform in the dark, meaning “a place without any light, heat, or air”? Yes, I am talking about the “Dark factory” or “Lights-out factory”, where robots can work in dark without any human intervention.

In recent years, dark factories are getting popular among diverse industries. China is number one in the world to adopt dark factories. Japanese robotic company, Fanuc is world-famous for using dark factories. The company is making robots with the help of robots since 2001. The latest study says that the company is building around 50 robots in a day without light, heat, or air. Besides, a Dutch company, Philips, has already implemented dark factories for making electric razors. The company has only nine humans working as quality assessors to supervise processes.

The installation of a dark factory needs strategic planning for the effective use of tools and technologies. The lack of strategies could lead to various challenges like safety, reliability, flexibility, and network performance. Besides, expensive installation costs and lack of quality are other major challenges. We can overcome these challenges through the effective use of technologies.

How, so let’s discuss some exciting strategic tips for establishing dark factories in a better way:

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Five Technology Tips The dark factories have eliminated the need for human intervention. It depends only on robots and machines that work together in a dark automated environment. The lights-out manufacturing operations offer benefits including efficient business operations, and high capacities to process huge data, mass productions, quality products, no requirement of unskilled laborers, and lower labor costs. These benefits are attracting industries to switch towards dark factories. Although, challenges associated with dark factory establishment are making them think twice before making a final decision.

1. Blockchain – “Use it to establish trust among business partners”’ The most prominent feature of blockchain is that it could be used in places where there is a lack of trust among business associates. Different digital ledger databases are already offering services to factories. The basic concept of a blockchain database is: whenever participants submit updates to the ledger, it uses an automated process to take approval on updates from other participants within the network. Thus, a blockchain builds a record of all transactions and other agreements.

The AutomationWorld has shared the most foreseen application for blockchain in manufacturing industries.

It describes the following uses: which include traceability (55%), record management (53%), supply chain automation (51%), and payment via cryptocurrencies (51%). One of the biggest concerns while implementing dark factories is data security concerning interconnected and automated systems. In a dark factory setup, the data is shared across machines, systems, supply chain partners, machinery providers, manufacturers, and associated business partners. It raises the question of data security within factories. The auditing, six-sigma practices, documentation, etc., have been used to build trust among different stakeholders of dark factories. All these lead to expensive costs.

So, how can we utilize the blockchain to overcome these concerns? The following tips could help companies bring competition in manufacturing sectors through blockchain.

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• The Internet of Things or IoT connects the objects through the internet to encourage data automation and sharing. The integration of blockchain with IoT would enhance data security, reliability, transparency, and interoperability. Hardware and software are fundamental components of dark factories and, this integration would support checking hardware identity and make stable documentation. Top IoT companies, Cisco and Bosch, are developing an “Open Source Standard” to integrate IoT and blockchain effectively. The standard would bring a smart card interface for seamless data movement within blockchain-enabled systems.

• Another way to use blockchain is: Use the existing feature of “Self-managed blockchain” and affix tools to improve facilities and enhance production. It is referred to as “Blockchain as a Service or BaaS” to organize host nodes in the cloud platforms and local storages.

• The next innovative way to use blockchain is: Use the “Pay-per-use” model or “Machines as a Services/ MaaS” that offers services, machinery, and equipment to customers who can pay according to the generated output. It would be best for heavy manufacturing industries like aircraft, boats, tractors.

2. LiFi – “Modern technology to improve data communication among dark factory” Low Fidelity or, in short, LiFi is a modern practical technology to deliver and transmit data using visible, ultraviolet, or infrared lights rather than radio frequencies. It is also considered to be a promising technology as researchers are still working on it.

Dark factories are facing issues in data transmission and communication because of radio-frequency signals.

Theoretically, the radio frequencies have high speed, but practically, the data speed is lower. This variation is causing high latency issue. The overall output is a delay in data communication within machines, systems, and other connected objects. The technology has the potential to overcome these challenges and issues associated with data transmission through 5G. The LiFi technology supports smooth communication among all machinery and does not cause network interference like radio frequency systems Communication without delay leads to improved productivity and quality of products/services. The high transmission speed and broad bandwidth could enhance the efficiency

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“

The lights-out manufacturing operations offer benefits including efficient business operations, and high capacities to process huge data, mass productions, quality products, no requirement of unskilled laborers, and lower labor costs”

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of the manufacturing processes. In this way, the adoption of this technology would support automation more reliably within dark factories. Hence, choosing this technology within dark factories would be a better decision for a manufacturer to generate fast and secure data communication among all interconnected parts.

3. Internet of Things/IoT – “Develop new IoT platforms to accelerate operations within dark factory” We already highlighted that the integration of IoT with blockchain could bring a drastic improvement in dark factories. The main objective of IoT is to build smart objects using sensors, software, and hardware. IoT is already offering remote monitoring, chip management, security, loading/unloading of materials, maintenance, etc., in dark factories. In short, without IoT, building a dark factory is not possible. So, how can we improve the operations through IoT? The answer is by developing a new IoT platform as per industry requirements that would enhance automation. Developing an IoT platform is not complex and does not require huge investment.

The initial investment in developing an IoT platform will benefit the manufacturer in the long run.

We all know that dark factories face issues in the supply chain section and face end-to-end data management and analysis problems. The development of a new platform would support effective data processing, analytics, and output delivery.

Let’s see an example of a company that brought a new IoT platform by merging it with manufacturing execution and intelligence system to encourage the adoption of dark factories. The company’s name is Critical Manufacturing, which uses the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to build Industry 4.0 or Dark Factories. . It is also offering high-tech and complex products. The company aims only to drive productivity across the supply chain. The company recently launched a more advanced and disruptive product, “Industry 4.0 MES”, a new IoT data platform. The company has integrated MES with IoT to bring innovation in material logistics and automation. This new approach can overcome all possible challenges associated with data management in dark factory installation.

4. Integration of Cloud Computing and Edge Computing – “Develop centralized ecosystem” Manufacturers know that ensuring security, reliability, and high network performance within dark factories is challenging; and, a single technology can’t provide this surety. Besides, market demands to scale up production with efficacy. We already discussed that blockchain and IoT have features to improve security in specific areas.

Along with these technologies, the implementation of cloud computing and edge computing could overcome these challenges.

Edge computing has the potential to reduce latency, increase network performance, and deliver reliable services, whereas cloud computing can scale platforms to process huge data. Combining decentralized edge computing and centralized cloud computing will bring an effective industrial automation platform for dark factories. We can call this platform a centralized ecosystem that could produce multiple data resources and process data. For instance, “Industrial Cloud” is a customized platform to support industrial automation. In short, it can efficiently analyze edge computing data that ensures data reliability within the dark factory.

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5. Augmented Reality – “Simulate dark factory processes” Another trending technology, Augmented Reality (AR), is getting popular by providing a real-world experience to people in a virtual environment. AR is using audio, visual, and other sensory elements for creating a simulated environment. . High implementation cost is a critical challenge for manufacturers while considering AR technology in their dark factories, which prevents them from using it. However, the technology could help them to install dark factories prudently.

Manufacturers should have used AR for focusing on lights-out processes. For instance, the supply chain is a critical part of dark factory operations. If we could use AR to find out approx time for material movements and their management, it would be helpful to make the supply chain more flexible. Similarly, the technology AR can also be considered a coach to understand the data processing according to business needs. These two things would help the companies to install dark factories to smooth business operations

Recap

Nowadays, automation and digitation have become a priority for businesses. For industrial companies, dark factories are a modern manufacturing method where operations take place in the dark.

These businesses seek to execute tedious and risky operations in a safe environment. The arrival of dark factories is helping them to run a factory using programming robots without human interference.

We are already aware that dark factory is the outcome of different technologies. We also explored that how it could be used more productively in manufacturing operations. Making changes in manufacturing processes would encourage industries to adopt the future of factories to be competent in technology.

The manufacturers must consider factors such as feasibility, benefits, associated regulations, and compliance with business objectives irrespective of technologies. It is because all these directly impact the decisions of installation. According to current business problems, it is suggested to use one or more technologies in dark factories.

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Cyber Attack Leads to Shut Down of the US Fuel Pipeline Anjali Prabhanjanan

10 Techfastly | June 2021

A cyber-attack on May 7 involving ransomware has led to the top US oil and gas pipeline operator; Colonial Pipeline shut its entire network. The Colonial Pipeline fuels through 5,500 miles of pipelines that connect their refiners on the Gulf Coast to the east and south of the US. This is one of the most disruptive digital ransom operations ever reported that sheds light on the vulnerability of the US energy infrastructure to hackers.

Managing director of the Climate Policy Lab and Research Professor, Amy Myers Jaffe says, “This is as close as you can get to the jugular of infrastructure in the United States and it is not a major pipeline, and just the pipeline.”

This ransomware attack on the major US fuel pipeline could be one of the most expensive attacks on an economy. It is the latest reminder of the increasing frequency and severity of the catastrophic digital shocks on critical infrastructure.

The growing digitalization in critical infrastructures such as water, oil, and gas increases the risks of cyber threats and attacks. With digitalization driving the growth and transition to net-zero emissions, the ecosystem of the energy sector has become increasingly decentralized and complex.

As per the 2021 Global Risks Report, cybersecurity failures are among the top mid-term threats for the world. According to a recent survey run by The World Economic Forum among the Cybersecurity Leadership Community members, about 80% of senior cybersecurity leaders view ransomware as a dangerous growing threat to public safety. Also, 97% of them have expressed that continuity in business is a major risk when it comes to ransomware attacks.

As the Colonial Pipeline, a US fuel pipeline operator, is shut down post a ransomware attack, it is estimated that a prolonged shutdown would cause prices to rise at the gasoline pumps across the country. This could be a potential blow to US consumers and the economy.

This cyber incident has shown how essential service providers are more vulnerable to widespread cyber threats. That’s why cybersecurity is becoming a corporate strategic challenge that requires the highest level of oversight in the complex global industrial environment.

Also, other recent cyber-attacks such as those on a SolarWinds software provider and a Florida Water Plant emphasize that the success of these events will depend on the shortcomings of the measures in place to mitigate such cyber threats.

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All About the Cyber-attack on the US Oil and Gas Pipeline

About Colonial Pipeline It is a privately held, Georgia-based company that is owned by the CDPQ Colonial Partners L.P., IFM (US) Colonial Pipeline 2 LLC, Koch Capital Investments Company LLC, KKR- Keats Pipeline Investors L.P., and Shell Midstream Operating LLC. The firm serves some of the country’s largest airports, including Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson Airport, the world’s busiest by passenger traffic.

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Update After Cyber Attacks on The Pipeline Colonial Pipeline is taking steps to understand and resolve this issue so they can efficiently and safely restore their services to normal.

A former official says that the US government investigators are looking at a professional cybercriminal group dubbed “DarkSide”, which is renowned for deploying ransomware and extorting the victims while avoiding targets in post-Soviet states. Ransomware is a type of malware that’s designed to lock down the systems by encrypting data and demanding payment to regain access.

Colonial states that a cybersecurity firm is helping them with the investigation and contacted the law enforcement and federal agencies. Sources from the cybersecurity industry say that FireEye®, a cybersecurity firm headquartered in California, was brought in to respond to this cyber-attack.

President Joe Biden was briefed on this ransomware attack, and the government has been working to help the Colonial to restore its operations and prevent their supply disruptions. Mr. Biden said that the government agencies acted promptly to lessen any impact on the fuel supply caused by this attack.

Further, they are actively preparing extra steps depending on how quickly the firm restores its normal operations.

Three days later after the incident, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officially confirmed that a cyber-criminal gang, “DarkSide”, was responsible for compromising Colonial Pipeline’s networks.

The Department of Energy said it was monitoring the potential impacts on the nation’s energy supply, while both the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Transportation Security Administration were working on the situation. Executive Assistant Director of the Cybersecurity Division at CISA, Eric Goldstein said, “We are engaged with the firm and our interagency partners regarding the incidence that emphasizes the ransomware threat to businesses and organizations irrespective of the size or sector.”

