The fitness industry is in the midst of a digital transformation. Fitness, like just about every industry from transportation to leisure, has witnessed the emergence of digital as a force for change, and brick and mortar gyms are having a tough time keeping pace. Entire companies have been successfully launched to capitalize on the rise in digital fitness, as evidenced by the popularity of companies such as MIRROR Home Fitness, Peloton, FiiT, and SWEAT. These are just a few fitness providers that have leveraged digital technology to engage audiences that are looking for customized fitness experiences that meet their individual schedules and routines.

We have Jane Fonda to thank for bringing fitness into the home back in the ’80s with her Original Workout video on VHS that went on to become the biggest selling video of all time. Fast forward 40 years, and we can thank technological innovation for taking home fitness to a new level.

But there is another factor at play which speaks to the preferences of Generation Y/millennials and Generation Z, who account for almost 50% of all health club members: These consumers have a preference for on-demand services and are less attracted to locking in annual membership fees. Remember, it was the recurring annuity stream of yearly membership fees that attracted private equity to brick and mortar gyms, which need stable and predictable cash flow to service debt and to cover high operating expenses. Working out at home or in private sessions with a personal trainer (in-person or virtual) doesn’t require an annual membership.

Paying as you go is where the market is moving. Facilitating this trend is the emergence of mobile apps that provide fitness trainers and coaches with a business-in-a-box so professionals in all aspects of fitness, but who are not necessarily astute in how to run a business, can manage scheduling, client on-boarding, invoicing, payment processing, and communication. The many thousands of certified trainers who have been laid off from gyms are now empowered to run their businesses thanks to cloud-hosted back offices and video conferencing capabilities that provide real-time delivery of services.

Disruption creates winners and losers in any industry. Sometimes disruption is a gradual process, and the eventual losers don’t detect the shifting landscape for periods that can extend for years. Think of Kodak and digital photography or Sony and its inability to capitalize on the success of the Walkman, thereby allowing Apple to become the dominant player in digital music. Disruption has been underway in the fitness industry for several years, but until recently, it has been a slow and steady disruption.

COVID-19 accelerated the pace of disruption in fitness, and studios and clubs, both small and large, are increasingly vulnerable. 24-Hour Fitness recently filed for bankruptcy, citing Coronavirus-related causes. With 420 clubs in the US, 24-Hour Fitness is the second largest fitness chain after LA Fitness. With the filing, the company announced it would permanently shut down 100 of its gyms, leaving roughly one million members to find a new place to exercise. Also, Town Sports, owner of Boston Sports Club, and several other club brands announced they would likely file for bankruptcy in the coming weeks. Gold’s Gym filed for bankruptcy in May.

Demand for fitness isn’t going anywhere but up. The $30 billion fitness industry has been growing 3 – 4% annually for the last ten years. How it is delivered, however, is changing before our eyes. The often-quoted expression “Never let a good crisis go to waste” speaks perfectly to the opportunity in the industry today.

Stuck at home, trainers and consumers have had to adapt and get creative about how they think about fitness. Many have also discovered a new meaning of community through virtual experiences that were never seriously considered just 12 months ago. No surprise that MIRROR and Peloton have experienced record sales during the pandemic because they provide consumers a workout experience that feels pretty close to being in a room surrounded by fellow workout enthusiasts. And now that they have gotten into the routine of working out from home, either with a trainer or on-demand through an app, many will never go back to a traditional gym.
​
The implications of COVID on the fitness industry offer insights into the way several industries will shift as a result of the shelter in place orders. Restaurants will get more creative about take-out options that engage the diner with the preparation, travel experiences may turn to staycations, and the beauty industry may have to move to home services or even more training than doing for their customers. The winners in every case will be the ones that are agile and ready to adapt to the change.

​The coronavirus pandemic has forced everyone to get creative. 

Whether through Zoom meetings, online fitness classes, or take-out cocktails, companies in nearly every industry are pivoting to get through the crisis. 

But beyond short-term fixes, many innovative new strategies and business models have emerged that are likely to stick, even as many jurisdictions begin to reopen in some capacity. 

In many cases, these transformations are thanks to the increased adoption of technology and the digitization of businesses. Many of these changes were underway pre-coronavirus; the pandemic has just accelerated them. 

