Last updated: 19 October 2018

Even in today’s massively technology-oriented society, it’s difficult to imagine a world run by machines, or more specifically, cognitive-based intelligence systems. This fact is exacerbated even more by pop culture, which often portrays AI as a sort of enemy to humankind, at least when it comes to science-fiction and fantasy. That perception doesn’t stop the fact that soon, we’ll be ordering coffee and beverages from mechanical baristas and taking rides to work in vehicles that can drive themselves. Artificial intelligence is going to shape the world and the future as we know it. The industry is growing rapidly on a daily basis, which means that new AI startups are continually entering the market in healthcare, marketing, cybersecurity, and more.

Here are some of the most promising and innovative AI startups in the US.

1. Arterys

Even for skilled professionals, pouring over MRI scans is difficult, tedious work. Not only that, but it’s also relatively easy to make a mistake and misdiagnose a patient. But Arterys hopes to change that with a cloud-based imaging tool that can review scans much faster. It’s touted as an “AI assistant for radiologists” that’s both efficient and capable.

What would typically take a human 45 minutes to identify and diagnose can be done in just 15 seconds with the Arterys platform. It relies on a deep-learning neural network based in the cloud, which grows smarter over time as more data and information is fed into it.

2. Hound/SoundHound

Voice assistants are a dime a dozen these days with the likes of Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana and many others. However, Houndify is trying to revolutionize the technology by building one of the most powerful assistants ever.

Unlike similar platforms, Hound — the company’s latest app — doesn’t merely convert language into text. Instead, it uses a combination of voice recognition and contextual language understanding to eliminate errors and speed up translations. This tool also allows for much more complex queries. For example, you could ask Hound something like “What are some high-rated restaurants within the nearest five miles, open past 9 p.m., that aren’t fast food or pizza places?”

3. Freenome

Several AI and machine-learning tools are being used to diagnose cancer faster, but Freenome offers something more. It goes beyond merely detecting cancerous tissue and can pinpoint exactly where the cancer is located in the body. Purportedly, it can also discern whether a tumor is malignant or benign. And it does all of this through liquid biopsies — in other words, blood samples.

It achieves this information in a rather remarkable way. The system is designed to analyze a person’s DNA — through blood samples, of course — and then predict where cancer may be, but also what treatments can be used. Machine learning allows the system to grow smarter over time as it ingests data.

The company hopes to be able to detect many forms of cancer, including prostate, colon, lung, and breast.

4. Spoke

Within large organizations, it can be difficult for employees and personnel to find answers to their questions. There are many reasons for this, which may stem from poor communication, lacking documentation or just complex hierarchies.

Spoke is the answer. It’s an AI helpdesk or chat tool that offers employee support, specifically. Queries can be sent — and answered — via Slack, text or email. The idea is that the tool will provide employees with a near-instant channel of communication to keep everything running efficiently. If they have a question or concern, they can direct it to the Spoke AI and get a proper response rather than waiting for the message to pass through HR and up the management chain.

5. Bowery Farming

Agriculture and farming are growing to be some of the most data-oriented industries in the modern day. Through big data and machine learning, crop yields can be improved through the elimination of obstacles and enhancement of various habits. Bowery Farming is taking that progress one step further, as all their crops are grown indoors and with the help of connected, data-oriented sensors. These smart sensors can detect factors like temperature, humidity, light, and health of the various plants.

Cameras are also used to observe and watch crops, but no people are sitting in front of a screen all day watching plants grow. Instead, it’s an AI or machine-learning platform that can detect and adjust various elements to improve growing conditions. The system can make changes to enhance taste, texture and even color of the different plants.

Bowery Farm claims that this system allows their farms to be 100 times more efficient — per square foot — than traditional farms.

6. Cybereason

Many IT and cybersecurity companies are looking to AI and machine learning to both automate and improve cyberattack response. Cybereason specializes in endpoint detection and response by offering a platform that can detect potential attacks and problems in real-time.

The system can “analyze more data, more deeply” thanks to its full-stack nature. As soon as it’s deployed, it begins scanning through an environment and then continually compares findings to what it has stored in a cloud-based data system. Like any machine learning tool, it learns more as it ingests data and grows to understand a network as well as potential threats.

7. Casetext

Pouring over hundreds — if not thousands — of legal documents and previous rulings to find a correlation is not fun. It’s tedious and takes lots of human resources. That’s why lawyers employ an army of interns to help them.

Casetext can help alleviate some of that tedium through the use of AI analytics. Lawyers, staff members, and professionals can upload legal briefs or documents and then use AI to find similar data. More specifically, the system will help them identify previous cases that match their own. Think of it as a search engine, but for the legal industry.

8. TextIQ

Regulatory compliance is a necessary evil that also happens to require a lot of rote analysis and document work. TextIQ applies machine learning and language analysis to help improve the quality and efficiency of the work being done. More importantly, it doesn’t replace human resources entirely but instead works alongside them to analyze documents and data and extract more meaningful insights.

The company offers General Counsel, Chief Compliance, Head of Litigation and Head of E-Discovery tools.

9. Pattern89

Previously named Quantify, this company has rebranded under the name Pattern89. They offer a social media research and toolset for marketing professionals that employs machine learning and AI. The system will ingest audience, channel and content data to help social media managers improve engagement and boost exposure for their brand.

The company hails it as the “first data science coaching platform for paid social” because it helps inform professionals what they should — or shouldn’t — do during social campaigns. Comprehensive reports round out the platform, allowing for much more profound insights than ever before.

10. DemandJump

With online marketing and internet portals, in general, it’s difficult to determine what and where specific traffic comes from. You may see an uptick in customers or visitors coming from a particular portal, but you don’t necessarily know why it’s happening. More importantly, you can’t replicate that success if you don’t understand it.

DemandJump is a traffic-analysis platform that relies on artificial intelligence to understand and leverage traffic sources. It will analyze what’s happening with traffic and create a map of user flows that can be used to highlight influential portals. Through it, you can learn who is talking about and providing references to your brand as well as what that means for your numbers.

It’s less about retention and more about finding new customers — and building loyal ones — through optimized traffic sourcing.

11. Clari

Clari, based in Sunnyvale, California, analyzes data for sales reps, applying advanced analytics and cloud technology to provide valuable insights to sales teams. In March 2018, it raised $35M. Its clients include Zoom and Atlassian.

Clari’s services include pipeline inspection, opportunity management and forecast management.

AI Will Soon Be Necessary

As you can see, artificial intelligence and machine learning are indeed being used to do some amazing things even today. But the kind of efficiency, speed, and benefits the technology offers means that it will soon become an even more competitive space. More and more businesses will begin to implement it and AI startups will continue to identify new opportunities. That change will foster growth and adoption, and naturally, AI will become a powerhouse — creating the kind of machine- and software-driven world we’ve fantasized about for decades.

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