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Colonial did not say how long its pipeline would be shut or did not give further details about the situation.

Cyber Strategy Lead of the Centre for Cybersecurity at the World Economic Forum, Algirde Pipikaite said, “Cybersecurity vulnerabilities have become a systemic issue. Unless embedding the cybersecurity measures during technology’s development phase, there is a higher risk to see such frequent attacks on the industrial systems.”

How Did The Cyber-Attack Occur?

Cybersecurity sources said this ransomware attack was likely caused by a cybercriminal gang called DarkSide. They infiltrated the network of this operator and locked the data on some of their computers and servers, and are now demanding a ransom from the Colonial Pipeline.

Digital Shadows, a cybersecurity firm in England thinks the Colonial attack was helped by the coronavirus pandemic, as more engineers remotely access the control systems for the pipeline from their homes. The co-founder of this cybersecurity firm, James Chappell believes that DarkSide could have bought account login details from remote working software such as Microsoft Remote Desktop and TeamViewer.

He adds anyone can look up the login portals for the computers connected to the internet on search engines like Shodan, and then have hackers try usernames and passwords until they get some to work. Mr. Chappell said there is an increase in the number of cybercrime victims and the number of small businesses falling prey to cybercrimes is becoming a big problem for the economy worldwide.

The research by Digital Shadows shows that DarkSide is probably be based in a Russian-speaking country because it avoids attacking companies in Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

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More Details On This Incident Meanwhile, DarkSide has acknowledged the incident in a public statement after they took a major US fuel pipeline offline over the weekend. Colonial pipeline carries about 45% of the East Coast’s supply of gasoline and other fuels. After the cyber-attack, the fuel operator took itself offline and is working to restore its service.

Their website shows, “Our goal is to make money, and not create any issues for society. From today, we introduce moderation and check each company that our partners want to encrypt for evading any social consequences in the future.”

How Did They Deal With This Ransomware Attack?

The FBI and other government agencies worked with private cybersecurity firms to respond to this cyber-attack. They took down the cloud computing system the hackers used for collecting the stolen data on Saturday. Colonial stated that although its four main pipelines remained offline, some smaller lines between terminals and delivery points were now operational.

They said after learning of the attack, they took certain systems offline which temporarily stopped all the pipeline operations. It also affected some of their IT systems that are being in the process of restoring. They further said they will bring its full system back online only when they believe it is safe to do so, and in full compliance with the approval of all federal regulations.

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Ransomware as a Service This incident highlights the risk of ransomware to not just the businesses but critical national industrial infrastructure. The victims of a cyber-attack by DarkSide receive an information pack notifying their servers and computers are encrypted.

This cybercriminal gang has listed all the types of data they have stolen and sends the URL of a “personal leak page” to the victims, where the data is locked and waiting to be automatically published if the organization or company doesn’t pay before the deadline.

They also inform their victims sharing the proof of the data it has obtained, and they are prepared to delete all of it from the target’s network.

According to Digital Shadows, this cybercriminal gang operates as a business- develop the software used for encrypting and steal data from the companies. Then provides ransomware to affiliates who pay them a percentage of their earnings from any successful attacks.

After releasing a new software in March this year, the gang issue a press release and invited journalists to interview them about how this program could encrypt data faster than before.

DarkSide has a website on the dark web listing all the companies they have hacked, details of what was stolen, and has an “ethics” page stating which organizations they will not attack.

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Worries on the Increasing Pump Prices As per the American Automobile Association, a prolonged outage of the line could trigger increases in gas prices at the pumps, which is worrying for consumers ahead of the summer driving season. Andrew Lipow, President of Consultancy, Lipow Oil Associates said, “A shutdown lasting four or five days could lead to sporadic outages at the fuel terminals along the US East Coast that depends on the pipelines for deliveries.”

Post shutdown, the gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange gained 0.6% while diesel futures rose 1.1%, both overtaking gains in crude oil. Gulf Coast cash prices for both gasoline and diesel edged lower on the prospects that the supplies could accrue in the region.

Oil refining companies said that their operations had not yet been impacted by this Cyber-attack and remain in full service.

How to Increase Cybersecurity?

Businesses and governments must reimagine how we use and manage our critical infrastructure to harness the value offered by digitalization and mitigate potential risks. They should understand the effects of our individual actions to establish frameworks for shared responsibility. We are more likely to see such frequent attacks on industrial sectors like the water treatment plants or the oil and gas pipelines unless we embed cybersecurity into the corporates or industrial sectors.

Based on the recommendations developed by the World Economic Forum and a multi-stakeholder oil and gas community, here are the six principles to guide the critical infrastructure and industry stakeholders to improve their cybersecurity: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Create a comprehensive cybersecurity governance model Promote security and resilience-by design culture Increase the visibility of risk position by the third parties and consider broader ecosystem model Implement holistic risk management and defense mechanisms with effective prevention, monitoring, response, and recovering capabilities.

5. Prepare and tests resilience plan based on a list of pre-defined scenarios to mitigate the impact of an attack 6. Reinforce international public-private collaboration between all stakeholders in the industry

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Wrap Up The American Petroleum Institute, a top oil and gas industry trade group in the US is monitoring the situation. This cyberattack is a wake-up call for US lawmakers as it shows our lack of preparedness to deal against cyber-attacks on critical infrastructures.

In 2017, Colonial Pipeline had to shut down its gasoline and distillate lines when Hurricane Harvey hit the Gulf Coast. This incident contributed to the tight supplies and gasoline price hikes in the United States after the hurricane forced several Gulf refineries to shut down.

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Everything You Should Know About Cybersecurity Automation Anjali Prabhanjanan Intro: The year 2020 saw the rapid spread of coronavirus across different countries of the world, with the World Health Organization announcing it as a pandemic situation. The governments of many countries had to declare complete lockdowns to prevent the spread of Covid-19. This forced companies to create remote workforces and operate off the cloud-based platforms to continue running their businesses.

All this to say that the cybersecurity industry has never been more important. With the ongoing coronavirus mutations that are rapidly spreading among people in different countries, remote working is forecasted not to stop anytime soon. Moreover, as remote workers will continue to be a target for cybercriminals, cloud breaches will tend to increase. So, cybersecurity remains an issue for the worldwide businesses that are now involved in remote working.

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Today all businesses irrespective of their sizes are seeking methods to improve their efficacy and profitability from IT activities by investing in cybersecurity. Irrespective of how people think about automation- whether they feel it has a positive impact on their businesses or kills cybersecurity jobsthis does not divert the truth that automation is set to cause changes in cybersecurity jobs.

That’s due to the many ways for achieving the set goals of businesses today, which include cybersecurity automation in their business operations, which is regarded as a way to “make the playing ground level” for cyber attackers and cybersecurity pundits. The key objective is to minimize and possibly eliminate cyber threats. Cybersecurity automation is meant to: • Integrate artificial intelligence (AI) with machine learning (ML) techniques into the system to improve the analytic capabilities of the businesses • Make the collection of data faster, easier, and more effective • Eradicate tedious, time-consuming tasks to relieve the IT security pundits so they can prioritize high-level tasks.

Every business organization wants to have cybersecurity automation integrated into its information infrastructure.

It allows them to relocate human resources to other departments where their efforts are needed more to improve the efficiency of the company.

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Cybersecurity Automation

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21 Techfastly | June 2021

Cybersecurity Automation: What is it?

Cybersecurity automation entails

attackers are increasingly launching

detection, and various cognitive

substituting the manual processes/

sophisticated attacks on businesses.

functions. Integrating RPA into

operations with automated systems

So, what sort of cybersecurity

businesses has many advantages

to enable cyber threat detection

automation tools are required

from logical, threat, and compliance

and prevention while enhancing

to incorporate into the security

perspectives.

the response intelligence of the

systems/processes of a business?

RPA increases cybersecurity

organizations to protect themselves

efficiency by eliminating the

from cyber-attacks. In other words,

Let us now discuss the automation

burden of performing manual,

the automation of cybersecurity

solutions and platforms attested by

repetitive, and tedious tasks. It

helps to:

cybersecurity experts.

assists in reducing the involvement of humans, which is considered

• Minimizes the human involvement in handling the sensitive security activities • Predict any potential risks and cyber threats and retaliate to them effectively Today, companies across the

Cybersecurity Automation Solutions and Platforms

the most significant cybersecurity vulnerability. That’s because knowingly or unknowingly, humans are the biggest threat to the cyber health of businesses. So, eliminating the human aspect when handling the organizational data makes it more secure. All in all, applying

cybersecurity expenditure in

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

their business operations. As per

It involves using both physical

large extent.

Gartner’s Forecast Analysis, the

and virtual or software robots in

• RPA assists in performing

worldwide cybersecurity solutions

the industrial processes to handle

device discovery and inventory

will reach $170.4 billion in 2022.

repetitive duties. For cybersecurity

and aids in identifying the

Also, the cybersecurity automation

automation, RPA uses automated

exposed attack surfaces to

industry that includes the

systems/tools/platforms to manage

counter the cyber attacks

application of AI and ML is expected

or handle intellectual functions

to grow soon rapidly.

such as inspections, scanning, and

threats and time of response

low-level instance responses.

through the application of

Cybersecurity automation is

Further, it may include extraction

automated diagnosis and alert

critical to all companies as cyber-

and collection of data, basic threat

notifications

world have reported a rise in

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RPA in businesses helps to reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities to a

• It minimizes the detection of

• It enables automatic updates

PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry

and patches rollout, hence

Data Security Standard) and

increase the cybersecurity of

GDPR (General Data Protection

businesses

Regulation) standards. For instance,

• This technology provides never-ending security coverage • It refurbishes cybersecurity teams with inadequate talents • It reduces human involvement in handling sensitive data • It reduces the commitment of IT

RPA can be used for notifying any data breach, and data documents, roll out informed consent alerts, and data aggregation.

Nonetheless, companies should not be overly dependent on RPA for all their cybersecurity solutions,

security pundits so that they can

especially those that require high

concentrate on other high-level

cognitive and analytical abilities,

tasks

which should be a mix of highcognitive learning methods/

Additionally, businesses that have

techniques/technologies and human

adopted RPA stay compliant with

intervention.

various regulations including,

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SOAR and SIEM SOAR (Security Orchestration and Response) is a combination of IT technologies enhancing cybersecurity with minimal human involvement in low-cognitive activities. It is meant to advance the major cybersecurity affiliated functions like orchestration and automation of security, and security response. This technology performs three tasks by enhancing the management capabilities of risks and vulnerability, responding to cybersecurity instances, and automating the security activities.

SOAR and SIEM (Security Incidence

and Event Management) are related

heterogeneous. It uses the SIEM

the SOAR and SIEM cybersecurity

in a couple of ways- these two

alerts and automatically retaliates

technologies ensure that the tools

technologies collect and apply data

them. It uses cognitive techniques

protect the organizations against

from different sources for analyzing

such as AI and ML tools for learning

several cyber threats.

and identifying any strange,

which enables them to detect

irregular, or suspicious activities.

both the known and the unknown

Though these two solution

threats. It helps to automate and

technologies usually operate side-

enhance the security operations as

by-side to offer data security, they

well as retaliate to the cyber threats

differ in several ways.

and potential risks by wiping out

SIEM is a more manual operation

repetitive tasks and introducing the

compared to SOAR as it needs

orchestration of operations within

manual retaliations to perform

an organization.

different tasks such as the normal

The main function of SOAR

system upgrades and technology

security orchestration helps

tweaks, rule setting, improvement

prevent phishing attacks. Robotic

in efficiency, increase detection

automation in data collection,

effectiveness, and signature

analysis, and improving operations

optimization. However, SIEM

reduces the time of risk detection

solutions are limited to detect

and response time to these phishing

known threats and are quite

attacks.

inaccurate to detect new and

Both these technologies are usually

unknown threats.

applied hand-in-hand due to their

Compared to SIEM, SOAR is more

similarities. By integrating both

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Certificate and Key Management

Application of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates and keys is a cybersecurity threat for an organization. For instance, the existence of blind spots in the network, that is the poor visibility within the network where shadow certificates cause operation outages, security breaches, and network downtime.