“What’s important to customers has changed,” John Roese, Dell Technologies chief technology officer, said. “We’ve broken through a bunch of psychological or sociological obstacles to embrace technologies such as video, bots, drones, and AI.”

Here are a few of the business concepts that have gained traction over the past several months thanks to the pandemic. 

People may be sheltering in place, but they haven’t stopped looking for love. Dating apps have reported an uptick in usage during the pandemic, including a 26% increase in the messages sent on Bumble. 

One appropriately named app, “Quarantine Together,” was created specifically for the COVID-19 Age. It asks users to verify that they’ve washed their hands that day before they can connect with someone. After 15 minutes of texting, matched users can choose to switch to video chatting. 

“Bumble users are increasingly taking advantage of video calling, and audio chat features to get to know each other better and build deeper relationships, rather than engaging in more regular, casual flings,” says Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd. 

She said she expects the behavior will continue, even after people return to in-person dating. 

As the coronavirus pandemic escalated, restaurants across the United States became delivery-only almost overnight.

Most are eager to get back to serving customers in-house. But some find the prospect of operating a kitchen without a dining room an attractive opportunity. 

So, diners may begin to see a growing number of “ghost kitchens” (also known as virtual kitchens), according to Aayush Gupta, a senior associate at Create venture studio in New York City. 

Ghost kitchens have normal branding and menus online and offer delivery, but they aren’t attached to a brick-and-mortar restaurant where people can sit and eat. Gupta said such restaurants are likely to manage better as uncertainty from the coronavirus continues because they don’t have to pay rent on a dining room space or hire wait staff. 

“Younger restaurants, if they don’t have a front-of-house, they’re likely getting through this a lot better, because they don’t have the fixed costs that they have to try to recover,” Gupta said. 

Some customers have noticed the phenomenon lately. A GrubHub user in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was surprised when the food she ordered from a restaurant called Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings tasted eerily familiar to food from Chuck E. Cheese. And no wonder – it was sort of. A Chuck E. Cheese spokesperson told CNN that Pasqually’s is a “delivery-only brand operating on its own, leveraging the operational infrastructure of Chuck E. Cheese kitchens across the nation.” 

The trend may also provide opportunities for startups like CloudKitchens, Uber Founder Travis Kalanick’s new venture that operates shared commercial kitchen spaces, and rents them out to delivery-only restaurants. 
After a few highly anticipated movie premieres were canceled this spring, some studios decided to forgo theaters altogether in favor of direct-to-consumer debuts. And it turns out that some people may not care to get out of their PJs and off their couch to catch a new flick on the big screen. 

Theater chains don’t love this – many want to preserve their exclusive rights to premiere movies, to give people an incentive to go out.

But consumers are into it. “Trolls World Tour” was an on-demand success, earning nearly $100 million in rental fees in the United States during the first two weeks after its release. And while studios and theaters typically split a film’s box office grosses about 50-50, studios make about 80% of the sales on digital releases.
​
Movie theaters aren’t going by the wayside just yet (release dates for major films such as Disney’s Mulan were moved so they can head to the big screen first), the trend of at-home premieres could continue, at least for certain genres. The latest test of the concept is the adult comedy film, “The King of Staten Island.” 
“Comedy has not really been a strong genre at the box office lately, so if ‘Staten Island’ is a digital hit maybe that sends a signal to the studios that this genre is better suited for the small screen in the future,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

From predicting outbreaks to devising treatments, doctors are turning to AI to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why It Matters. While machine learning algorithms were already becoming a part of health care, COVID-19 is likely to accelerate their adoption. But lack of data and testing time could hinder their effectiveness – for this pandemic, at least.

What's Happening. With millions of cases and outbreaks in every corner of the world, speed is of the essence when it comes to diagnosing and treating COVID-19. So it's no surprise doctors were quick to employ AI tools to get ahead of what could be the worst pandemic in a century.

• HealthMap, a web service run by Boston Children's Hospital that uses AI to scan social media and other reports for signals of disease outbreaks, spotted some of the first signs of what would become the COVID-19 outbreak. This was days before the WHO formally alerted the rest of the world.
• Early in the epidemic, the Chinese tech company Alibaba released an AI algorithm that uses CT scans of possible coronavirus patients and can diagnose cases automatically in a matter of seconds.
• In New York, Mount Sinai Health System and NYU Langone Health have developed AI algorithms that can predict whether a COVID-19 patient is likely to suffer adverse events soon and determine when patients will be ready to be discharged. Such systems can help overburdened hospitals better manage the flow of supplies and personnel during a medical crisis. 

