AI/ML Applications

AI/ML algorithms are being used extensively in several applications that add value to our work and professional lives. They are so seamlessly integrated into applications that quite often you may not realize that there is AI/ML involved in your use of the app.

Most applications use multiple AI/ML algorithms that work in conjunction with data that is made available to them, the more data the better they work.

One of the most commonly used AI/ML applications, that most of us have on our smartphones, is the virtual private assistant. Siri from Apple, Alexa from Amazon and Google Assistant are all examples of such apps. These apps allow you to speak out voice instructions to get your phone to do something (make a call, fetch information from the web, control a smart appliance, and so on) rather than having to type them in.

To make this work, the apps need to implement several algorithms:

• First, it needs to be able to recognize speech. This can be challenging in that all of us speak with different accents, tones and speeds. Then, for security, it needs to recognize the phone owner's voice and only act on those commands, ignoring anything said in other voices.
• Second, it needs to make sense of what was said. It could be a question or a command, and maybe the app needs to support multiple languages as well.
• Third, after understanding the instruction it has to analyze the data it has or has learned from and other data on the Internet to decide what is the best action to take. For example, if the user requests a song and has a subscription to a specific music streaming service, it should play the song from that service.

There are many such applications, and in the next few lessons, we will take a look at examples used in various industries.