We're in the Wild West of artificial intelligence development and it is indeed an exciting time. Whether you fear AI or are part of the revolution, the rapid pace of development is showing no signs of slowing down.

With advanced AI solutions popping up from every corner of the United States, AI is an equal-opportunist: a national landscape for developers across the country to shine. Tech giants like IBM and Microsoft are constantly iterating artificial intelligence engines to perform tasks from object recognition to transcription, and Watson is a household name-the AI landscape leaders are set, right?

Not quite.

The limitation of AI tech coming out of these mega-companies is usability-applying the tech to extract meaningful, actionable data. It works, but does it matter?

Startups and scale-ups around the country are applying AI across various industries to give everyone from marketers to police the time-saving computing power of artificial intelligence.

Below, we rounded up five startups and scale-ups outside of Silicon Valley who are making waves in AI technology:

Veritone, Inc., AI operating system

Location: Newport Beach, CA

The AI market lies in the current state of artificial narrow intelligence-with many single cognitive engines performing one task well. A company from a small beach town is taking us a step closer towards artificial general intelligence, wherein such a system could theoretically perform any task of which a human is capable.

Veritone has developed the Veritone Platform, an open-developer ecosystem that combines the power of third-party cognitive engines and unlocks data from linear files like radio and TV broadcasts, police bodycam footage and call-center conversations.

The "orchestration layer" of the platform selects the best engines for the task (some from the giants listed above), which are put together to reveal real-time, multivariate insights from users' data.

For one of its most powerful applications, Veritone partnered with VIEVU to apply AI analysis to police body and dash-cam footage. Law enforcement can search thousands of hours of footage and recognize voices, faces, objects and keywords, with the click of a mouse, saving hours of time and solving crimes faster.

Quantifi, Machine-learning marketing technology

Location: Indianapolis, IN

Indianapolis is no stranger to marketing technology, as the birthplace of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Salesforce's acquisition of ExactTarget has spurred a marketing technology boom in the city, including two AI companies helping marketers learn and spend more efficiently.

Quantifi is a marketing research and development platform for social media ad managers. It applies artificial intelligence to discover audiences, channels and creative needed to increase engagement and accelerate growth for advertising on social media.

Built on the principles of experimentation, Quantifi enables the discovery of a social media advertising formula at scale to learn exactly what's working for a business.

DemandJump, Machine-learning marketing technology

Location: Indianapolis, IN

DemandJump's traffic-analysis platform uses graph theory, algebraic topology and AI to analyze traffic sources across the web. It maps networks of links and user flows to uncover sites that have the most influence over others-then drives the most qualified leads to a website over time.

DemandJump believes that online location-who is talking about your brand online and where your customers spend time online-is as important today as it was in the brick-and-mortar days of retail.

While most marketing and advertising technology companies are focused on customer retention for their clients, DemandJump has lasered in on client acquisition through traffic identification and optimization.

Mycroft, Open-source voice assistant

Location: Kansas City, MO

Commonly known virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa and Cortana use natural language processing technology to interpret speech and respond in everyday language. Apple, Amazon and Google are driving this innovation, but unfortunately, have a closed developer ecosystem.

Enter Kansas City's Mycroft, the world's first open-source AI voice assistant. Mycroft is free to download and use, and developers are invited to alter its code to expand and improve its functionality. More than 700 independent developers are already making contributions to Mycroft's software.

Mycroft AI's Kickstarter campaign in 2015 funded its initial product, the "Mark 1," a smart speaker similar in function to the Amazon Echo and Google Home. But the Mark 1 is only the launching point for Mycroft, which also runs on desktop and can be integrated into any device.

Zodiac, Customer lifetime value through behavioral analysis

Location: Philadelphia, PA

Zodiac has adapted decades of research on customer lifetime value into a cloud-based software platform, serving finance and marketers alike.

Using data models, Zodiac uses customer analytics and behavioral analysis to predict the future behaviors of individuals. Factors like number of purchases, basket size and churn probabilities all play a role in these predictions, rather than simply assuming past trends will continue.