Machine Learning is just what the name sounds like. It is a series of algorithms which help the machines to learn from data in order to identify patterns from the data inputs and make decisions based on it with the least amount of human intervention. In other words, it is a system of data analysis which uses statistics to predict the output based on previous input-output patterns.
Where is Machine Learning Used?
Machine learning innovation is helping improve the Artificial Intelligence in computers, devices, and other software that are used extensively by more and more people on a daily basis. The most common spaces which used Machine Learning are:
- Virtual Assistants: Virtual assistants like Siri, Google Now and Alexa are assisting people in finding information, making schedules, managing appointments, setting alarms and reminders, and much more. They do so by collecting the data and refining it, with the help of machine learning, and later using it to customize the results.
- Product Recommendations: Product recommendation uses machine learning to enhance the shopping experience of a person by analyzing their behavior on the website or app, the products viewed, shortlisted, purchased or abandoned and using this data to recommend more products as well as to place dynamic ads curated to person’s preferences.
- Fraud, Spam and Malware Detection: Everyday, millions of attempts at fraud, sending spam and malware are detected and prevented by software functioning on machine learning. They can detect and update their defenses according to the new spams and malware which have 2-10% variation from those already detected. This means they can detect these malicious content even if they are modified and use them to further detect for modifications, without explicit human input. Companies such as PayPal use machine learning to detect scams and money laundering.
- Social Media: It’s no coincidence that the social media news feed, friend, pages or topic suggestions, ad placements everything is curated to the preferences of the account holder. It is because of the machine learning innovation which uses the browsing habits of the individuals to provide them with an experience based on their personal likes and dislikes.
- Search Engine Optimization: Machine learning enables and improves the Search Engine Optimization by accumulating data and interpreting it. They also track the user behavior to identify and tag the search results as useful or not. This is why famous sites such as Wikipedia, Quora, or any site a person frequents the most would appear on top of the result page as they are judged to be more useful.
In addition to these, there are a number of fields and applications using machine learning to provide preference-based experience to their audience, all the while promoting their products.
Who Uses Machine Learning?
Over the years, the number of companies providing machine learning innovation has been increasing as it is the future in providing personalized services to a targeted audience, detecting and preventing malicious content and cyber attacks, and overall increasing the cognitive abilities of devices and software. Let’s look at some key industries where machine learning is incorporated into the products and services they sell:
- Social Media and Search Engines: As mentioned earlier, social media and search engines use machine learning to modify the content which people sees according to their preferences, which are ascertained by analyzing their browsing history.
- Financial Services: In the financial industry, machine learning is used not only to prevent fraud and as a method of cyber-surveillance but also to identify important insights into investment opportunities such as knowing when to trade.
- Health care: With the increasing number of wearable medical devices, machine learning is helping the healthcare industry to know the patient’s health in real time by using the data from these devices and also identifying trends to warn the healthcare providers of any red-flags in the data, such as if the patient is not improving even with treatment.
- Government: Several Government agencies use machine learning for data mining for vast sources of information, analyzing the data as well as detecting fraud and mitigating identity theft.
- Marketing and Sales: Marketing and sales companies are among the forerunners in using machine learning to promote their products as well as implement marketing campaigns, by personalizing the shopping experience of the people, who visit their websites, through analyzing their buying data and providing personalized product recommendations.
- Transportation: Transporting organizations, which include delivery companies and public transportation among others, use machine learning to analyze data in order to identify the patterns to increase the efficiency of the route and predict the potential problems thereby improving their services and increasing profitability.
In Conclusion
It is not an exclusive list as there are numerous other industries, such as cheminformatics, DNA sequence classification, linguistics, telecommunications, user behavior analytics and many more, where machine learning has been adopted for its ability to detect any code with as much as 10% variation from those already detected and update the measures accordingly to include the new code, with no to minimum human input.
