AI Market Disruptions

Good overview, prediction piece on AI markets from MarketsandMarkets with lots of visuals.

DISRUPTION - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAVE OPENED US$ 50+ BILLION OPPORTUNITIES FOR AI COMPANIES, WHICH IS GOING TO BECOME US$ 300+ BILLION BY 2026

With innovations in AI impacting a multitude of industries, incremental $250 billion of potential opportunities are expected to open by 2026 in adjacent and interconnected markets.

Download the whitepaper →   ... 

Causal Machine Learning

Another area we experimented with, causal elements in the AI knowledge being used.  Would have liked to experiment with Alice. 

Microsoft Research Podcast

Econ2: Causal machine learning, data interpretability, and online platform markets featuring Hunt Allcott and Greg Lewis

Published June 2, 2021

Episode 122 | June 2, 2021 

In the world of economics, researchers at Microsoft are examining a range of complex systems—from those that impact the technologies we use to those that inform the laws and policies we create—through the lens of a social science that goes beyond the numbers to better understand people and society. 

In this episode, Senior Principal Researcher Dr. Hunt Allcott speaks with Microsoft Research New England office mate and Senior Principal Researcher Dr. Greg Lewis. Together, they cover the connection between causal machine learning and economics research, the motivations of buyers and sellers on e-commerce platforms, and how ad targeting and data practices could evolve to foster a more symbiotic relationship between customers and businesses. They also discuss EconML, a Python package for estimating heterogeneous treatment effects that Lewis has worked on as part of the ALICE (Automated Learning and Intelligence for Causation and Economics) project at Microsoft Research. ... "

Quantum Computing Catching up for Market Analysis

 Quite an interesting prediction.  Will there be a post-quantum market analysis era?   I can see some of the combinatorics coming in, but the accuracy of results are not yet there.  

Goldman Sachs Predicts Quantum Computing is 5 Years Away from Use in Markets  By Financial Times

Quantum computing could be brought to bear on some of the most complex calculations in financial markets within five years, considerably earlier than expected, according to research jointly conducted by Goldman Sachs.

The findings come as banks and other companies at the leading edge of quantum research have turned their attention to trying to get practical results using the imperfect quantum computers that are expected to be in use in the next few years, rather than wait for the much more powerful systems that are one day expected to bring a revolution in computing.

The bank's research, conducted with quantum start-up QC Ware, suggests that programmers looking to harness the machines could achieve practical results sooner in return for giving up some of the huge gains in performance that quantum systems promise.

From Financial Times

City Researchers Reveal Link

Seems there would be a link,  but what kind of behavior is indicated?  Always looking for predictive behavior we can leverage.

City Researchers Reveal Link Between Coding of Cryptocurrencies and Their Market Behavior

City University of London (U.K.)   By John Stevenson

A connection between the coding of cryptocurrencies and their market behavior has been identified by researchers at the U.K.'s City University of London. The researchers studied 297 cryptocurrencies whose code is stored in GitHub, and whose average daily trading volume during their lifetime was higher than $100,000. They found that 4% of developers contribute to the code of two or more cryptocurrencies, raising questions about the transparency of the coding process. City University's Andrea Baronchelli said, "Cryptocurrencies are open source digital objects traded as financial assets that allow, at least theoretically, everyone to directly shape both an asset structure and its market behavior. Our study, identifying a simple event in the development space that anticipates a corresponding behavior in the market, establishes a first direct link between the realms of coding and trading."

Competing Pricing Algorithms

In HBSWK, interesting article on competing pricing algorithms, below the intro, reading:

Warring Algorithms Could be Driving Up Prices

Companies increasingly use software to conduct rapid price changes. Alexander MacKay explains why firms might benefit but consumers should be worried.

The widespread use of pricing algorithms is reshaping the nature of competition in online markets and potentially driving up the prices of retail goods, according to recent research.
These automated, price-adjusting software programs may also be catching the eye of government regulators and antitrust authorities, who fear they could ultimately harm consumers by raising prices above typical competitive levels.