Network outage affects businesses in a couple of ways such as noncompliance penalties, loss of revenues, loss of reputation, loss of customers, etc. A 14-hour outage

cost Facebook an estimated $90 million in March 2019. While the loss in revenue for small businesses due to downtime drops to the lower-but-still-significant tune of $137 to $427 per minute.

Certificate and key management platforms enhance the business’ operations. These tools help the business owners to detect/identify/understand all digital certificates existing within their network irrespective of their type, date of issue, brand, or date of expiry. The certificates identified by these tools include SSL and TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates, client certificates, IoT (Internet of Things) certificates.

Certificate management platforms enable cybersecurity automation where tedious and time-consuming operations involving manual management of thousands of keys and certificates are automated through the following: • Automating the three-month, two-month, and one-month expiry notifications of certificates • Automation of issuing, installing, renewing, and revoking certificates • Automating the creation of users • Automating the generation of reports Having a valid and sturdy SSL certificate is a crucial element of an organization’s cyber health. Using SSL certificates in the modern world of technology has become so extensive that managing them is a handy task for companies. That’s because the businesses have lists of the number of SSL certificates owned by the enterprise, the issuer, the number of public keys associated with the certificates, and the people allowed to access the keys.

Therefore, the certificate management tools play a critical role by automating the discovery process for the SSL certificates.

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Custom Software Solution Development Every business differs in terms of operations and needs from the other. Though the available cybersecurity automation technologies are significantly critical to businesses, now companies are finding it better to build their own solutions customized to meet the peculiar requirements of their business. For instance, it might be an activity that the company’s workforce could handle, but the management would want to delegate them to a third party.

Wrap Up It is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to secure themselves from cyber threats and mitigate attacks due to their sophistication. Today, security teams all over the globe are facing the hurdle of effectively managing millions of notifications generated by the security systems/tools/platforms. To investigate these threats, cyber experts must execute manual, repetitive and, time-consuming tasks. Fortunately, cybersecurity automation solves these problems experienced in day-to-day business operations. Automation and integration of cybersecurity in business operations are becoming significant to save resources such as data, revenue, and reputation for many organizations worldwide.

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Cybersecurity Risks Associated with Smart Cities

Pranita Herwade

We are currently living in an interconnected digital world influenced by technology. Technology is transforming our daily lives and affecting businesses tremendously worldwide. People will be the most benefitted from the technology with enhanced lifestyle and quality of public services. The governance and routine processes involved in government offices and companies also adopt new technologies for better productivity and efficient performance.

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Modern technology brings intelligence into each domain by providing valuable information and scientifically data-derived decisions. Intelligent infrastructure, connectivity, smart agriculture, smart cities are some of the typical results from integrated technological solutions.

This article focuses on smart cities, the technologies behind smart city development, and their vulnerability to cybersecurity risks. The article closes with a short discussion on future smart cities.

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What Is A SmartCity?

A smart city is not just a widespread and hyped-up concept among people.

Many metro cities around the world are using digital technologies to make their services better for citizens. There are interconnected services provided by local governance; Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and traffic control are the common examples of how technology makes daily transportation easy and smooth.

A smart city uses technology to improve the quality of service and life of its citizen. Smart cities solely depend on technologies to improve management, services, and operations. Precise decision-making is vital for smooth and seamless processes in all smart city associated sectors, such as private, public, and voluntary sectors. Officials use technological solutions to acknowledge present situations and future changes and optimize the city functions and provide solutions accordingly.

A smart city has every node connected by the technology, from transport systems, power distributions, street lights to homes. The data is collected from each node to improve its service and make

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“A smart city has every node connected by the technology, from transport systems, power distributions, street lights to homes” citizens’ lives better and easier. For example, smart energy solutions reduce the energy consumption on streets, offices, and homes.

The United Nations estimates about 68% of the global population will be in urban areas by 2050. Urban populations are the cause of significant environmental, economic and societal challenges.

These challenges can be reduced with intelligence technology resources without sacrificing the quality of city life.

A smart city is an interconnected network of devices such as sensors, smartphones, communication networks, and the Internet of Things (IoT). These devices share data with city officials, engineers, managers, and administrators over the internet. The meaningful information is extracted from the data, and various city operations and tasks are accomplished.

Smart City Development Technologies: Smart city infrastructure development has several technical and non-technical building blocks. As smart city services depend on the data, the digital infrastructure to collect, transmit, analyze, store, and share data is essential. IoT devices need a 24X7 internet connection for which robust 5G communication network infrastructure is a crucial parameter. The design, development, production, integration, and performance of each layer of this infrastructure must be fully functional with standards followed.

Each smart city requirement will be different, and so the infrastructure and technologies used in building the smart city. However, each smart city infrastructure needs to overcome its weaknesses through strengths and unique features.

But, some fundamental technologies remain the same in the development of smart cities, such as information and communication technology (ICT), IoT, sensors, 30 Techfastly | June 2021

geospatial technology, AI, blockchain, data analytics, and ML. Sophisticated sensors are used to collect data from various locations.

This data is pre-processed and transmitted through wireless sensor networks to the central control room. The software algorithms based on data analytics, AI and ML process the data and provide helpful information, patterns and structures that help experts make the most accurate decisions. A real-life example of this is tracking and monitoring daily data, and traffic control signals which can be adjusted automatically based on peak traffic time.

“Some fundamental technologies remain the same in the development of smart cities, such as information and communication technology (ICT), IoT, sensors, geospatial technology, AI, blockchain, data analytics, and ML” Cities are already adapting different existing technologies and making citizen’s life less complicated, but smart cities will be entirely different in terms of functioning and controlling their assets. Though technologies remain at the center of smart city development, there is a dark side of cybersecurity threats and risks from technological dependencies.

Cybersecurity Risks Associated with Smart Cities: Smart city works on central control; and its various systems, services and departments that are controlled by central management. Automatic management is one of the attractive features of smart cities: the blessing of intelligence and precision of advanced technologies.

Internet-connected devices like cameras and sensors are installed everywhere in the city that collects enormous data. The data ranges from general monitoring to suspecting activities such as unauthenticated access to private or secure assets In the city. It is then transmitted to the central control over wireless networks and cloud-based data management systems. The analysis and decision-making are carried out by tracking data points with high intelligence and capacity.

Now, all that looks very simple, but there are several potholes to this concept. Though smart city features exist already, they are not yet fully functional and secured.

Many technologies are involved in the interconnected network that is not entirely evolved, properly synchronized and integrated. The complexity of interlinked networks is very high. It leaves room for cybercrime such as identity theft, data & asset theft, device hijacking, distributed Denial-of-Service (DoS),

Man-In-the-Middle attacks, physical disruption, and ransomware.

Smart cities are prone to cybersecurity risks that can disable the functioning of smart cities while putting their entire population in danger. The deeply interconnected systems that run smart cities are very complicated. Unfortunately, there are no standard guidelines and best practices available for all smart city stakeholders like governments, software providers, local businesses, security providers, energy providers, IoT device makers, communication network providers and so on. All stakeholders need to consider cybersecurity as a serious issue while allowing any new technology to be installed directly into smart city system infrastructure.

Smart city has physical, communication database and interface layers, and it is prone to cyberattacks at any layer. Each layer is integrated with more usage of technologies, which leads to more cybersecurity risks. Hackers get plenty of targets to attack from a network of thousands and millions of interconnected devices. Even unimportant unauthenticated access to the infrastructure can disrupt the entire smart city system. Therefore, care must be taken on the security and privacy of the data from ground level and safeguard it from falling into the wrong people’s hands.

It is not only technologies, but hackers are becoming intelligent and coming out with new techniques and kinds of attacks. That will need continuous monitoring, auditing and updating devices, authenticity and authority of actions carried out on the data.

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Future Smart Cities: Smooth transportation, no traffic jam, smart garbage collection, clean streets, smart power grids, seamless connectivity, intelligent waste management, recycled resources, solar panels, and automatic devices are the perfect picture we can imagine for the future smart city. Everything in the city will be organized for citizens’ comfort, reducing power consumption and reducing pollution while improving public health and economic opportunities.

There is no doubt that smart city development will be a reality soon as many governments have already sanctioned intelligent city projects, and development has been started in several nations. Technologies will upgrade, and so the smart city infrastructure. Thus, smart city development will be a never-ending process. The only concern to adapting and integrating new technologies will be making sure top security, privacy and protection of the entire data.

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Stakeholders should take early steps in securing smart cities at the start of the planning, during development and continue emphasizing security at each stage of the development and maintenance.

Interview with

Uday Akkaraju About Uday Akkaraju Uday Akkaraju is the CEO of BOND.AI, an awardwinning human-centered artificial intelligence platform for banks. Uday Akkaraju has a background in interaction design and cognitive science and focuses on making machine intelligence empathetic and created the world’s first Empathy EngineTM for finance. Uday was recognized as an ‘International Innovator’ by the New York City Economic Development Corporation and as ‘Titians of tech’

by Arkansas Money & Politics.

Prior to BOND.AI, Uday founded and successfully ran an artificial intelligence research lab that helped early stage companies design the product and take it to market. He regularly speaks at international tech conferences such as the Mobile World Congress, Paris Fintech Forum, Money 2020, IBM Tech Talks, Signal, Finovate, Voice and more. Outside of the office, Uday advises a number of AI startups & entrepreneurs to help create fair and equitable machine learning systems.

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About BOND.AI BOND.AI is an award winning human-centered AI platform for banks, powered by the world’s first Empathy Engine. It helps banks intimately understand user behavior and nudge them towards improving financial health. BOND.AI significantly increases user engagement, lifetime customer value and most importantly helps monetize data for financial institutions.

BOND.AI was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Little Rock, USA. It has operating offices in New York(USA), Pune(India) & Geneva(Switzerland).

Q. Tell us a little bit about your past before you started bond.ai and what inspired you to start this amazing platform?

I was a complete outsider to the financial services domain & bringing this concept to market was not even an idea.

But before starting BOND.AI, I spent many years traveling, understanding various cultures, looking at people’s needs and suffering to try to contribute in some way to solve their problems. Seeing and living someone else’s issues, gives you a completely different perspective about life.

Gives you a sense of responsibility and genuinely makes you map out how you fit in this world.

But a few years ago, I had a deep problem myself. I had a financial situation and probably hit the worst phase of my life. I badly needed help but none of my banks or anybody would empathize with me. There was no way out other than trying to create a program to help understand myself as a third person: to empathize with my future self. I did that, and in 18 months, I was lucky to be completely out of that hole. I even had enough left to invest in BOND.AI When I saw from higher up, it was not just me, I found more than 2/3rds in my survey were struggling. About 70% of the United States population & almost half of the world’s population was under financial stress. The realization was profound and that life-changing journey was the reason behind even thinking of making this a business idea.

Q. What’s your vision with bond.ai? Could you tell us your expansion plans in terms of which markets are you targeting currently and which markets do you intend to in the future?

We believe, if one has to stay happy there are three pillars we need to take care of. Physical health, mental health & financial health. All three are somewhat interdependent and our focus at BOND.AI is enhancing the financial health aspect of every consumer who uses our platform.

We provide our AI platform to financial institutions so that they can better serve their consumers, unlike what happened in my case when I had an issue. Financial institutions are in the best position to help move our societies & communities in a better direction because they sit at the center of the economy and they need to act.

