AI in Action | September 2024
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to help us solve the greatest challenges of our time from health care, agriculture, and education to transportation, energy, and national security.
When guided by ethics, transparency, and fairness, responsible AI can spark creativity and help usher in a more prosperous and sustainable future.
See how AI is improving our lives, growing our economy, and keeping us safe.
AI in Action
AiDash is leveraging AI to protect and enhance the power grid
In the U.S., power utilities spend over $200 billion annually on operations, maintenance, and sustainability. With roughly 5.5 million miles of power lines on more than a quarter billion poles that are hyperconnected and subject to the forces of nature, wildfires, and increasingly common severe weather events, it is impossible to adequately monitor it all with the human eye. AiDash is a satellite-powered AI platform that combines the power of disparate data sources, case-specific AI models, and cognitive apps to help utility companies like National Grid to scan 100% of their lines, identify current and potential issues, and integrate weather, vegetation, and climate data to quickly assess risks across the power grid. By identifying and addressing potential issues before they cause accidents, AiDash is helping to improve grid reliability, enhance capacity, and reduce outages in the face of increasing demand for all-electric power. Since it began using AiDash, National Grid has seen a 30 percent reduction in outages and a 55 percent reduction in the duration of outages.
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Harvard Medical School’s new AI model marks a breakthrough in cancer diagnostics
Scientists at Harvard Medical School have designed a new versatile AI model that can diagnose cancer, guide treatment choice, and predict survival across multiple cancer types. The new model, called “CHIEF,” can perform a wide array of tasks and has been tested on 19 cancer types, giving it a level of flexibility similar to that of large language models such as ChatGPT. The model works by reading digital slides of tumor tissues, detecting cancer cells, and predicting a tumor’s molecular profile based on cellular features seen on the image with superior accuracy to most current AI systems. It can forecast patient survival across multiple cancer types and accurately pinpoint features in tissues surrounding a tumor that are related to a patient’s response to standard treatments, including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy. CHIEF demonstrates an overall accuracy of almost 94 percent for cancer detection, rising to 96 percent for esophagus, stomach, colon, and prostate tumors. Its ability to link tumor cell patterns to specific genomic aberrations could help suggest the best treatments without the need for costly and slow DNA sequencing. CHIEF is also capable of generating novel insights and has identified specific tumor characteristics previously not known to be linked to patient survival.
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Pathways, an AI-driven sustainability platform, enables manufacturers to measure and minimize building material emissions and reduce compliance burdens. Building materials are a key driver of greenhouse gas emissions, and the construction industry is under increasing pressure to build sustainably. As a result, regulators, developers, and contractors are increasingly requiring manufacturers to produce detailed environmental disclosures, reports, and verified assessments that are costly and typically take 6-12 months to complete when done manually. Pathways’ AI-driven software addresses these challenges, helping manufacturers measure and ultimately cut their total carbon footprint without having to hire expensive consultants and spend hours manually collecting and processing unstructured data.
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ALS Stole His Voice. AI Retrieved It.
The New York Times
In Venezuela, AI news anchors aren’t replacing journalists. They’re protecting them.
CNN
Amazon is using generative AI to drive more same-day shipping using smarter robots and better routes
CNBC
Google to invest in satellites and AI to better detect wildfires
The Los Angeles Times
AI Spotlight
Salesforce recently debuted Agentforce, a suite of advanced AI-powered autonomous agents designed to augment employee work, drive efficiency, and improve customer service. The new platform aims to change how businesses interact with AI, moving beyond simple chatbots to intelligent systems capable of complex reasoning and decision-making. Agentforce enables businesses to build and customize autonomous AI agents that are proactive, self-directed applications equipped with business knowledge that enables them to execute tasks based on their specific roles to support employees and customers around the clock. In contrast to now-outdated copilots and chatbots that rely on human requests and struggle with complex or multi-step tasks, Agentforce offers a new level of sophistication by operating autonomously, retrieving the right data on demand, building action plans for any task, and executing these plans without requiring human intervention. By providing much-needed support for mundane, lower-lift tasks, Agentforce can help address burnout and free employees to focus more on strategic and creative work. The platform is scalable and can support employees and customers across different industries like healthcare, banking, retail, operations, marketing, IT, finance, and more.
About AI for America
AI for America is an initiative to educate the public about how AI is being used to improve lives, grow our economy, and keep us safe. The initiative combines coalition building, advocacy, social media, and traditional media to demonstrate the immense economic and societal benefits of AI. AI for America is funded by TechNet, the national, bipartisan network of innovation economy CEOs and senior executives. TechNet advances public policies at the federal and state level that make the United States the world leader in innovation. Its diverse membership includes dynamic American businesses ranging from startups to the most iconic companies on the planet. For more information, go to technet.org and AI4America.com.