The Big Picture. Even before COVID-19, AI was already becoming a more significant part of modern health care. Nearly $2 billion was invested in companies involved in health care AI in 2019, and in the first quarter of 2020, investments hit $635 million – more than four times the amount seen in the same period of 2019, according to digital health technology funder Rock Health.

• The advance of AI is partially a result of the rapid increase in data, the lifeblood of any machine learning system. The amount of medical data in the world is estimated to double every two months.
• Engineer and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis told Wired an estimated 200 million physicians, scientists, technologists, and engineers are now working on COVID-19, generating and sharing data "with transparency and at speeds we've never seen before."
• "We understand who is at risk and how they're at risk, and then we can get the right treatment to them," says Zeeshan Syed, the CEO of Health[at]Scale, an AI health care startup.

In Trials. AI has demonstrated in recent trials a decent record of success, especially when it comes to rapidly diagnosing COVID-19 by interpreting medical scans.

• A study published in Nature Medicine in May found an AI system was more accurate than a radiologist in diagnosing COVID-19 patients using CT scans – X-ray images of lungs – combined with clinical symptoms. 
• A systematic review of preprint and published studies of AI diagnostic systems for COVID-19 published in the British Medical Journal in April noted the models reported "good to excellent predictive performance." However, they cautioned the data was still limited for real-world applications and at high risk for bias.

The Catch. That's the perennial challenge for AI systems in any field. Experts worry models that perform well in an experiment may not be able to replicate that success in a hospital under stress.

• "There is a lot of promise in using algorithms, but the data in the biomedical space can be really difficult to deal with," says Gabe Musso, the chief science officer at BioSymetrics. This biomedical AI company uses machine learning for simulation-based drug discovery. Genetic data, imaging data, and data from electronic health records are often unstructured and rarely share a common format, complicating efforts to feed the information into an algorithm.
• Many of the AI diagnostic systems being rushed into the fight against COVID-19 were developed before the pandemic and thus were trained on other respiratory diseases like tuberculosis. That reduces their accuracy – especially if their training datasets don't match the gender or age of typical COVID-19 patients.
• As a result, pioneering computer scientist Kai-fu Lee wrote recently, "I would give [AI] a B-minus at best" for its performance during the pandemic.

The Bottom Line. As both the size and quality of medical data on COVID-19 improves, so should the AI systems that draw from it. But that will take time.

In today’s workplace, constant innovation makes it critical for employees to keep up with the latest technologies and applications. Want to excel at your job and lay the groundwork for future promotions?
Check out these five e-courses from LinkedIn Learning, part of the LinkedIn platform. Each course is available for a monthly site membership fee, with no extra costs necessary. I have been a loyal user of both LinkedIn Learning and its predecessor Lynda.com for over ten years and can personally attest to the quality of their educational offerings. So, with instruction on the blockchain, cloud computing, UX, and more, these five courses will help you fast-track yourself for future success!

1. Blockchain Basics
Instructor: Jonathan Reichental, Ph.D.
Do you work in business leadership positions, data science, or IT management? Curious about blockchain technology? This quick one-hour e-course will introduce you to the improvements in security and efficiency that blockchain databases represent. Learn about the history of blockchain technology, practical applications, and risks of blockchain innovation.

2. Learning Cloud Computing: Core Concepts
Instructor: David Linthicum, Deloitte Consulting
Looking to explore the potentialities of cloud computing? Take an hour and 44 minutes to watch this course, which will introduce you to the tools you need to take advantage of cloud computing opportunities. Find out what Saas, laaS, and PaaS are, learn about the data and applications necessary to move to the cloud, and explore the essentials of cloud monitoring, management, and security.

3.) Learning Data Analytics
Instructor: Robin Hunt, developer and educator
This 90-minute course introduces basic concepts to those who work with data, both analysts and non-analysts alike. It begins by defining data analytics and the role of data analysts. Following this, it teaches you how to work with data sets and follow best practices for data analytics projects. Finally, it covers advanced techniques for repurposing, charting, and pivoting data and top shortcut and troubleshooting tips.