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We recently launched a new product called the ‘BOND Account’. It is a complete re-invention of a bank account. It is the world’s first financial wellness account for banks & credit unions. With a game-changing user interface, a revolutionary ‘Insight-a-Day’ module powered by our Empathy Engine® and a chatbot as your friendly financial advisor, the BOND Account is an amalgamation of all our work so far. While we majorly serve the U.S. based institutions now, the BOND Account will be available in international markets, starting with India & APAC this September.

Q. Could you describe your Empathy Engine in detail for our readers and what it does.

Empathy is our greatest ability and what defines us as human. Empathy is something where you put yourself in the position of someone else, feel like them & think like them. But you cannot truly empathize unless you know enough about the consumer or you have been in a similar situation before. Right now, we as a civilization are in a cusp where our ability to empathize is fading.

The reason, our lives are surrounded by so much information & mis-information overload that deciphering between signal & noise is becoming impossible. We now have an empathy-deficit.

With so much noise & empathy deficit it is difficult for one to think clearly and empathize with our future self! That insight drove us to help reflect back to users their own behavior.

What the empathy engine does is, based on the financial data of the consumer, it creates unique personas and understands their behavior & what they truly need. It then helps enhance their financial health by giving one insight every day.

By introducing insights/suggestions as behavioral nudges, the engine incrementally helps influence users’ behavior towards their stated financial goals. With the empathy engine we create an augmented version of oneself to communicate to them and their subconscious. The empathy engine powered bot or the GUI is an enhanced version of you—it knows your needs, and is influencing you. The end goal is behavioral change. It doesn’t happen overnight. But at the end of every conversation, the needle moves in the right direction.

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Q. You mention that there is a 65% decrease in call center costs and 40% increase in digital engagement when using your platform. Could you throw some light on those metrics?

Let us take an example here: You want to find out details about your FD balance or interest earned or the pay-off amount of your home loan. These are straightforward tasks for which you need not call your bank’s customer care or login to your online banking.

Just interacting with our voice bot on your phone will get answers 24x7. Having a bot is a no brainer, but most financial institutions are just adopting it. To add to the normal FAQs it can answer, our chatbot is powered by the Empathy Engine to have more advanced conversations. For example, a consumer can ask for advice for securing retirement funds, what can they afford or even questions like “Am I making the right decision in buying a house now?”.With such a variety of usecases we see a decrease in call to the customer care and hence banks are saving significant money. You may say, is this affecting jobs? No, the same 20 people working in the call center can be focussed on answering more complex questions and for customers the wait times are less. It is optimizing time & money for everyone.

Q. Why do you feel it’s the right time to deploy chatbots in the banking sector?

As I mentioned above there are so many redundant tasks you can automate with bots. Secondly, financial decisions are not something you take instantly. You need advice, guidance to finally pull

the trigger. And for getting advice you need to have multiple conversations with someone. If a bot can do that and drive empathy why not, right? Also, conversations are a natural phenomenon for humans. It is a natural UI we are born with.

There is no need to articulate anything but simply speak.

Banking is complicated, chatbots can simplify it.

Q. What can fintech do to shape humanity’s future?

Money is not the only aspect our lives are based upon but certainly is a significant part of how our lives are shaped. With what we have been through in the last year, today’s fintechs have a very unique opportunity to use this new beginning to re-shape our lives. If earth returns to the previous normal, we as a fintech community will have failed. Fintech so far has excelled and succeeded in creating friction-less tools. But what it has not done (and can do) is create economic equality. Today we are divided based on economic status. Right from countries to neighborhoods it has become a way of segmentation and how one receives benefits. The gap between the wealthy and the poor is at a historic high compared to the pre-pandemic times.

Even the advent of crypto currencies which is a fantastic way to create money has failed to address this fundamental factor.

The next generation of fintechs can reshape our lives if it can focus on three important factors: Re-calibrating consumer behavior, Tools for better wealth distribution, Help financial institutions move at the speed of fintech.

“The empathy engine powered bot or the GUI is an enhanced version of you” Uday Akkaraju

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“If fintech can help connect the dots between legacy systems, modern connectivity protocols & frictionless applications, banks can run at the speed of fintech and the time to address consumer needs will relatively become zero”

Uday Akkaraju Re-calibrate consumer behavior: Everyone has some kind of need or have taken a hit on their economic stability and are looking for insights on how to get out of it. In the US a cornerstone advisors research said 63% of consumers say that their financial institution is not helping, or may even be hurting their financial health.

In whatever vertical a fintech is operating, be it loans, credit, etc, along with providing frictionless tools, they have to focus on imparting bite-sized knowledge contextually while engaging with the consumer. Not just provide insights just to bring them back to normal, but also proactively recalibrate their behavior to help them become financially resilient to future crises.

Tools for better wealth distribution: With any pandemic or recession it is the hourly wage workers, the middle and upper-middle income(the majority) who are probably the worst affected and Fintechs have excelled in alternate credit modeling & even high-risk lending, but now we need to ask how we can address the fundamental problem of income inequality. Is universal basic income(UBI) the right solution? Can we create a universal retirement plan/401k like medical insurance? How can one help create income streams? The great recession of the past actually reduced income inequality, but this time fintech needs to take it to the next level.

Help banks move at the speed of fintech: Fintech cannot do it alone. Banks have unmatched advantages of data and large consumer pools, and fintechs only need to help banks move faster. They say, the 37 Techfastly | June 2021

faster you move the slower the time gets and at speed of light, time stops. Similarly, if fintech can help connect the dots between legacy systems, modern connectivity protocols & frictionless applications, banks can run at the speed of fintech and the time to address consumer needs will relatively become zero.

Q. Can we enhance income or wages by mapping the interconnectedness between consumer behavior, strengths, and weaknesses and go beyond fintech itself to create tools to ensure equal distribution of wealth?

While we mine the data of consumers, we spot so many inefficiencies in profiles*.

People live complicated & integrated lives yet we engage with them in highly silo’d ways. Simply ask yourself a question: Do you know how buying a house today may affect your kids education? Or do you know by how many years you can prepone your retirement if you focus 50% more on your hobbies like selling art? We need to build an interconnected system that maps one’s strengths, potential, weaknesses & interests. Just by connecting an individual ‘s parameters our models predict a 20% increase in income. Imagine we connect that individual persona beyond fintech with sectors like employers, health care providers, universities. It will not only enhance income for all but also create a more equitable system.

“A persona is not complete until you understand the consumer or the small business holistically.

The biggest mistake one can do is start giving advice based on an incomplete persona” Uday Akkaraju

Q.Voice may be the future but how can we make it secure now?

Is voice biometrics there yet? Can using a combination of cloud & on-device processing help Data Privacy?

Yes, speaking is natural for humans and hence a voice UI is definitely how we should and will interact with machines.

Deepfakes has made it so easy to create a fake audio or video that privacy is the most important area to focus today. But the technology is there - Similar to how we authenticate a user’s identity using OTP and credentials on a mobile device, it is a safe way to use a combination of cloud & on device processing to verify and authenticate a user’s voice biometrics. At BOND.AI we are also working on tokenizing a voice fingerprint to distinguish what is original, similar to how NFTs work.

Q. It’s amazing how you create a persona of consumers and small businesses to understand their needs and address them through your platform. We would love to know more about that.

A persona is not complete until you understand the consumer or the small business holistically. The biggest mistake one can do is start giving advice based on an incomplete persona. Imagine, a doctor treating with incomplete knowledge of their patients. It can be disastrous.

Once we integrate with a financial institution, pass the data through our empathy engine which creates a bare persona based on the financial data of the

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consumer. But financial data is only a part of the whole life of the consumer, right?

This is where our empathy engine really works. Apart from analyzing existing data, it also spots the missing data needed to understand them holistically.

So while the consumer is having a conversation with our bot for some need, we get the missing data contextually.

Let me give a classic example: Imagine a consumer is asking the bot for a credit card recommendation - The bot looks at his/her data and suggests the right card. But while looking at the data, the bot spots he/she travels quite a bit. And then contextually, the bot creates a new question and asks, “Hey, I see you travel quite a bit. What is your favourite airline?

The user may say, Indigo, Luftahnsa etc.

That is a non-financial data point. This is a basic example but such intangible data points really add up. We then combine the financial & non-financial data to create highly accurate & holistic personas and to give singular insights!

Q. What are the challenges you have faced and are facing in an unpredictable market like in the past year or even today?

In one word - Uncertainty. There is uncertainty regarding liquidity, hiring, expansion plans and even onboarding new clients. Everything is up in the air and it has been tough. What is holding the glue for us, is removing uncertainty of what we already have. Making sure our employees are happy, content & taking good care of our banking clients during this time.

Q.What message do you have for entrepreneurs that are starting out.

What should be the best practices they should follow to ensure they are on the right track?

I ask myself three questions regularly.

• Have I seen something I couldn’t see before?

• Have I thought something I haven’t thought about before?

• Did I do something that I haven’t done before?

You won’t have an answer to that everytime you question yourself. But over time it will change your perspective in how you see the world, people around you and will develop kindness & empathy. Afterall as an entrepreneur, you are looking to change lives of people by solving their unsolved problems, isn’t it?

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Ambika Bhandari

5 Ways Companies Improve

with AI Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been bringing massive transformations in various industries in recent years.

We see AI impacting different parts of life and making possible things that were once fantasy.

Although there is a fear that AI will take away our jobs, it is not so. On the other hand, AI will help us progress in different sectors. According to Forbes, by 2022, AI will create 58 million jobs.

So, we should try to welcome these changes and make life easier.

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Another sector where Artificial Intelligence is bringing revolution is the UX (User experience). In this article, you will get an idea of how AI helps in improving UX for businesses.

What is UX, and Why is it Important?

User Experience (UX) is how one user feels when he or she interacts with any system. It can be a website, mobile application, device or software.

Most businesses are shifting their focus on creating a better customer experience. Almost all successful companies are known for an exceptional understanding of the audience’s interest and needs. To satisfy customer requirements, it is essential to have an understanding of their likes and dislikes.

Therefore, the companies try to collect data on customer requirements and experience to create the right products and services. The product or service must make a first good impression. According to Forrester Research, a good UX design on a website can boost conversion up to 400 percent.

So, most companies are going for a proper UX design for their websites and services as well.

UX is important because it helps create a positive experience for potential customers.

When they have a positive experience, they remain loyal to the brand for many years. All these years, this job fell in the hand of the marketing research teams.

However, in recent years, many companies are bringing in AI and machine learning technologies for creating a better user experience for their customers.

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How AI Improves UX? If you study the goals of AI and UX closely, you’ll find that they are similar. They are designed to study human behaviour and interpret it. With the interpretation, they find out what is the next thing the customer might do.

In this way, predictive analysis is done, which is utilized by companies to map out their plans properly.

But how exactly can AI help UX? Let’s take a look at a few ways.

Intelligent Algorithms AI works on algorithms. With the help of these algorithms, AI can collect information about website visitors or application users. Then it uses these data to optimize the system for future use. It keeps on learning and adjusting the data about the user experience.

The ultimate goal is to provide a personalized and engaging experience for the users.

Deep Learning AI uses a process that we know as deep learning. With this mechanism, it can analyze thousands of different variations and generate alternatives. This information can be used in UX for adding buttons or graphics on a website or an app.

For example, with AI, we learn at what places a user clicks the most on a website. We can enhance those areas with striking graphics or a button. As most users are clicking on certain regions, AI can understand others will do the same.

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With this information, UX can be enhanced by changing the website’s design by adding a few things here and there. Deep learning technologies help us get behavioural data which helps AI to improve the UX of any system.

Hotjar is a popular AI tool that helps you learn where exactly people are clicking on the website. In this way, one can easily find the spots to enhance.

Testing using AI UX professionals need to study various metrics to improve the whole user experience of any product or service. AI can help in this! It has the right tools that help in evaluate and track the UX metrics such as: • • • • • • •

Location of users Bounce rates User Flow Categories or Product reviews Session times Pages view And more.

