Machine Learning

Machine learning — a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that was given the capacity to learn by analysing data and improvising from it. Machine learning centers around the advancement of technology that can change when presented to new information.

A powerful tool in this technology-oriented era. After all, what’s more powerful than a machine learning AI combined with tons of data? If coded properly, an AI learns and makes a pattern out of enormous amounts of data in a short time compared to a human analyst. Once a solid pattern regarding consumer’s behavior in purchasing your products/ service has been identified, your business would have already achieved what most businesses are unable to attain.

It is in every business owner’s interest to analyse customer’s behavior so that they are able to maximise profit. By utilising machine learning, owners are able increase their return on investment (ROI) drastically by exploiting the patterns analysed by machine learning-implemented AI — granting them a huge lead over their competitors.

Retargeting with Machine Learning

Facebook started out free for its users… and still remained free til this day. Nevertheless, they are making loads and loads of profit through advertisements, but why do so many companies use Facebook ads as their marketing channel over and over again?

Facebook and a few other social media platforms have become part of our lives. We’re leaving digital footprints every day in these social media platforms. Posting, commenting, browsing, scrolling, uploading or even entering groups turned us into ‘targets’.

Facebook bots crawl through your browser history, programmed for one and one thing only — to collect data about you. Your browsing habits, websites that you visited, browser cookies stored and more are collected and deciphered. If you have not already noticed, advertisements which appear on your news feed are either relevant to the sites that you browse, or 100% identical with the sites you browsed.

Image credits: inbound360

What typically happens next? You click on the intriguing ad as it fits your interest, enters the company’s website, stumble upon their landing page, and start gazing upon their ‘product of the month’. Without another thought, you clicked on the ‘buy’ button followed by the ‘confirm checkout’ button. The website owners, happy, as they simply closed another sale — you. But wait, there’s more. Right after you paid for your product, the website simply offered you a more… upgraded product than the one you bought. Your conscious mind tells you that you’ve hit your credit limit for the month but your heart simply tells you to go for it. Well, tell me what’s next? Probably another sale closed by the website owners?

It is no wonder that more than half the companies using social media platforms as their marketing channel have a commendable ROI. Crawler bots do exceptional work in determining different marketing personalisation for each user. This allows advertisements of different industries target potential customers and increase sales, ultimately benefiting both ends of the deal.

Machine Learning with DeepFace

Ever thought why Facebook would identify you in images that you were tagged in? Yes, I meant those photos which your friend took candidly that displays multiple negative facial features that you were trying to hide in your selfies.

Facebook implemented a facial recognition software in early 2015, allowing users to automatically tag their friends in photos. A Huffington post described this technology as ‘creepy’, as it violates people’s privacy without consent. However, Facebook seems to have proceeded with this machine learning feature and rolled it out to the public.

Image credits: mirror.co.uk

Trendy Cars on Today’s Roads

Waymo — the company that bought Google’s self-driving car project in December 2016. Their self-driving cars were evolving from time to time. These cars drove in an overly safe manner initially. However, the vehicles adapted the ability to cross solid divider lines in the road – a capability that wasn’t initially programmed into the car to prevent it from straying from its lane. Furthermore, self-driving cars started mimicking behaviors of human drivers such as slightly moving forward to display the intention of ushering the car in front of it.

These self-driving cars are still in beta phase, as Waymo ushers the public to test their cars for them. Learning and mapping their way through their pre-installed cameras, they are collecting data to allow their self-driving cars to evolve on a larger scale through machine learning.