investment lenses for machine intelligence // shivon zilis, bloomberg beta [firstmark's data...

MACHINEINTELLIGENCEUPDATEShivon Zilis /// Bloomberg Beta ///

2016

1. What’s happened in the last year?

2. What was it about the machine intelligence companies we invested in that made us jump to attention?

3. What do we hope to see in the future?

What’s Happening?

• Explosion of activity

• Experiments are cheap

• Big players building general systems

• Startups focusing on niches that provide immediate value

What’s Interesting?

• Many defined flavors of agents already!

AGENTS

Cyborgs Synthesizers Coordinators

Transactors Companions Diagnosticians

AGENTS

Example Investment: StealthCo

• Everyone can have an algorithmic analyst – even analysts!

• Allows me to be more “human”

• “In 5 years it will be crazy to start a research project without having an agent do a first pass for you”

AGENTS

AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS

What’s Happening?

• Pandemonium

What’s Interesting?

• “Next phase” autonomous systems companies

AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS

Example Investment: Tule Technologies

• Movement on the decision making continuum:

Manual –> Data as Input –> Data as Default –> Autonomous

• “In 5 years it will be crazy for a farmer to overwater their fields ‘just in case’”

ENTERPRISE

What’s Happening?

• Big Data -> Small Data

• Business Problem Specific

• Full Stack Solutions

What’s Interesting?

• Magic Wands!

ENTERPRISE

Example Investment: Textio• Data partnerships!• Invisible MI• Makes you smarter even when you’re not using it• Fun?!• “In 5 years it will be crazy to ever hit ‘publish’ without using a

domain specific text optimizer”

PLATFORMS

What’s Happening?

• Business models tough

• Whale hunting ftw

What’s Interesting?

• Data enrichment and new data types

PLATFORMS

Investment Example: Gridspace• Passive data capture!• Little / no behavioral change, saves me from myself• Makes me feel terrible if I’m not using it now• “in 5 years it will be crazy not to have an automated

summary of your important business conversations

INDUSTRIES

What’s Happening?• Grey market innovation• Healthcare +

Transportation + Legal + Finance

• For good!

TECH USER TOOLS

What’s Happening?

• Open Sesame

What’s Interesting?

• It’s never been a better time to create an integrative solution

• Data science becomes a team sport

• Frees us up to be more “human”• Moves along the data-driven decision continuum• Makes machine intelligence “invisible” to the user• Solves a specific business problem• Has the right data strategy (proprietary, partnerships,

mousetrap)• Causes little to no behavioral change, employs

passive data capture• Seems crazy that we won’t use something of its type

in 5 years

INVESTMENT LENSES

• What if I had the same support staff as a Fortune 500 CEO?

• What if I never had to feel lonely again? 

• What if I never had to go to a primary care physician again? 

• What if I could measure the effectiveness of every word I said?

• -What if I never had to drive again? 

WHAT IF…