These Companies Are Banking on AI to Raise Productivity The artificial intelligence has become one of the hottest trends in start-up space since so many world's leading tech giants are making a foray into this technology.

The concept of Artificial Intelligence is not something new, but in past few years, this technology has been growing rapidly. Almost every sector, whether in the field of Information technology or education or banking is trying to use artificial intelligence to reduce their expenditures, shift the workforce and increase their efficiency.

Many companies are also adopting artificial intelligence nowadays to boost their organization's growth. The artificial intelligence has become one of the hottest trends in the start-up space since so many world's leading tech giants are making a foray into this technology. Talking about the AI segment, chatbots and robots seem to be more popular when it comes to various industries using this technology.

Given below are prominent players in different sectors that are catering to a niche area of artificial intelligence.

Jobs Can be Replaced By Automation:

IT major Infosys launched an artificial intelligence platform 'Mana' last year to enable businesses to continuously reinvent their system landscapes. Mana, with the Infosys AiKiDo service offerings, dramatically lowers the cost of maintenance for both physical and digital assets. The Infosys Mana platform is part of the Infosys Aikido framework that helps companies undertake the non-disruptive transformation of their existing landscapes.

During Bengaluru chapter of Global Shapers, an initiative by the World Economic Forum, Infosys's HR Head Krishnamurthy Shankar confessed that over 9000 employees were "released' by them in 2016. He further shared at the event that recruitment is substantially down at Infosys, as automation is taking some real time toll on job opportunities. He added during the first nine months of this fiscal only 5,700 employees were hired, compared to about 17,000 in the same period last year.

Wipro's AI platform is Eating Up Jobs in the I.T Sector:

It is not only Infosys that is heavily investing in automation to fuel their growth but other software giants like Wipro are also betting on artificial intelligence with its homegrown platform called Holmes.

Wipro's Holmes is designed with a focus on enterprise use cases from IT and Business process areas, has the ability to continuously learn from new data, recommend a solution and predict failures. At Wipro, nearly 3,200 people were released and reassigned in November 2016 to do more innovative work. The company aims to take the figure to 4,500 in the current fiscal.

Banks are Increasingly Turning to Automation:

The banking sector is every year bringing new technology that helps banks in managing the tasks across the globe. Banks are now turning to robots to save the time of customer visiting the branch for even tedious tasks like withdrawing money and updating their bank statements.

Tamil Nadu's Kumbakonam City Union Bank (CUB), became the first bank in India to introduce a robot called Lakshmi to deal with customer queries. The robot is based on the IBM Watson artificial intelligence (AI) engine.Lakshmi currently speaks in English gestures and engages in conversations with customers on banking solutions, including interest rates on loans and checking the account balance.

A Banking Humanoid Robot For Customer Service :

Apart from City Union Bank, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank have also employed robotic assistants to guide customers and look after their queries. HDFC Bank has deployed a robot inside one of their Mumbai branch for customer service purpose. This interactive humanoid, called as IRA or Intelligent Robotic Assistant will greet customers and guide them to various counters. The human-sized robot Ira is developed in association with Kochi-based Asimov Robotics.