4.) Artificial Intelligence Foundations: Machine Learning
Instructor: Doug Rose
As one of the most promising fields in artificial intelligence, machine learning can be beneficial in interpreting and organizing data, programming computers, and even discovering new frontiers in science. This 77-minute course teaches you how to work with data and apply machine learning principles, as well as identify different types of machine learning and machine learning applications.

5.) Getting Started In User Experience
Instructor: Chris Nodder
Want to improve the customer experience on your e-commerce website or web interface? This 41-minute micro-course introduces you to the elements of user experience (UX) – including design, research, strategy, development, interactive and visual design, content, accessibility, localization, and data science. Learn about various UX career paths, the practical skills required by employers, and typical job profiles.

Here are the steps to set yourself up with LinkedIn Learning:

1. Go to the LinkedIn Home Pag
   
2. If you are not a LinkedIn member, click on the “Join Now” button in the upper-right of the screen, and set up your membership.
   
3. If you are a member, sign in, and on the Account & Settings page, click the yellow “Upgrade” button to bring up the premium account options.
   
4. Click the “Sign Up” button for the premium level to which you want to upgrade.

Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher of Ephesus, is credited with the quote, “The only constant in life is change.” It comes as no surprise that technology is gradually taking over all aspects of our day to day life. 
The rise of cutting-edge technology, including cloud-based computing, big data analysis, wearables, machine learnings, Internet of Things, AR/VR, and drones has been exhibiting nothing but change. Moreover, the rise of 5G technology is establishing even further growth prospects.
So, looking at the coming decade, these top 5 technologies are set to have the most significant impact and change: 

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Blockchain
• Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (AR/VR)
• Big Data
• Internet of Things (IoT).

 
Artificial intelligence (AI)remains a hot spot, with its ever-increasing impact on numerous industries all over the world. AI is the most substantial and significant driving technology factor with its speedy execution in sectors like banking, retail, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, and defense. AI applications allow machines to learn from experience and work like humans by simulating human performance.
Whether it’s Apple’s self-driving car, Amazon’s Alexa and Echo, or Google’s Lens, the application of artificial intelligence holds the most vital prospect.
AI can impact the world economy on numerous grounds, like aiding or replacing human labor to finish the assigned work more rapidly. Consequently, it expands production, speeds up the processing of data flows, increases production and service development, thereby generating more wealth worldwide.
According to several media reports, 80% of emerging technologies will implement AI technology by 2021.
The important spheres where AI is used: 
•      Knowledge Reasoning
•      Machine Learning
•      Robotics
•      Natural Language Processing.
•      Planning 
 
Blockchainis significantly speedier and more reliable than the legacy technologies in completing a transaction and recording it securely. This is primarily due to the lack of manual processing or verification by mediators as it applies a distributed consensus.
Additionally, blockchain technology is expected to be honest and intended to deliver unaffected information. Thus, the probability of financial deficits is low, with the slightest possibilities of double counting and hacking.
Overall, the cohesive use of the technology can enable countries to attain better economic growth with streamlined day-to-day systems. Bitcoin is one of the best examples of blockchain technology use.
The important spheres where blockchain is used: 
•      Encrypted Messaging
•      Decentralized Internet
•      Distributed Cloud Storage
•      Networking Sites
•      Stock Exchange
•      Real Estate
 
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)is seeing significant new implementations due to the shift in consumer desires and business demands. With hardware possibilities and digital capabilities becoming more easily accessible and inexpensive to the ordinary person, AR/VR technologies have evolved extraordinarily well in the last few years.

Almost every major sector, including healthcare, retail, pharma, gaming, entertainment, automobiles, and construction, are utilizing the technology to interrelate between the actual world and 3D virtual objects in real-time.

The important spheres where AR/VR is used: 

• Design & Modelling
• Business Logistics
• Field Service
• Entertainment Properties
• Retail
• Medical Training

 
Big Data is turning out to be an essential component for businesses to remain aggressive and competitive in most industries. Companies are utilizing this technology to identify and calculate consumption models or enhance operational effectiveness.

Investments in big data analytics software, hardware, and services are anticipated to increase in the new decade, due to the enormous amount of structured and unstructured data generated universally. This pervasive implementation of big data analytics is a significant tailwind driving the big data market on a global basis.

Big Data technology aids in controlling vast amounts of structured and unstructured information, thereby making it more straightforward for companies to make better business decisions. Moreover, big data analytics acts as a booster for marketing strategies, thereby improving customer relationships.