With the help of these metrics, the UX professional will understand how they can improve the user experience. Google Analytics is one such product that uses AI to provide these insights of a website.

For example, a UX professional learns that most of the website visitors are clicking on an image of a product. So, it would be better to enhance that picture or bring it to the front page.

In this way, the users don’t have to go through the pages to get the product.

No Biases in Testing When you use AI for UX, there are no chances of any biases. AI only shows the reality of what users want or do with the product or service. So, there is no need for A/B testing or split testing.

In A/B testing, personal reasoning can impact the result. Say, there is an A/B test with a result showing that sample A has received more attention. However, the professional may still want to go for B as they may think that users will like it more.

A/B testing is not transparent. The professional is unable to see what are the reasons a person chose a particular sample. However, when you use AI for such metric testing, there are no biases.

AI will show only the reality. It will give data on what people like and also show information about why they do so. As AI relies on hard data, you will likely get a clear picture of what the users want.

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Ways Companies can improve UX with AI: 1. Emotion AI Do you know AI can detect emotions as well? The mechanism is called Emotion

AI can help UX professionals to understand the importance of unbiased user data. These user data is the key to creating a positive experience for the customers.

Here are the five ways AI can help improve UX:

AI or affective computing. Gadgets with emotional intelligence can understand the emotional channels of communication as well.

It helps the AI learn and interpret verbal and non-verbal human communication. For example, when a person smiles the AI can tell whether it’s a happy or sad smile.

This technology includes: • Machine learning algorithm • Facial recognition algorithm • Data analysis UX professionals can learn about the emotional responses to a company’s products, content, website or services with emotion AI. The technology can be easily used on the footage of CCTV recording in stores to understand people’s emotions while looking at different products of a particular brand.

If the businesses learn the people’s reaction to their brand elements, they can take the UX professionals’ help to make necessary changes. For example, it can change the brand’s logo or the content that goes on the website.

With enhanced content on the website, the company can expect better engagement. In this way, emotion AI can help optimize different elements of a company.

One good example of emotion AI in action is Affectiva’s emotional car software. It can detect when a driver is angry or unfocused while driving. The AI installed in the system will then take control of the car and prevent any accidents.

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2. Complex Data Analysis Even these days, UX professionals depend on heat maps and A/B testing to learn all about user engagement. However, AI can easily provide more in-depth information regarding the user experience.

UX teams can use the AI deep learning mechanisms to analyze and track huge data sets. AI guarantees accurate behavioural data, which is not possible through traditional methods. Many businesses are making use of behavioural data in the UX processes.

For example, Joseph Turner, a shirt retailer, took help of Segmentify’s AI solutions to expand their business. With AI support, they could easily understand what users liked and disliked. They made 2.6 times higher conversion with the help of AI solutions.

With the AI produced data, they could analyze which places to optimize on their website. And this resulted in 20% more items in the basket.

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3. Personalized Advertising Although people think UX professionals only have to deal with the website or the landing page. However, the truth is, these professionals start working from the first moment a product or a service is introduced to the public.

The struggle to get better engagement starts from the first introduction, which is from advertising.

Advertising helps grab the attention of the users online to a certain product. When there is ongoing intense competition in the market, it is essential to make better ads.

Now a person has thousands of brands to choose from. The trick is to become a superstar in front of that person, so he or she goes for your product. Moreover, with only an eight-second attention span to impress, the job is more difficult than before.

AI can help the UX designers come up with more personalized and creative ads for the customers. As now most of the leads are available online, social media ads are more common.

AI produces more in-depth data of the users when they interact with the brand’s social media pages. So, every time a user likes a page, comments on posts or displays any interest in any product, the AI will collect the data.

Then it will interpret the data to segregate the audiences into distinct groups with certain attributes. The UX designer can then look at this information to design the ads accordingly.

For example, the AI data shows that most of the users showing interest in the brand and its other product ads are within the ages of 16-20. So, when the next ad is planned, it should be optimized for this age group.

In this way, the ad will gain better attention from this age group.

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4.Chatbots Chatbots are the most popular ways of how AI can improve the user experience of the brand. These are virtual assistants who talk to the user when there is no real customer support.

Using natural language processing, the chatbots can speak just like human beings. In this way, they help businesses double their customer service metrics.

According to Capgemini, 75% of the businesses who have used chatbots have reported a 10% increase in customer satisfaction.

Moreover, chatbots can work 24/7, unlike the human counterpart. So, it can also handle unruly customers who take out their frustration on customer care service professionals. However, if you fear that chatbots are going to take over the jobs of customer care professionals, you are wrong.

No matter what, during any conversation with the bot, the human professional will have to take over. It helps in maintaining the human touch the users want from any company. Therefore, in the sector of customer service as well, AI can help UX professionals very well.

5. Automation UX testing can use automation during the research process to make work faster. AI automation can detect the problems that users experience during interacting with any product, service or website.

With the correct automation tool, the company can reach out to the user who has a problem with anything related to the company. The AI collects the data and presents it to the company. In this way, the UX professional can use the data to prepare a better system for future users.

Automation in UX testing can help in resource-saving, cost-reducing, performance testing and more.

Amazon is one of the best examples of using automation in UX. It has gained a 35% increase in its revenue with the help of personalized recommendations. You must have come across these recommendations when using the Amazon shopping website.

The AI here records all the data about you, including your past buys, age and location, to provide personalized product recommendations.

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Conclusion Artificial Intelligence is still evolving. Now it has limited assistance for UX professionals. Although, whatever assistance AI provides is helping businesses grow rampantly.

Almost all the top business giants are taking the help of AI to get their things going. It helps in saving money and also makes the work more efficient. However, no company can grow without giving a better user experience. So, recently most companies are using AI for enhancing customer experience.

From chatbots to the personalized recommendation, we see a lot in all the UX elements. Now, AI is also helping UX professionals develop better user-friendly designs for websites and applications.

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Deep Learning Technique for Object Detection Aditi Laha

Understanding the Term - Deep Learning A report by McKinsey states that by 2030 the global economic activity of Artificial Intelligence would easily sum up to 13 Trillion USD. The field of AI became crucial when the machines could complete those tasks that typically required human intelligence. It also includes machines that can learn to acquire skills and gain experience without any human intervention.

Deep learning is another subset of machine learning where artificial neural networks (ANN) and algorithms are inspired by the human brain to learn from massive datasets. Deep learning consists of neural networks which have deep layers that enable learning. Using deep learning techniques, we could solve any problem which requires “critical thinking”.

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Why Deep Learning is growing quickly since Past Five Years?

At present, the amount of data that we generate every day is striving and estimated to be 2.6 Quintilian bytes.

The enormous amount of data generated each day is why deep learning is thriving at a steady rate. As the deep learning algorithms need a lot of data to learn from, it increases the data creation as well as the learning capabilities in recent years.

Also, more data creation means more deep learning algorithm advantages from robust computing power and proliferation of artificial intelligence as a service. Now, let’s move on to one of the most trending deep learning techniques, object detection.

Object Detection with Deep Learning Methods Object detection is the procedure to describe a collection of related computer vision modules that includes identifying objects in digital pictures. It tends to locate the presence of objects with bounding boxes, classes, or types of any particular object in an image. When an image is added in the system with one or more objects; it adds a class label for each bounding box. A bounding “box” is an imaginary rectangle that creates a collision box for that object and aids as a point of reference for object detection.

The algorithms of object detection produce a list of object categories that are present in the image with an axisaligned bounding box. It indicates the position and scale of every object category. The two most used methods of object detection are direct object predictions and predictions on a grid. Direct object detection detects and classifies multiple objects. It finds and classifies a variable number of the given object or an image. Few common examples of direct detection are face detection, counting, and visual search engine applications. The predictions on the grid works when the model is properly trained on datasets with full images. Here each grid point independently helps in predicting whether it contains an object’s center or not and if the bounding box dimension is for an object or what object class it is.

The two Most Popular Algorithms of Object Detection are YOLO (You Only Look Once) & SSD (Single Shot Detection) YOLO is a real-time object detection algorithm that combines a multi-step process, utilizing a single neural network for performing prediction and classification of bounding boxes for object detection. YOLO is heavily optimized for detection performance and runs faster when two separate neural networks classify and detect objects distinctly. So, basically, YOLO is based on the idea of segmenting an image into multiple small images.

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SSD is designed for detecting an object in real-time. It utilizes a region proposal network for creating boundary boxes and utilizes those boxes for classifying the objects. So, far below the real-time processing needs, SSD speeds up the process by reducing the need for a region proposal network. For accuracy, SSD applies few improvements which include default boxes and multi-scale features.

The Role of Focal Loss in Object Detection

Focal Loss is something that tries to handle the class imbalance problem by assigning more weights to hard or easily misclassified examples like a noisy background picture. It reduces the loss contribution from examples and improves the significance of correcting the misclassified examples.

Focal Loss is important because sometimes training is inefficient as most of the locations are easy negatives that have no useful learning. It is proven essential for training the imbalanced datasets in object detection tasks.

Final Thoughts on Deep Learning Techniques for Object Detection Object detection is the key ability of most AI and deep learning tactics as mobile robots and general autonomous machines are aggressively being deployed for the purpose of object detection. Hence, object detection systems are gaining more momentum and nano-robots or robots explore the areas which have not been seen by humans yet.

In such cases real-time open-world learning ability is critical.

One of the main focus of visual object detection is to detect objects that belongs to specific class targets with absolute localization in an image input. Owing to the robust development of deep neural networks, the performance of these detectors have improved rigorously over the years.

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A Connected World – Forever Indebted to a Talking Dog, Cadaver Ears, and a Bowl of Acid Barkha Sheth As unlikely a combination as can be, it’s the very things mentioned in the title that have contributed to the connectivity we take for granted today.

Alexander Graham Bell’s invention - the telephone - has led to an industry that transformed the world.

But little do people know that Bell was never interested in creating a telephone for the sake of connecting everyone. It just happened to be a series of steps, some to gain a stable income and others to foster his dream that eventually led to this idea. He was essentially obsessed with a much bigger agenda – of allowing the deaf to visualise speech without the use of any sort of sign language. The part he played in that area, though, has been the focus of much heated debate, with his intentions being considered misguided by many.

Whatever may be the case, his reluctant ingenuity still yielded an innovation that has resulted in our way of life.

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And so the story begins Alexander Graham Bell’s father, Alexander Melville (known to his family and friends as Melville), was a prominent elocutionist in England. Melville’s lifework revolved around designing a universal phonetic alphabet. He called it ‘Visible Speech’ because it acted as an instructional guide on how to shape the mouth for different sounds. His rather inventive idea was to structure a set of alphabets that could emulate sound from any language. Why? Because it could allow for quick literacy in a foreign language. While it wouldn’t help a reader understand the meaning of the words, it could considerably cut down the time it took people to learn to pronounce phrases in a new dialect.

Building the Visible Speech was Melville’s passion, and it was this fervour he sought to pass on to Alexander Graham Bell. But while Melville was working at fueling his son’s interest in speech, his deaf mother, Eliza, gently shaped her son’s attention to sensory detail.

As Katie Booth, the author of the “Invention of Miracles”, wrote in her book

“

From his father, he (Bell) knew which parts of the mouth and throat controlled which sounds, how to read those sounds from an obscure alphabet, and how to give the speech the power to shock, to astound. From watching his mother lean her ear toward the piano as she played, he understood how to listen very closely to the tiniest shades of sound. From holding his mouth close to her ear and manipulating his own speech so that she could hear it, he began to believe that the transfer of information from his ears to her mind was a transfer of power, too. And from the way people respected her when she used her own voice, he understood how much power speech could contain and confer—not just before a captive audience but also in life.”

