Lexalytics®, the leader in cloud and on-prem text analytics solutions, announced today that it is unveiling the Magic Machines™ AI Labs in Amherst, MA, to speed innovation in artificial intelligence (AI). In stealth mode for the past year, Magic Machines has been focusing on “force-multiplying” AI technologies. These breakthrough technologies researched by Magic Machines are already accelerating Lexalytics’ product development cycle. Over the coming months, Lexalytics will announce products that enable data scientists to handle more projects and empower business intelligence users to shape AI.
Lexalytics has also partnered with two leading academic institutions dedicated to the advancement of data science and marketing technology: University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Center for Data Science and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications. Through its affiliation with UMass, Lexalytics will work with faculty and students on the underlying challenges of analyzing, visualizing and drawing insights from massive volumes and varieties of data. At the other end of the problem, Northwestern and Lexalytics will partner to ensure the usability and applicability of Magic Machines AI technologies to a broad set of business users.
Acquiring and retaining strong scientific and analytics talent is still an issue for many companies. Magic Machines AI Labs will focus on “force-multiplying” technologies in five primary areas of research, each carefully chosen to maximize automation of building an application-specific AI. These include: Swarm Intelligence/Emergent Behavior, Adaptive AI, Algorithmic Coordination, Transfer Learning and Meta-Learning.
“Smart machines need to be properly set up, maintained and continuously governed if they are to be of maximum benefit to the enterprise,” according to Gartner’s November 2016 Predicts 2017 Artificial Intelligence report. Magic Machines is working towards intelligent automation of these processes, so data scientists can more efficiently apply their time and business analysts can shape the resultant AI systems.
“Lexalytics has a long history and deep expertise in building and deploying thousands of machine-learning models as part of our market leading text analytics toolkits,” said Paul Barba, Chief Scientist, Lexalytics. “Text analytics is an AI-hard problem, meaning that we have solved some of the most difficult AI-related challenges around. After over a year of working quietly on Magic Machines technologies, we’re happy with our results, and ready to catapult innovation in AI even further.”
Lexalytics has had a long-standing informal relationship with the College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) at UMass Amherst. CICS faculty members are internationally known for their scientific achievements in the many specialized disciplines now referred to collectively as data science. In 2015, UMass Amherst created the Center for Data Science to catalyze and drive innovation in data science education and research, making the university a natural Lexalytics Magic Machines partner. “Our goals are to establish UMass as a leading public academic institution delivering excellence in data science education, research and industry collaboration, and to thoroughly prepare our students to meet industry demand for highly qualified data scientists,” said Brant Cheikes, Executive Director, Center for Data Science, UMass Amherst. “We’re thrilled to deepen our partnership with Lexalytics and collaborate with them to overcome their hardest data science challenges.”
Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications is dedicated to educating a new breed of fully digitally-aware executives, business people, entrepreneurs and journalists. “Lexalytics has been instrumental in educating our graduate students, and thousands of others who access our classes on Coursera,” said Randy Hlavac, Director, Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications, Northwestern University. “At Medill, we have a strong pool of graduate students, business leaders and faculty. Our people will work with Lexalytics to ensure that the technologies and products that emerge from the Magic Machines AI Labs have maximum business impact with minimum hassle.”
For more information on the Lexalytics® Magic Machines™ AI Labs, including a brief overview of technologies like Swarm Intelligence and Transfer Learning, please visit the Lexalytics ® Magic Machines™ Artificial Intelligence Labs webpage.
About UMass Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst, founded in 1863, is the flagship of the five-campus UMass system. Home to the Commonwealth Honors College, UMass Amherst incorporates modern teaching methods involving new communication and information technology, yet remains an immersive, residential campus serving more than 22,000 undergraduate and approximately 6,300 graduate students across a comprehensive array of academic programs. True to its land-grant roots, UMass Amherst is engaged in research and creative work in all fields and is classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a doctoral university with the “highest research activity” or R1. Major areas of emphasis include climate science, food science, alternative energy, nanomanufacturing, polymer science, computer science and linguistics. Together, students and faculty are deeply engaged in collaboration with communities — both regional and international — to improve their social and economic conditions.
About Northwestern University Medill School
Medill, a leader in education since 1921, offers programs in journalism and integrated marketing communications that combine enduring skills and values with new techniques and knowledge that are essential to thrive in today’s digital world. Medill has a long-standing reputation for academic excellence. As the media industry experiences unprecedented change, Medill leads the way. The school’s graduate and undergraduate programs are educating a new generation of multimedia journalists and integrated marketing communications professionals who are not only thriving in this evolving media landscape but also helping to shape it.