Additionally, with rising cyber-threats and cyber-crimes, big data is the best answer to fight fraud in online deals.

The important spheres where big data is used: 

• Location Tracking
• Precision Medicine
• Fraud Detection & Handling
• Advertising
• Entertainment & Media.

 
Internet of Things (IoT)unites manufacturing, medical devices, vehicles, and a range of consumer and everyday products, which allows enhanced monitoring, analytics, and more.

IoT, in simple terms, implies connecting devices over the network or internet for the intent of interaction. In IoT, devices gather and distribute data that is accumulated in the cloud, thereby helping in faster analyzing information, gaining more accurate insights.

According to media reports, by 2025, the total installed base of IoT connected devices is expected to be around 75.44 billion globally. This represents a 500% increase over the last decade.
​
The important spheres where IoT is used: 

• Connected Devices
• Smart Homes
• Wearables
• Smart Cities.

Visual search – the ability to initiate a search query using an image captured by the camera lens on a mobile device – has increasingly become a channel that can drive consumers from becoming aware of a product to making a purchase.

Gartner classifies visual search as an emerging technology, which puts it right on par with findings from an eMarketer survey suggesting that few consumers "regularly" use it.

On average, only 3% regularly use visual search, and only 10% have used it in the past, according to the findings. On the other side of the spectrum, 7% are familiar with the technology, according to an eMarketer eCommerce survey conducted in June 2019 by Bizrate Insights and published in August 2019.

Gartner Analyst Mike McGuire points to artificial intelligence (AI), which sits high on the list of transformational trends, as an important technology that supports visual search platforms like Google Lens and Prism.

Google, Microsoft, Pinterest, and other augmented reality vendors continue to invest in visual search. Their platforms use computer vision and AI to identify the image.

ASOS, a U.K. online fashion retailer, already uses visual search. Its search tool, Style Match, integrates into the ASOS mobile app, so customers can zoom in on a man’s suit in a magazine picture, for example, and receive suggestions on similar suits, McGuire explains.

McGuire calls visual search a tool that will enhance the customer experience, benefiting brands most in e-commerce, content marketing, product, and search marketing. Amazon also supports this media.

Recently, Mondo released a study showing that 21% of the 1,000 marketers surveyed cite visual search as an essential marketing strategy for their organizations through 2020. Visual search fell in line behind strategies such as experiential marketing, micro-moments, and motion design.

Gartner rated visual search as an “on the rise” strategy, along with over-the-top TV advertising, consent and preference management, and personification.  
​
At the peak are advanced supply-side bidding, customer journey analytics, real-time marketing, conversational marketing, artificial intelligence for marketing, and customer data platforms.

The acquisition, though small, is the latest in Microsoft’s attempts to level up with Amazon. Over the last few years, the company has garnered individual partnerships with retailers, which has laid the groundwork for marketers to see it as a potential alternative to the Jeff Bezos behemoth. Still, Microsoft has a long way to go: Amazon has a substantial leg up on both advertising (which brought in $3 billion this past quarter) and cloud storage (which hit $8.38 billion in Q2 of this year). Adding PromoteHQ – which has clients that include Overstock.com, Office Depot, and Kohl’s – indicates that Microsoft is strategizing about how to expand and undercut the competition quietly.

Until now, Microsoft has had to face Google as its primary advertising competitor. The acquisition hints at Microsoft’s ambition to go beyond search. Bloomberg estimated search would bring in about $7.9 billion in annual revenue for the fiscal year 2019, a drop in the bucket compared to Google’s $120 billion in annual ad sales. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced it was changing its ads name from Bing Ads to Microsoft Ads, which also implied that it had grander horizons beyond mere web search, which Google will almost certainly always dominate. Indeed, the PromoteHQ purchase is a way for Microsoft to go beyond search in its quest to court retailers – effectively providing a platform so that brands with e-commerce sites can run ads on their own storefronts.

Microsoft over the last few years has become a quietly growing alternative to the ever-growing Amazon behemoth, something that retailers squeamish to do business with Amazon would welcome. Even though Amazon Web Services has about one-third of the cloud market share, retailers have been inking long-term contracts with competitors like Microsoft to try to chip away at the e-commerce giant’s bottom line. Kroger, for example, has signed significant agreements with both Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. With that, the grocery chain announced that it was working with Microsoft to build out in-store technology – including a connected store experience and digital shelving that would serve shoppers personalized ads. Walmart too has reportedly told vendors it wants them to stop using AWS.

