40% of 'AI Startups' in Europe Don't Actually Use AI, Claims Report (forbes.com)

Two-fifths of Europe's AI startups do not use any AI programs in their products, according to a report that highlights the hype around the technology. From a report: Out of 2,830 startups in Europe who were classified as being AI companies, only 1,580 accurately fit that description according to the eye-opening stat on page 99 of a new report from MMC, a London-based venture capital firm. The label, which refers to computer systems that can perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, was simply wrong.

"We looked at every company, their materials, their product, the website, and product documents," says David Kelnar, head of research for MMC which has $400 million under management and a portfolio of 34 companies. "In 40% of cases we could find no mention of evidence of AI." In such cases, he added, "companies that people assume and think are AI companies are probably not."

Comments

Re:Coincidentally

[clevelandguru]

AI is a broader term that includes Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Expert System... So even if a company uses Machine Learning, they are using an AI component.

Analysts claim analysts are wrong

[prefec2]

Analysts classify start ups to be AI companies while the analysts of the study claim that analysis is wrong, as they could not find evidence of AI used by the companies. The latter analysts also do not provide evidence on what data they come to this conclusion. All analysts do not provide any definition what this AI is and what they counts as AI in their respective studies.

They do not analyze anything properly, they guess, use smoke and cloaks to confuse the audience.

Re:Coincidentally

[phantomfive]

AI has come to be used in the tech press and mainstream press to mean "machine learning and related statistical techniques".

It really doesn't. Reporters mostly don't understand the difference between "machine learning" and "strong AI." They also don't understand the difference between "machine learning" and "statistical techniques."

Read articles carefully: often the researcher/company will be saying one thing, and the reporter will hear "strong AI." Then we get that followed with "AI is a danger to humanity." In its current form it's not, and it will take a lot before AI is anywhere near capable of overtaking humanity. And sometimes the researchers encourage the confusion.