[Katie Booth – The Invention of Miracles]

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Trouve The Family Dog In 1867, at the age of 20, Bell busied himself with learning the nuances of human speech. His musically trained ears were so astute that they could pick up sound based on the vibrations in the air. Putting much of his experiments to work, Bell tried to teach his family dog, Trouve, to talk. Sometimes by depressing the hollow of the lower jaw and at others by moving the muzzle in particular ways, Bell eventually got his dog to say, “How are you, Grandma”.

This accomplishment received a fair bit of coverage in the local newspapers, and word of his and Melville’s work started to spread. A year later, at the behest of a local teacher, he began to teach a small group of deaf children. It is here that Bell discovered his life-long obsession. Using his father’s Visible Speech and his talent with sound, he taught these children to speak simple phrases within a few weeks. For Bell, the kids’ ability to communicate became a source of pride, and he soon realised his efforts had opened the doors to a new path, one where he knew he could make his ‘contribution’ to the world.

“

When Bell made Trouve talk, it showed Bell’s determination to follow the profession of his grandfather and father, and it sowed in Bell the crucial curiosity and creative instincts he would need to bring the phone to fruition”.

John Brooks author of “Telephone: The

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Cadaver Ears and some more Bizarre Episodes By 1874, Bell joined the faculty of Boston University as the ‘professor of the mechanism of speech”, training deaf students in ‘oralism’ (the system of teaching deaf people to communicate using speech and lipreading rather than sign language). Although he was reasonably successful, he started to believe that the effectiveness of his methods could not be replicated quickly enough by others.

He needed a more universal method of assisting those who could not hear. Inspiration came knocking during a visit to MIT, where he came across a strange contraption - the phonautograph. This device was able to convert speech into jagged lines that looked very similar to sound waves. For Bell, this seemed like an immense opportunity. Could he teach the deaf to hear speech through their eyes?

He eventually began work on his own version of a phonautograph, a sort of lip-reading system. But the more he fiddled with the device, the clearer it became that the device’s accuracy depended on picking the pitch of a sound, much as human ears do. The next stop, then? Understand this sensory organ.

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Dr Clarence Blake, an aurist whom Bell consulted, suggested that perhaps a pair of actual human ears were in order for Bell’s experiments. A couple of cadaver ears soon made way to Bell’s lab. His subsequent experimentation, combined with an increasingly improved grasp of aural abilities and electrical impulses, gave birth to a relatively novel idea.

The telegraph, by then, had been a phenomenally successful communication system for about 30 years. But the telegraph had just one limitation – it could only send one message at a time, resulting in a multitude of overhead wires, so thick, running along the length and breadth of the city, that they nearly choked out the sun.

“

Bell, who had a good understanding of sound and music, saw an opportunity here to revolutionise the telegraph, as Katie Booth writes

His theory hinged on sympathetic vibrations… In the beginning, he saw how these vibrations could carry a sound from a speaker’s mouth to a deaf person’s sight. He mused that these vibrations could also carry telegraphic messages, tones in a pattern of short and long pulses…. A telegraph that could carry multiple messages at once wouldn’t help the deaf, not directly. But if it worked it could help secure Bell the income to keep at the work he had come to care about the most.”

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A bowl of acid And so was born the idea for a harmonic telegraph. By late 1874, Bell started work on his concept with the backing of two investors. But while Bell was a visionary, he was not an inventor, so he onboarded a young apprentice, Thomas Watson. Together with Watson, Bell, created a working model of the harmonic telegraph, which could initially send up to two simultaneous messages. It was a far cry from the 8-10 messages his investors were looking for; nonetheless, a patent was filed under his name in March 1875.

Around the same time, Bell met with the director of the Smithsonian Institution, Joseph Henry. It was with Henry that Bell shared his dream of transmitting voice using electrical impulses. Henry loved the idea so much that he called it “the germ of a great invention”. Egged on by Henry’s enthusiasm, Bell’s mind quickly turned to a new project.

One day while experimenting with the latest iteration of their harmonic device, Bell, was waiting in a room with a receiver pressed to his ear. In another area of the house, Thomas was trying to fix his end of the transmitter.

During his wait, Bell caught a hint of vibration in the line, which he soon realised was the sound of Thomas in the other room, plucking the metal of his receiver.

For Bell, this was a significant discovery. It meant that soundwaves essentially had the power needed to travel along the wires. On June 3, 1875, the first version of the telephone was ready for testing, but as Thomas later wrote, “A meagre result, A bitter disappointment”.

Bell, though, was not deterred. On July 1, 1875, he tried to transmit the varying pitch of a human voice over a three-hundred-foot wire, but even that failed to work. Eventually, life took hold, and any further experiments came to a pause.

However, a few months later, word of his competitor Elisha Gray’s experimental success of a ‘speaking telegraph’ reached him. With this, both Watson and Bell earnestly got to work. In the race to patent the innovation, Bell eventually emerged a winner. But even on March 7, 1876, when the patent was awarded to him, he did not have a working model to show.

On March 10, three days later, both Bell and Watson finished another iteration of the telephone’s prototype. This time around, instead of using plain water that offered the variable resistance to a connected circuit, he laced his water with sulphuric acid (though it is not entirely clear how he came up with the idea).

Once everything was set up, Thomas went to another room and, in his excitement, held the receiver so tightly to his ear that he detuned it. And it was this folly that resulted in the magical moment a few minutes later as Thomas heard Bell saying over the receiver -

“Mr Watson, come here; I want to see you.”

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A few seconds later, that’s precisely what Mr Watson did as he ran into Bell’s room.

The rest, as they say, is history. The telephone would rapidly transform the world as Bell intuitively seemed to know. On March 10, 1876, he wrote a letter to his father-

“

I have constructed a new apparatus operated by the human voice,” Bell wrote. “This is a great day with me. I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem — and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water or gas — and friends converse with each other without leaving home.”

Letter from Alexander Graham Bell to Alexander Melville Bell, March 10, 1876

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Moving On The telephone did take some work post that momentous episode to perfect, but within a year and a half, Bell himself publicly demonstrated the worlds first phone call over telegraph wires that spanned 8 miles between two towns in Ontario, Canada. Just two months later, the long-distance reach of the telephone was expanded to 143 miles.

In 1880, Bell patented the photophone, which applied his telephone principle to transmit words on a beam of light. Now recognised as the first wireless transmission of speech, it wasn’t until a century later that this idea would find widespread use. Today’s high-speed telecommunications finds its origins in the principles of this theory

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“All the forms of programmatic trading will become the key to the automated movement.”

Everything You Need to Know About Programmatic Advertising Zahwah Jameel

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You might have heard from other people in different organizations about how programmatic advertising has changed the landscape of the digital era and not fully understand it.

Programmatic advertising is like quantum physics in marketing, everyone has heard of it and talks about it, but only a few people understand it.

Here, we will explain programmatic advertising, the process, its benefits, and why digital marketers turn their campaigns programmatic.

“

“Advertising effectively and catching the attention of the right audience is a tough job. This is where programmatic marketing comes to play”.

In simple terms, programmatic advertising is the use of software to buy Ads. It makes buying and selling Ads automatic by replacing human interactions with artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Advertising effectively and catching the attention of the right audience is a tough job. This is where programmatic marketing comes to play.

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Since it started in 1994, it has gained immense popularity with a high success rate for running advertisement campaigns. Using an algorithm to boost advertisements takes digital marketing to a different level. This process increases the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of the buyers and sellers.

The entire process happens within a few milliseconds. Surprised? Read more to learn how the process works.

What is Programmatic Advertising?

“

“Artificial Intelligence analyses the user’s behavior, which optimizes the marketing campaigns so that the users are more likely to convert into customers.”

How Does Programmatic Advertising Work?

The designed algorithms, like machine learning and artificial intelligence attribute to the efficiency of programmatic advertising.

Machine learning is a process to improve computers to learn and enhance through gained experience without the need of any explicit coding. You can understand it as extra supplements to enhance them to be artificially intelligent, like human beings.

Although computers’ artificial intelligence isn’t comparable to a human’s cognitive abilities, it is rapidly advancing and gaining popularity in every sector, even digital marketing. The simplest example is when search engines like Google predict search suggestions close to what you might need rather than what it would generally anticipate based on your past searches.

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How is AI used in Programmatic advertising?

Artificial Intelligence analyses the user’s behavior, which optimizes the marketing campaigns so that the users are more likely to convert into customers.

Let us try understanding this concept through an example.

You are an owner of a clothing brand that you wish to advertise digitally. You supposedly make use of software or a platform to run your ad campaigns programmatically.

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Here are a few details about the possible consumers that the software will help you recognize.

• • • • • •

Location Demographics (Age or Gender) Interests and Hobbies Time or Weather Your Goals Device (TV, smartphones, etc.)

After receiving data on these factors, the campaigns are organized with alignment to the above elements so that the chances of visitors converting into potential customers are higher.

The flow of programmatic buying goes like this: 1. A person visits a website that advertises programmatically.

2. The automated biddings start, and the publisher puts an auction for an advertisement on a supply-side platform (SSP).

3. This platform lets the buyers know about the website, user, and Ad space. Interested advertisers offer bids.

4. The Ad space allows Demand Side Platforms (DSP) to make bids. When the SSP receives information about the Ad Space, it gets data about the user’s cookies and analyses it.

5. The analyzed data gets shared with the DSP. It acts on advertisers to choose Ad Space according to the user’s interests and advertiser’s budget.

6. The highest bidder with the most suitable bid gets the ad placed on the website. The various DSPs placed their bids on behalf of the advertiser, and the SSP chooses a winner.

7. The SSP displays the winning Ad bid on the website. If the Ad interests the user, they click on the ad and turn into customers of the advertiser.

All this process happens in milli-seconds when the user clicks the website, and the webpage loads.

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Types of Programmatic Media Buying There are four types of Programmatic Media Buying.

1. Real-Time Bidding (RTB) This is a real-time open auction environment open to everyone. In this process, bids on an Ad Space place, and the highest bidder gets the slot. RTB is easy to set up and optimize, but this process lacks transparency. The advertisers don’t know the exact websites where their Ads get placed.

2. Private Marketplace This process is similar to RTB except for a few points. It is only open to the advertisers who get invited to the auction. Also, the advertiser knows precisely where the Ads get published.

3. Preferred Deals Before the Ad impressions are made available for open and private auctions, advertisers choose them at a fixed price. Both parties negotiate the pricing and targeting. The advertiser gets a look at the publisher’s Ad inventory and isn’t bound to make purchases.

4. Programmatic Guaranteed This process is a bit traditional that doesn’t have any auctions. Here, both the parties negotiate on a one-on-one basis. After a successful negotiation, the Ad impression is directly sold to the advertiser.

Programmatic Guaranteed is opted by advertisers with a substantial budget. They have options to choose from Ad space inventories to prices, audience, and frequency.

There are a few places where you can run marketing campaigns.

• Display Ads (online visual Ads published on the header, footer, or sidebar of webpages) • Video Ads (Ads that appear while playing YouTube videos, pops up in online articles, or appears in search suggestions ) • Audio Ads (Ads on apps like SoundCloud, Pandora, and BBC) • Social Media Ads (Ads displayed on social media platforms • Native Ads (appear in different locations of a webpage) • Digital Out Home Ads

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How Much Does Programmatic Advertising Cost?

Programmatic advertising costs way less when compared to traditional methods for advertisements. The price ranges from 0.50$ to 2$ CPM (cost per mile). Traditional campaigning costs a minimum of $10.

However, it a rough figure and depends on several factors and parameters.

If you wish to have a rough idea about the cost of advertising programmatically, you can use the IAB Programmatic Fee Transparency Calculator.

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“ Programmatic advertising costs way less when compared to traditional methods for advertisements.”

Benefits of Programmatic Advertising There are many benefits of programmatic marketing besides low-cost, automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

1. Real-time Insights When you opt for traditional advertising techniques, it takes a lot of time to get results, and you cannot determine the efficiency.

These problems get solved with programmatic advertising. It provides insights into your marketing campaigns and the target audience.

