Author Archive: Keenan Baldwin

Artificial intelligence or “A.I.” is coming, but it isn’t quite what you think it is. While the Hollywood-driven narrative about machine overlords or scheming supercomputers is entertaining, and might convince you that it’s time to start stocking the basement with bottled water and weapons, the reality will be much more incremental and less dramatic.

Today’s big data-driven marketplace only has room for the fittest. It sounds a little scary— I know. And for a long time, mastering the art of accurate and effective number-crunching was no small feat. Over the last decade, machine learning has grown and matured from a flashy high-tech tool to a business essential. But too many retailers still fail to acknowledge the incredibly positive impact artificial intelligence (AI) and big data can have on their businesses and are suffering as a result of their sluggishness.

Streamed live on Jan 9, 2017: Watch as Keenan joins Bucky, Julie, and Rivers as they discuss the state of commercial real estate brokerage and the tech that drives deals.

Whether you’re an eye-roller or an enthusiastic participant, Pokémon Go is a game that’s difficult to ignore. It does have a lot going for it: nostalgic yet advanced, simple but strategic, and although played on phones, the game incorporates the user’s surroundings to an extent we haven’t really seen before. The “Go” sets the game apart from all others that have come before, Pokémon or not: you simply can’t catch Pokémon while sitting still.

The experimentally determined angle at which you flick your wrist to achieve the perfect toss of the contents in the pan. That slight brownish color that indicates a delightful crisp. The unmistakable shine of freshly polished silver. What does a robot know about any of these nuances in the art of food service? Probably very little. The magic of the restaurant industry lies in the irreplaceable human aspects of creation and service. So how do robots fit in in an industry so human?

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s yet another major shift in technology. This one has to do with the A.I. and chatbots that help us in our daily lives and at work. They offer many advantages, but adjusting to them has been no easy task. Despite some of the massive advancements we’ve made in tech, it’s clear we’re still in an “adjustment period” — with A.I., in particular.

Location, location, location. We’ve all heard the age old phrase before when discussing site selection or real estate business decisions. It’s true, it can absolutely correlate with the underlying success or failure of a particular business. Companies large and small struggle with these decisions daily; generally, due to the overwhelming amount of unorganized data.