It doesn’t seem too long ago when a price change was a major strategic decision for companies, requiring extensive data analysis, management consensus, coordination with advertising schedules, and other factors in an era when computers were helpful but not critical to pricing strategy. The result: A price change was more an annual or semiannual event. But these days, when companies can analyze consumer data and use technology to raise or lower prices in the blink of an eye, changes can be made not just once a year but multiple times daily.

“WHAT WE SHOW, THEORETICALLY, IS THAT (ALGORITHMIC COMPETITION) LEADS TO HIGHER PROFITS FOR BOTH FIRMS.”

Enter the rise of pricing algorithms, where software monitors prices posted by competitors and makes adjustments using parameters developed by the company’s marketers and strategists.

“They want to react to changing demand and supply conditions,” says study author Alexander J. MacKay, an assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School who studies competition, including pricing, demand, and market structure.  .... "

AlchemAI Predicting Chemical Markets

Brought to my attention.  Intriguing play.   How close is the process involved in the prediction?  Reminds me of work we did in simulating the chemistry inside coffee beans as they roasted, and its use to predict its behavior in processing and resulting flavor.

Announcement: An artificial intelligence to predict chemicals markets

AlchemAI is a neural network developed and trained by R&D Mediation to predict market and uses of chemicals. It can find new markets for existing molecules or business opportunities for new chemicals. In August 2017, 98 markets and uses are covered by the AI.

From structure to application

Chemists and biochemists have imagined more than 8 million molecules. Main part of them has only been manufactured in small quantities and poorly tested. Finding chemical activity from molecular pattern is an important part of Research, especially in health industry. Often, the potential use is deduced from uses of similar chemicals or from traditional uses. Quantum mechanics codes, either semi-empirical like MOPAC [1] or ab initio like GAUSSIAN[2] allow discovering relationship between some properties (catalytic, biocide…) and the molecule. These calculations are long and complex. For some thermodynamical properties, Benson’s groups [3] make it possible to find good approximations, with the limit of the increments values available. ... "

Emerging Markets Innovation

Chief executive says the company’s innovation pipeline may be the strongest it has ever been.  By Keith Nunes in Food Business News.

Emerging markets, innovation drive Unilever’s 2017 results
Chief executive says the company’s innovation pipeline may be the strongest it has ever been. ... " 

Market Newsletter on AI

Nicely done:

nathan.ai newsletter   By Nathan Benaich

March 18 · Issue #24 · View online

A market intelligence newsletter covering AI in the technology industry, research lab and venture capital market.  ..... " 

Macy's Promotes Pop-Ups in Markets

I cover the local chain Macy's retail Innovations, they have been quite innovative.  Will Pop-up stores work in a brick store environment?   Jungle Jim's does this, but it seems not to great success.   Likely to do specifically with product, design and other contexts.  Refreshing also key.  Below further expert comment.

Macy’s launches in-store pop-up concept for brands  by George Anderson

"Potentially [the pop-up brand being the seller of record] makes it easier for Macy’s to bring in more interesting, emerging products."  ... Jason Goldberg   SVP of Commerce and Content Practice, SapientRazorfish

Macy’s has launched a new pop-up concept that allows brands and other companies to sell their products and services on the ground floor of the retailer’s stores.

The Market @ Macy’s is being pitched as a turnkey operational solution enabling companies to gain additional exposure to the department store’s customers without a long-term commitment. Those filling pop-up locations pay a fee to Macy’s for the space while keeping all the sales revenue. Space is rented with a one-month minimum requirement and rates are based on location. .... " 

Blockchain Based Electronic Marketplaces

Intriguing application idea.    Inevitable managing control?

Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces  By Hemang Subramanian ,   Communications of the ACM, Vol. 61 No. 1, Pages 78-84 .... 

Hemang Subramanian discusses "Decentralized Blockchain-based E-Marketplaces"  Video: https://vimeo.com/245228182

Abstract: 

E-commerce marketplaces—whether business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B)—are examples of a two-sided market.6,19 Each side involves networks of participants. Network effects—the incremental value added by each new participant—play the dominating technological role in such markets. Over time, network effects inevitably yield a monopoly in which a single e-commerce firm manages the entire marketplace   .... " 

Watching How the Giants Buy AI

Below reminds me of our own attempts to buy AI during the last explosion.  And we did, buying some considerable equity positions.  Of course the scale was far less than Google's acquisitions.   Ultimately these investments lost money.   Still, it was the way then , as it is now, to understand what had real value in the marketplace.  Also, specifically, what Algorithmia is doing, was brought up at the time as a good idea to establish. develop and market needed ideas.  Watching now.