There are other examples too. Walgreens also signed a long-term deal with Microsoft, as have Walmart and Gap.

“What Microsoft has done well over the last three to five years,” said Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research, “is [work] with retailers.” But what it’s been very weak on, he said, is advertising. These incremental moves over the last few months – the Microsoft Ads rebrand, as well as acquisitions like PromoteHQ – are setting the groundwork to work with retailers on multiple fronts, including advertising. “Every retailer feels they have a gun to their head from Google, Amazon, and Facebook,” Wang said. “There’s a unique opportunity for Microsoft to be in this space.” Of course, other software giants working with large companies are likely trying to follow suit, such as Salesforce, Adobe, and Oracle,” Wang added.

All of these announcements are piecemeal, but they do add up to a more significant strategy. Retailers want to rely as little on Amazon as possible while growing their e-commerce businesses, and Microsoft has laid the groundwork to offer solutions that are direct alternatives. Meanwhile, as Microsoft continues to make individual long-term deals with big retail companies, it puts it in the position to have future clients as it increases its advertising and software offerings.
​
For retailers, forgoing Amazon could become an almost moral imperative. By doing business with them, said Wang, “you’re giving [Amazon] the ability to crush you.” Thus, if Microsoft were to continue to play to these fears – and focus on more retail-adjacent products like PromoteHQ – its business stands to grow even more.

Frost & Sullivan's Information & Communications Technology (ICT) team conducted a small-scale survey, Global Next Wave Technology Disruptors, 2018, of 112 thought leaders from around the world to seek opinions on the technologies that will have a profound transformative impact on existing industry dynamics, value chains, and business models across multiple vertical markets in the next 10 years.

In addition to providing quantitative insight, the study also provides a top-level assessment of eight emerging technologies: 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain and Distributed Ledger, Human Brain-Computer Interface, Human Intelligence Augmentation, Internet of Things (IoT), Natural Language Interfaces (NLIs) and Quantum Computing.

"Numerous technologies with limited adoption/availability at present will rise in relevance over the next ten years. 5G will play an important role over the next five years as commercial deployments commence, while Quantum Computing is set to have a huge impact in the coming decade," said Adrian Drozd, Research Director, ICT. "However, thinking of these emerging technologies in isolation will limit their effectiveness. For instance, IoT cannot reach its potential without AI, and AI can be powerful only by accessing the data generated by IoT."

"Technologies will reach maturity at different times; while some are already widely used, others are still in the development phase," noted Drozd. "Technology development should be guided by the use cases and real-life deployments that the solutions promise to enable."

New technologies are emerging at an unprecedented rate, each promising to be the next transformative force that will drive fundamental shifts across industries and society. Companies looking to tap growth opportunities in their respective sectors should consider joining Frost & Sullivan's global IoT & Digital Transformation Growth Partnership Service program.

Casinos and gambling websites, already adept at tilting long-term odds in their favor, are getting a leg up from technology that could inject even more certainty into their profit calculations.

The Catch. Experts worry that tweaks nudging gamers to play more – and bet bigger – could propel some toward excess and addiction.

The Big Picture. AI and data analytics are making it easier to forecast even the most uncertain outcomes. Technology firms have built a massive new economy on the ability to predict people's behavior accurately.

• For marketers, this means unprecedented access to the tiny, personalized levers that are most likely to get you to buy or do something.
• If you're being sold ice cream, no big deal. But for the millions of people with gambling problems, a lot can ride on a $50 offer for free play or a comped hotel stay – perfectly tailored and timed to hit home.
• https.//www.leg.state.mn.us/docs/2018/mandated/180251.pdf
  
  

"For youth or players with serious gambling problems, the negative impacts of AI-based marketing and gambling operations can be devastating and even life-threatening," says Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling.

What's Happening. Where pit bosses once kept tabs on players and doled out offers by feel, technology is now supercharging marketing and promotions that best influence each gambler.

• Casinos are "tracking everything you do," says Andrew Engel, general manager for gaming at DataRobot, an AI startup. "They know how much you're in for, how much you play, how long you play, what types of games you like to play." 
• They've been collecting information for decades, mostly through longstanding loyalty programs. "It's a hell of a lot of data," says Anthony Chong, CEO of data analytics startup IKASI.
  