2. Enhanced Targeting Abilities One of the best things about programmatic marketing is personalization. Using the user’s cookies regulates strategies to gain more conversions.

3. Greater Transparency The advertiser knows about the Ad impression, the target audience, and the Ad performance through this system.

They can also easily track the spent amount and optimize their campaigns for better results.

4. Reduction of Ad Frauds Due to the greater transparency of the advertising process, Ad frauds have reduced. There are major programmatic advertising platforms that block bot traffic and ad frauds in their system.

5. Less Wastage Your campaigns reach your target audience efficiently, and fewer ad impressions get wasted on the wrong audience. Also, tackling Ad frauds more effectively ensures the least wastage of campaigns.

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The Future of Programmatic Advertising: Final Thoughts Programmatic advertising is one of the most growing sectors of the market. Talking about the future, it has already arrived. According to a report, almost 88% of display Ads in the United States will be forecasted programmatically in 2021.

Not only does programmatic marketing eases the campaigning process through automation, but it also is more efficient as it recognizes and targets potential users. Also, small brands can opt for programmatic marketing even if they have a low budget.

Programmatic advertising is expanding exponentially every year. Predictions expect that most of the advertisement campaigns will use this within two years

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Content being the king of all marketing activities worldwide, content marketing has gained popularity over time as one of the best investments a brand can make. It’s great to generate leads and build thought leadership in the industry- both of which make for a great brand.

Complete Guide: 8 Mistakes You Must Avoid in Your Content Marketing Campaigns

Seth Godin calls content marketing as ‘the only marketing left,’ given its authenticity and adaptability with new age media and the online generation.

But, as more people realize the importance of content marketing, the competition is rising, and the market is being saturated. As a result, user attention is diminishing. Your marketing efforts should be exceptionally calculated and in line with your business goals and vision.

This also means that you can’t afford mistakes. But, given the race for content marketing and the excessive amount of money companies keep aside for it, these mistakes are bound to happen.

But if you’re in it to win it, then there’s a way to avoid those mistakes, and that’s by learning from them.

Let’s explore some common content marketing mistakes and how you can work your way around it for maximized results.

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Dhruv Maheshwari

Not Having A Strong Content Strategy More than 60% of businesses don’t have a documented content marketing strategy according to the Content Marketing Institute.

This means that a majority of the businesses use content marketing with the ‘hope’ of making it work.

Content marketing is more than content creation and distribution. It uses a much strategic approach to understand the audience, align the audience’s needs and brand needs, and then establish a plan of action keeping in mind the analytics that needs to be tracked.

If you don’t have a documented strategy in place, your team will always be confused, and you would be investing a lot of time, effort, and money on things that may or may not yield the desired result. This is because you don’t know what you’re doing, how you will track it, and if it’s necessary to do it. It’s like shooting arrows blindly.

“If you don’t have a documented strategy in place, your team will always be confused, and you would be investing a lot of time, effort, and money on things that may or may not yield the desired result. This is because you don’t know what you’re doing, how you will track it, and if it’s necessary to do it. It’s like shooting arrows blindly.”

Are you willing to take that risk? Probably not.

Consider following these steps to draft a content marketing strategy for your brand backed by an effective action plan: • Define your goals and objectives.

• Understand your audience and their buying habits.

• Do competitor research, understand where you stand in the market.

• Based on research, decide on the channels you want to create content on and where your audience is present the most.

• Decide what type of content you’re going to create.

• Divide the work among your team. Content marketing is a team effort, and transparency always wins.

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• Start creating content after establishing an editorial calendar for efficiency.

• Promote content.

• Analyze your efforts by tracking metrics.

And there you have it, an elaborate content marketing strategy that defines your plan of action every step of the way. Documenting this process will help prevent gaps, give a better idea to the team, ensure efficiency in execution, and provide results.

You can use team collaboration tools which immensely help in this area by coordinating everything in one place and avoiding any kind of confusion.

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Pro tip: If you’re an individual or agency providing content marketing services to a client, you may want to use a proposal template to display an outline of your strategy for better conversions.

You can use this infographic by BlueHost as a checklist while creating your strategy and tweak it as per your brand goals and objectives.

You should focus on preparing a strategy because it lays out clear fundamentals useful in the long run to track progress and introduce changes for better results. Moreover, following a strategy can lead to the achievement of the larger goal because small wins lead to the big ones, and makes the process easier.

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Not Understanding Your Audience

Carry a market research Once you’ve understood who you want to target, try to see where you can find these people. What platforms are they present on, how do they communicate with each other, what language they use, what type of content they consume, how much they are willing to spend every month, etc. This will help give you a clearer idea about your audience and set a course for realistic expectations.

While content is the glue that holds a content marketing strategy together, you cannot just brainstorm content ideas or create content on the first 5 things you see online. Even though it may reside with your industry and niche, it may not cater to the audience- and that’s the biggest mistake you can make.

Look over to your competitors Your competitors, the ones who have a similar target audience as yours, are probably ahead of the game.

They’ve been doing all of this and assessing their moves.

You can see how their strategies have worked out and how the audience is responding to them. This will help you identify gaps that you can fill through your plan.

If you want to generate leads, build a relationship with your customers, and nurture them, you need to understand them first. The more you know your audience, the better your content marketing results will be.

Carry a survey Once you’ve defined your audience, assessed your competitors, and gathered a fair amount of information about your audience, it’s good to fact-check. There’s nothing better than directly surveying your audience through a questionnaire, asking them essential questions that will help you create and execute your content marketing strategy better. Keep the survey crisp, and to the point, if it’s never-ending, no one is going to fill it.

But how can you understand your audience?

Consider starting by doing these things: Ask yourself some questions Before you understand them, understand who you want to serve first. Try defining their demographics, buying capacities, habits, daily activities, and things that would be ideal for ‘your’ customer.

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If you’ve missed out on these points, then you’ve been making this mistake. But it’s never too late to reform it.

Because the last thing you want is wasting your resources or watching your efforts yield minimum to no results.

After you’ve done your target audience research, it’s ideal to create a buyer persona- a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, which will help guide all your marketing strategies, especially your content such that it’s targeted directly at helping your audience.

Better be safe than sorry!

Here are the different stages of a buyer’s journey and the type of content you can create at each stage: Awareness stage Your prospect is aware of the problem they are facing at this stage, but don’t know if it is important enough to seek a solution. Here, they need to be targeted with

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Not Creating Goal-oriented Content Every piece of content you create as a part of your content marketing strategy has a goal. This can be for SEO, for lead generation, to get contact details, to nurture your customers, and so on. But if you don’t know why you’re creating a particular piece of content, then you’re just wasting your resources.

Being specific on your goals and creating content around it ensures that you’re walking in the right direction, and your content will yield the desired results.

There are numerous stages of a buyer’s journey, and creating content, especially around it, is so important because it caters to a specific goal.

content that can help them troubleshoot the problem and understand it better. The main goal here is to educate the customers, only then will they be able to understand properly.

The content for the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey can be: • • • • • •

Blog posts Social media posts White papers eBooks Webinars How-to videos

Consideration At this stage, they’ve gathered a brief idea about the problem they’re facing and contemplate if you’re the right solution for their problem.

Here, they need to be targeted with content that portrays you as the best solution for their problem and a perfect fit for their requirements. This content needs to be backed by data and social proof that displays your expertise.

This stage is crucial because it’s only here that they decide if they should go forward with you or move on and choose someone else. It determines whether they will turn from a prospect to a paying customer, so the approach needs to be convincing.

The content for the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey can be: 78 Techfastly | June 2021

• • • •

Comparison videos Case studies Free Samples Buying guides

Decision stage They have decided that they want to be your customer at this stage, so they think what it takes to be your customer. Here, you need to present content that tells them they have made the right decision and can fully invest their faith in you and leave their problems at your disposal.

This stage is important because they’re on the edge of being converted, and the way you respond now also sets the course for future collaborations, and if they will continue purchasing from you.

The content for the decision and beyond stages of the buyer’s journey can be: • • • •

Free trials Testimonials Coupon and discount Upgrades

Creating tailor-made content as per the stage at which your buyer stands is crucial because it’s meant for a specific goal. Without this, you could be showing educational content to a buyer in the decision stage when they’re fully aware of the problem but need to be convinced that you’re the end and ultimate solution to their problem.

This will also make your content marketing strategy much more specific and achievable, ensuring that your customers are targeted the right content at the right time.

Not Experimenting with Content Formats Content marketing is not defined by nor is restricted to just blogs and social media posts. There are ample content formats that should be included in your content marketing strategy. Why? Because it prevents your content on multiple channels from being monotonous. Have you ever thought of using letterhead and graphics in your email instead of just a text newsletter?

You can always experiment and combine different content formats to make your content more appealing and engaging for the audience.

Content formats and including multimedia in content is an essential part of user experience which cannot be missed out on.

Let’s explore some content formats you can include in your content marketing strategy:

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Blogs Your good old-fashioned blogs are an important part of your content strategy because they account for a significant part of SEO and help establish thought leadership by catering to the target audience’s pain points and major struggles.

With blogs, remember to optimize it for SEO while writing for humans by including white spaces, using short sentences, and using storytelling to evoke emotion. For content topics, you can use Quora and Answer the public to find important yet less-answered questions.

Infographics Infographics help relay important information in a detailed format through visual aid. It attractively communicates the message to help the audience understand the topic much better. You can find plenty of templates on Venngage and Canva, and tweak them to create your infographics.

If you’re answering an important question, it can also be used as a lead magnet to get email sign-ups. eBooks eBooks have recently taken momentum as one of the most popular lead magnets and free resources, with brands using eBooks to educate their audience in a more profound sense by providing extensive value. These can be a mix of text and multimedia, addressing an important topic in your industry, which would help many people solve their problems.Since an eBook can be downloaded and read later, people are slowly prioritizing them over other forms of content to educate themselves on relevant topics.

Videos With the rise in video marketing, more and more companies are now including videos in their content marketing strategy because they help establish a one-on-one connection with the audience.

These can be bite-sized videos on social media or long videos embedded in blogs and uploaded on YouTube.

You can also repurpose your blogs and social media posts into videos to provide better reach to your content.

You can incorporate many other formats in your content marketing strategy like podcasts, checklists, cheat sheets, and email newsletters, giving a significant edge to your strategy. It’s inevitable for your audience to be everywhere and like all your content. To give your content greater reach and provide added value to your audience, adapting and using these formats is a great way to get ahead in the game.

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Not Promoting Content Effectively Many people think that the execution part of a content marketing strategy ends after you hit the ‘publish’ button, but that’s where the real work starts.

If the content is king, then engagement is queen- and for people to engage with your content, you need to promote it excessively and through different strategies to refresh your content and introduce it to newer audiences.

It’s ideal to have a content promotion strategy in place to know the first few steps you can take to ensure that a published piece of content doesn’t die soon.

With so much content creation and consumption online, it’s easy for your content to get lost, so it would be best if you promote your post the right way within 24 hours of it getting published.

Here are some content promotion strategies you can follow: • Share your posts on social media in different formats. A tweet on Twitter, a carousel post on Instagram, and a video on Facebook are some ways you can begin promoting your content.

• Send out an email blast to your email list as soon as you hit ‘publish.’

• Include the link to your latest post(s) in your email signature. Since we send many emails every day, there’s a high chance, someone or the other would be curious enough to click on the link in the signature.

• Leverage your community and share your content on social media groupsSince these groups comprise like-minded people, they will definitely share it with their network if your content is good.

• Connect with influencers and talk to them about promoting your content or endorsing your product.

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on niche-specific websites that help your content reach their audience, thus expanding the reach.

There are numerous other ways to promote your content, but these top the list. You can always get innovative with your approach and brainstorm how you can ensure a wider reach for your content.