Google’s secretive AI fund makes first public investment in Algorithmia   By Maria Deutscher

 In May, word leaked that Google has set up a venture capital fund run by engineers rather than professional investors and focused exclusively on backing artificial intelligence startups. The existence of the fund received official confirmation today after it was named as the lead contributor to a $10.5 million round into Seattle’s Algorithmia Inc.

The four-year-old startup is on a mission to ease the deployment and use of AI models. To that end, it offers two platforms aimed at reducing the massive amounts of manual work normally involved in the task.

The first is a marketplace through which researchers and developers can share their algorithms without the logistics of the delivery posing an obstacle. On the provider’s side, Algorithmia offers analytics features for monitoring model usage along with a monetization option geared towards submitters that wish to sell their algorithms on a commercial basis. These capabilities are joined by programming interface that enables buyers to embed solutions from the marketplace into their applications. Algorithmia runs models in the cloud to spare users the trouble of operating them on their own.  .... " 

Chicago Merchantile Exchange Trading Challenge

Brought to my attention via Columbia connections.  Details at the link.

CME Group Trading Challenge
CME Group's Trading Challenge is a complimentary four-week electronic trading competition where teams of undergraduate and graduate students can trade a variety of CME Group products from multiple asset classes in a simulated trading environment on a real-time professional trading platform provided by CQG.

Top ranking students will be eligible for cash prizes and exclusive CME Group experiences.
This annual competition has grown each year - with 200 schools from 30 countries and nearly 500 teams competing in 2016. The Trading Challenge is a unique chance for students to learn hands-on techniques for trading futures. Teams must consist of 3 to 5 members from the same university and each must elect a student leader. Teams can participate on a student-led team or in cooperation with a faculty advisor. Advisors will have early registration access to register their teams. Please note, advisors are not permitted to participate as a member of the team during the Challenge and are ineligible to receive a prize if their team is a winner.  .... " 

Learning from Emergent Markets

In HBR:   At one level obvious, but useful cautions.    Especially about regulatory warnings, and connected risk.  " ... In a study we recently conducted of 150 North American and European-based companies with revenues over $1 billion, we found that along with growth, those investments can generate huge losses — more than $1 billion per responding company over the last five years. Those losses stemmed not from poor product, marketing, or supply chain decisions but from regulatory violations, loss of business and fines resulting from bribery and fraud, and concomitant reputational damage. .... " 

Foxtrot Code for Focused Analytics

Brought late to my attention .... Seeking to build micro analytics for many problems.  A platform of and for analytics makers.  Some good thoughts.

' ..... “What we’re trying to do is create a revolution around analytics – getting individuals and people who could be microentrepreneurs to build analytics on our platform and sell them to larger companies who want to analyze data,” Ed Fullman told me.

Here’s how that works: Average people have insight and expertise into areas that data scientists don’t. A policeman knows more about public safety and crime prevention than a data scientist but won’t necessarily know how to best organize all of the data a city produces around public safety. So a policeman can throw out an idea, “I’d like to see how more liquor licenses affect traffic in a certain part of the city,” and a data scientist can build an algorithm to predict or analyze that. The programmer can then decide to release that open source on the Foxtrot Code platform or allow companies or municipalities to lease it for a fee.

That’s why Ed and Elena Fullman think the Etsy metaphor works: They see coders and programmers and data scientists as the next generation of makers. And Foxtrot Code wants to be the marketplace for that, like Etsy is for handcrafted goods.  .... " 

How P&G and Google Approach New Markets

In the HBR:      Excellent piece.  " ... Leading companies such as Procter & Gamble and Google have realized that the more clearly you understand your customer or partner, and their context(s), the more likely you will be able to offer the right solutions, build the right business models and win through global expansion – in India, Mexico, China, Russia, or beyond. ... ".   Lays out three straightforward  techniques, well described as I encountered them.