  

Details. To entice people to spend more, casinos use their troves of data to tweak every aspect of the gambling experience – from marketing and casino layout to the incentives and freebies that get people through the door and then keep them inside. 

"From a public health perspective, this is a big concern," says Silvia Kairouz, director of the Lifestyle and Addiction Research Lab at Concordia University in Montreal.

• "The vast majority of gamblers gamble with a budget," says James Whelan, co-director of the Institute of Gambling Education and Research at the University of Memphis.
• But for the minority prone to gambling problems, targeted marketing "can be destructive," Whelan says.
  ​
  

What Casinos Are Saying. Casino defenders say the worries are overblown, and that analyzing playing data can help problem gamblers rather than hurt them.

• "I don't believe that more efficient offers are just all of a sudden going to trigger problems for large numbers of people," says Alan Feldman, a former MGM executive who chairs the Nevada State Advisory Committee on Problem Gambling.
• Several companies, like BetBuddy and Mr. Green, say they can automatically flag problematic gambling habits based on dozens of risk factors and intervene.
• "The industry is constantly exploring new and emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence, to gain a deeper understanding of our customers and provide the right resources for our customers to enjoy our products responsibly,” says Elizabeth Cronan of the American Gaming Association.

On the heels of Google buying analytics startup Looker last week for $2.6 billion, Salesforce today announced a huge piece of news in a bid to step up its own work in data visualization and tools to help enterprises make sense of the sea of data that they use and amass: Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7 billion in an all-stock deal.

The latter is publicly traded, and this deal will involve shares of Tableau Class A and Class B common stock getting exchanged for 1.103 shares of Salesforce common stock, the company said, and so the $15.7 billion figure is the enterprise value of the transaction, based on the average price of Salesforce’s shares as of June 7, 2019.

This is a significant jump on Tableau’s last market cap ($10.79 billion two days earlier.)

This is a massive deal for Salesforce as it continues to diversify beyond CRM software and into deeper layers of analytics to offer a 360-degree view of the customer and become a de facto data stack for the enterprise.
The company reportedly worked hard to buy LinkedIn but lost out to Microsoft. While there isn’t a whole lot in common between LinkedIn and Tableau, this deal will also help Salesforce extend its engagement (and data intelligence) for the customers that Salesforce already has — something that LinkedIn would have also helped it to do.

Even with Google’s move to buy Looker, one could argue that analytics is a big enough area that all major tech companies are getting their ducks in a row with stronger data analytics strategies and products. It’s unclear whether the two deals were made in response to each other, although it seems that Salesforce has been eyeing Tableau for years.

 “We are bringing together the world’s #1 CRM with the #1 analytics platform. Tableau helps people see and understand data, and Salesforce helps people engage and understand customers. It’s truly the best of both worlds for our customers – bringing together two critical platforms that every customer needs to understand their world,” said Marc Benioff, chairman, and co-CEO of Salesforce. “I’m thrilled to welcome Adam and his team to Salesforce.”

Tableau has about 86,000 business customers, including Charles Schwab, Verizon, Schneider Electric, Southwest and Netflix. Salesforce said Tableau would operate independently and under its own brand post-acquisition. It will also remain headquartered in Seattle, Wash., headed by CEO Adam Selipsky along with others on the current leadership team.

Indeed, later during an analyst conference call, Benioff let it drop that Seattle would become Salesforce’s official second headquarters with the closing of this deal.

That’s not to say, though, that the two will not be working together.

On the contrary, Salesforce is already talking up the possibilities of expanding what the company is already doing with its Einstein platform (launched back in 2016, Einstein is the home of all of Salesforce’s AI-based initiatives.) 

“Joining forces with Salesforce will enhance our ability to help people everywhere see and understand data,” said Selipsky. “As part of the world’s #1 CRM company, Tableau’s intuitive and powerful analytics will enable millions of more people to discover actionable insights across their entire organizations. I’m delighted that our companies share very similar cultures and a relentless focus on customer success. I look forward to working together in support of our customers and communities.”

“Salesforce’s incredible success has always been based on anticipating the needs of our customers and providing them the solutions they need to grow their businesses,” said Keith Block, co-CEO, Salesforce. “Data is the foundation of every digital transformation, and the addition of Tableau will accelerate our ability to deliver customer success by enabling a truly unified and powerful view across all of a customer’s data.”