This is an important part and impossible to miss out on because creating awesome content won’t make a difference if it’s not in front of the audience. For your efforts to yield results, your content needs to be visible, and so content promotion needs to be prioritized as much as content creation.

Not Keeping Up With Trends While creating evergreen content that helps your target audience solve their problems is ideal, keeping up with trends is also essential to stay relevant. The audience participates in trends, and keeping up with them means that you’re listening to them and adopting new strategies.

You cannot use the same strategy repeatedly, because content marketing is always evolving. It requires you to assess gaps, make peace with new technologies, and keep up with trends to stay relevant along with being result-driven.

Not keeping up with these trends would give your competitors an edge over you. Every customer you come across will want to associate themselves with brands working on themselves in new and improved ways. You can help customers all you want, but you won’t stick for long unless you listen to them and form your brand on those values.

Let’s look at some emerging content marketing trends that you can include in your strategy:

Videos are taking the front seat It’s no surprise that the most prominent brands are now allocating their budget to videos, both shot, and stock. This is because of one very simple reason- videos keep the audience hooked and engaged for a more extended period than any other form of content.

You can publish your content on various platforms like social media, YouTube, your website, and Vimeo.

Moreover, you don’t always have to shoot videos. You can interview an expert on a live stream, host webinars and workshops, and do Q&A to interact with the audience. When you show your face on a screen, the audience gets to know about the person behind the brand.

So, to engage with your audience more and humanize your brand, videos are a must!

User-generated content is becoming a hit User-Generated Content or UGC is the content created by your customers and fans about your brand without paying them. According to research, over 83% of people trust other customers’ content than the brand itself.

When you share their content, they feel special, and it starts a loop for word of mouth as a result of which more people start creating this content. Moreover, it invites new customers because it acts as social proof and what’s better than customers showing their satisfaction on social media. The most significant part about it is that it creates a community, and turns followers into customers.

Conversational marketing is evolving What’s better to understand your audience and customers than talking to them directly?

We live in an age where chatbots are ruling but with robotic answers that do not give customers a personalized experience even though it helps them.

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your brand, product, or service is greater than ever.

You can practice conversational marketing by using human scripts or real-time conversations in chatbots to assist customers.

Influencer marketing is making strides on social media In 2020, there’s been a massive increase in the number of influencers online. There has also been a corresponding rise in their fan following, given the unique content creation these influencers from diverse fields are bringing to the table.

Moreover, 73% of marketers have a budget allocated for influencer marketing, which tells us how much potential it holds.

Influencers have the power to show people certain products and brands by endorsing them so that their massive audience is convinced to buy or at least give the product a chance. This acts as social proof, and everyone wants to use the brand that a social media influencer is using, right?

It’s a win-win situation.

Not Paying Attention to CTAs One of the most common content marketing mistakes is not paying attention to your lead generation automachine, your Call-to-Action buttons.

You can create the most awesome content in your industry, but if you don’t tell the audience what to do after reading the content, you’re making a blunder, but don’t worry, we can fix that!

Wherever you are creating content, be it on social media, emails, your website, or podcasts- you need to tell your audience what they should do very clearly.

Do you want them to share your content?Do you want them to subscribe to your newsletter or sign up for your course?Do you want them to book a call with you?

Whatever is your end goal, it needs to be communicated very clearly and explicitly.

Here are some things to keep in mind when it comes to CTAs: • Use contrasting colors for CTA on your website to make them very evident.

• Highlight CTAs multiple times across the course of your website and content.

• Don’t turn around words. Make it straight cut.

• Use an innovative approach for CTA copy like ‘Sign up for awesomeness’ instead of ‘Sign up now.’

• Repeat your offer in different ways across channels.

• Strategically place your CTA along the reader’s natural reading path.

• Make the buttons optimized for both mobile and laptop.

Practice A/B testing because, with CTA, a slight change can bring a higher click-through rate if only you pay attention to it and keep experimenting.

CTAs can never be perfect, but paying attention to them and tweaking them in between courses can generate a lot of difference.

ReferralCandy Blog has a great list of CTA examples you can look up to for inspiration.

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Not Tracking Performance Every strategy requires analysis, and content marketing is no different. Imagine spending months executing a plan and not analyzing what results it brought you or if the strategy was right for your brand.

shares your audience is making tells you if they like your content and if it’s relatable enough for them to share it with their network.

This will also give you an idea about what type of content is performing better on which platform so you can create more or less of that after tweaking your strategy.

You can use Hootsuite to analyze social shares.

Conversions and sales

Analyzing your performance tells you about the gaps or challenges you faced in execution or strategy to determine You can analyze conversions by looking at the number of how you can fill them up next time. people who respond to your CTA and buy your product/ service, book your call or sign up to your email list.

Data plays an important role here, and if you hate This measure is important to track as it says a lot about numbers, you may want to fall in love with them for this how you’ve been performing collectively as a brand, part because this data determines your brand position in irrespective of your digital presence or marketing efforts. the market.

You can use Google Analytics and as per the analysis, Say, you find that Instagram is performing well in terms you can reform certain things to increase the conversion of carousel content while videos are performing well rate. on LinkedIn, you can tweak your strategy to focus on these platforms more and create more of this content. If If you start analyzing everything in your strategy you don’t analyze it, you could be focusing on Facebook execution, it will take a lot of time. So, it’s best to define when it hasn’t been working all this while.Therefore, your KPIs beforehand to know what you need to focus on it’s imperative that your team reviews your marketing for achieving your goals. performance in intervals to ensure you’re going in the right direction.

Failing to measure results will not bring you growth, because then you’ll be following a stagnant content strategy. Results come when you analyze results, Here’s what you should analyze: acknowledge success and failure, and reform gaps to make the plan better and your campaigns more effective.

At the end of the day, everyone wants to focus on how Website traffic many conversions did you generate and where did those conversions come from. This makes it one of the most The amount of traffic you’re driving to your website important reasons to analyze your efforts. says a lot about how your content performs. You can use Google Analytics to track the source of your website traffic.

This will help you understand which platform generates the most traffic and what type of content or optimization supports the increase in traffic. This is important because the more people visit your website, the higher your chances are at converting them.

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Wrapping It Up If you’re investing your resources in a timeless marketing strategy like content marketing, you cannot afford to make mistakes. The key is planning!

Plan for your worst-case scenarios and maintain agility to include spontaneous campaigns and content buckets if need be for trend jacking and moment marketing. When you’ve carefully planned your strategy, there’s no chance of messing it up.

Keep these 8 mistakes in mind while formulating your strategy and take notes from content marketing resources to be up to date with trends. With content marketing, consistency and patience are important because it’s a long-term game, and you cannot expect overnight results.

Rushing in implementing your strategy or being a part of the rat race makes a brand prone to these mistakes.

Don’t run; content marketing is here to stay.

All the best!

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6 Artificial Intelligence Trends Reshaping the Field of Marketing

Krisha Bhupatani

AI has become inevitable in our lives in the 21st century. How many of you knew that Alexa and Google Echo are AI-driven? How many of you can get along without using search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing for routine tasks?

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Marketing companies prefer to implement AI and its tools to increase revenue through better conversion rates. AI tools assist in providing customized customer-specific solutions, which helps in retaining the customers.

AI was introduced to us in 1956 by John McCarthy.

Various industry domains like education, healthcare, gaming, object recognition, etc., have leveraged the potential of artificial intelligence. But it took a long way for AI to get introduced in the marketing field. AI has deepened its roots and is growing and expanding its branches in all possible domains. Marketing is just a small branch of this vast tree. Marketing is subject to constant changes, and customers should adopt these changes and stay updated with the latest trends in the field. People usually link AI with complex programs.

Using AI for marketing is not as complicated as it seems to be. AI tools are run by algorithms and programs that require specific codes for operation.

However, having decent knowledge about AI tools or programs according to their requirements would suffice for users who use the end results. The usage of AI platforms is intended to accelerate the development and deployment of machine learning solutions, and often internal coding processes are minimized for ease of understanding.

Marketing companies prefer to implement AI and its tools to increase revenue through better conversion rates. AI tools assist in providing customized customer-specific solutions, which helps in retaining the customers.

AI is reshaping the digital marketing field and bringing a competitive edge to the already flourishing business by increasing sales. Here are the top six trends that are reshaping the field of marketing.

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1. Use of Chatbots A Super Tool Everyone is familiar with Alexa, Hello Google, and Siri. These are virtual assistants to guide you and pose relevant suggestions as per your requirements. Introducing such virtual assistants or chatbots on websites, emails, apps, or text messages can go a long way in offering a customized solution to customers. Chatbots can be programmed to respond to common queries and create engaging and almost human-like conversations with the customers. These chatbots can assist in generating sales leads, even while you are away. This idea may sound a bit far-fetched, but it is true.

An example of this is collect.chat. It engages your customer with interactive questions, gifs and can chat in many native languages.

It converts your website visitors into potential customers.

2. Customized Relevant Suggestions To provide customized consumer-specific suggestions, you need to use data analytic tools, or cookies to store browsing data and highly searched options. Amazon is a perfect example of this. It collects the data for the products that are most searched and the items added to the cart. It suggests the items that are frequently purchased with the product you are browsing/buying, thus increasing their sales. Furthermore, it uses the collected browsing data to increase the charges for the most searched products.

3. Great Way to Predictably Know Consumer Behavior It is all about establishing a more human connection with the consumers rather than relying entirely on a machine. Nowadays, people do not prefer going to a store and buy something, unless it is exceptionally urgent. Most of us rely on online stores. The website of such stores uses AI tools. These tools can generate customer-specific real-time solutions that are data-driven from history.

Such solutions also use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to know the mood of customers through voice calls and voice processing or emails. For direct sales, AI-driven apps help the representatives give a personalized experience to the customer.

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4. Means to Create Content and Curate Accurately Statistics show that 59% of potential customers do not prefer a company with grammatical errors on its website, whereas 82% do not prefer to work with a poor English translation record. Time and again, content has consistently proven itself to be the king of marketing. Using AI tools to generate marketing content goes a long way to provide the best return on investments(ROI).

Grammarly, an AI tool, is used worldwide by almost all marketers and content curators. Companies like Washington Post have taken a step ahead in using Heliograph for writing news stories and media posts.

5. A Personalized Website to Attract Customers AI-powered tools like Evergage provide improved customer website experiences. Push notifications used on websites are becoming user-specific giving them favorable information at the needed time. This is the magic of highly specialized tools and algorithms of AI. It uses advanced data collection (e.g., customer comments about products on social media) and uses AI-Powered Analysis to identify key themes and emerging issues for an improvised website experience.

6. Accurate Metrics for Conversions Earlier, people felt 50% of their revenues are not utilized properly while marketing; but not anymore.

Though you cannot know who really sees your advertisement and buys the product physically, the wastage of resources has been minimized to 20%.

Social media apps like Facebook and Instagram keep an eye on their pages to get an idea of most-read articles and most-viewed videos viewed. The idea of literally knowing the nooks and corners of digital marketing with AI has been a dream of marketers.

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Conclusion AI tools would define the future of marketing. Then, why is AI not used profusely by all marketing companies and professionals?

Sadly, not all companies and their professionals use AI tools, and hence, they lag in marketing. A false notion exists behind using AI, which relates to professionals losing their jobs with highly efficient tools replacing manual work. In reality, AI has developed well enough to ease out mundane, repetitive manual tasks and aid in processing large amounts of data with accuracy. In this manner, personnel can devote more time to developing their business creatively by experimenting and implementing new patterns in their work.5 Many small-scale companies and their owners think a lot before investing in AI tools and lack proper market research or information about a product. Nonetheless, the lack of long-term gains on short term investments makes them reluctant to invest in AI products.

You might have heard, “Changes in both marketing and sales have been higher in the past two years than the previous fifty years”. These sudden changes are a matter of worry to many companies which are ignorant about the new approach. You need to adopt AI for marketing and trust your decision to see a difference in growing your business.

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