Vinimaya Visual Marketplace Discovery

Mentioned last week in conjunction with delivering visual Marketplaces.  Can you understand your market visually through search?  Impressive approach.

 Vinimaya’s Visual Discovery capabilities provides users of MarketPlace an experience beyond  “Amazon-like” shopping. 
 vMarketPlace Procurement Shopping Experience Enhanced Through Visual Discovery To achieve success with any eProcurement system, it is essential that organizations overcome the challenges of user adoption and content enablement – getting quality catalog content from suppliers quickly into a user-friendly digital format. Employee buy-in and adoption are key to driving spend under management using eProcurement systems.  .... "

GSMA Telecom MarketPlace

Brought to my attention by Vinimaya, a long time provider of online marketplaces for efficient procurement. Now they are announcing a new service that effectively connects buyers and sellers in Telecom.

Much more here, with some excellent examples and visuals, contact them for a free demo system.

" ... The Research Centre offers innovative tools and data that allow  buyers and sellers to gain valuable insight into products, potential  partners, competitors or even an entire market. 

The Web Visualization Tool enables users to view into the “deep web” by seeing the top 500 search results in a heat map format.  The Message Analysis Tool distills a website or document into an  easy to digest visual format. ... " 

What is the GSMA Marketplace?
The GSMA Marketplace is a new online commerce platform that enables buyers and sellers in the telecommunications industry to connect with each other. Sellers can create customized storefronts and post product  catalogues. Buyers can search for new suppliers or products and can initiate RFPs and RFXs. Both buyers and sellers can use the Research Centre, which allows detailed analysis of markets, potential partners and competitors.

Why GSMA?
As the trade association representing over 800 mobile network operators worldwide, GSMA is a trusted intermediary within the telecoms industry. By running successful events like Mobile World Congress, GSMA has significant experience in connecting buyers and sellers. The GSMA 
Marketplace will leverage the relationships and trust we have developed in the ecosystem to improve the procurement and business development activity of the entire industry.

Who will Participate in the GSMA Marketplace?
The GSMA Marketplace will include mobile network operators, network infrastructure providers, device manufacturers, application and service providers, system integrators and many other companies that buy and sell in the mobile ecosystem. ... " 

GSMA Introductory site and Video.

GSMA Press release on the GSMA Marketplace.

Third Party Sellers Set Record

In Retailwire: Have been involved with a third party seller on Amazon for some time.  The process and dynamics are interesting to watch.   The data use claim is interesting, had not heard that:

" ... Despite concerns raised about Amazon possibly using data from third-party sellers on its Marketplace to benefit itself at the expense of those smaller companies, new numbers from the e-tailing giant show many of the merchants on its site are doing quite well.

According to Amazon, third-party sellers set a record selling more than two billion items worldwide last year. Today, there are two million sellers on Amazon that account for over 40 percent of the total units sold on the site. ... " 

Alibaba IPO Emerges

If you have not seen it yet.  Alibaba.com  " ... We operate leading online and mobile marketplaces in retail and wholesale trade, as well as cloud computing and other services. We provide technology and services to enable consumers, merchants, and other participants to conduct commerce in our ecosystem. ... " 

My first look at this shows an Amazon like site with a very wide variety of goods.   Very fast response time. Prices look very good, but shipping prices were high on the few items I examined.

Disruptive Innovation and Market Leaders

In Knowledge@Wharton:  How does disruptive innovation effect market leaders?  Not unexpected results, will be interesting to see some numbers.

" ... a study soon to be published in Management Science discovered that disruptive innovations need not lead to an incumbent’s fall, despite prevailing academic theory arguing otherwise. The paper, “Dynamic Commercialization Strategies for Disruptive Technologies: Evidence from the Speech Recognition Industry,” was authored by Wharton management professor David Hsu, Matthew Marx, a professor of technological innovation, entrepreneurship and strategic management at MIT, and Joshua Gans, a professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto.

Indeed, the authors discovered that start-ups introducing disruptive technologies with long-term potential are more likely to end up licensing to incumbents or agreeing to be acquired rather than turning into rivals. While these start-ups would initially compete with established firms, the motivation is to prove the worth of their innovation to a skeptical industry that has not seen it before. ... "