Trepidation and excitement. Those are the two types of emotions most frequently associated with discussions into the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Will it save us or be the end of us?
Grand narratives aside, what sort of buzz is there from investors surrounding the various Artificial Intelligence Stocks listed on AIM? Trepidation? Or excitement? To help answer this, we take a look at 9 Artificial Intelligence Stocks listed on the AIM Market that are worthy of further investigation (article first posted as a guest blog on Research Tree in June, 2019).
What exactly is artificial intelligence?
Sometimes called machine intelligence, artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines. These processes include learning, reasoning and self-correction. Expressed differently, artificial intelligence makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs and perform human-like tasks.
Although the term was first coined in 1956, artificial intelligence has become much more popular in recent years thanks to developments in increased data volumes, advanced algorithms, and improvements in computing power and storage.
What are the different types of artificial intelligence?
Generally speaking, AI falls into three categories: Narrow AI (also called Weak AI), General AI (also called Strong AI), and Super AI.
Narrow AI refers to systems designed and trained for a particular task. Examples of this include checking weather reports, controlling smart home devices, or providing answers to questions that can be pulled from a central database. Virtual personal assistants, such as Apple’s Siri, are a form of Narrow AI. Narrow AI, however, doesn’t think for itself, which is why at times responses provided can be nonsensical.
General AI, meanwhile, refers to a system with generalised human cognitive abilities. Here the system has the ability to understand context and make judgements based off of it. Over time, General AI learns from experience and is able to make decisions even in times of uncertainty or without any prior available data, using reason and creativity.
Lastly, Super AI is much more dystopian and and yet to be realised. In this context, machines would be able to think for themselves, attain consciousness, and operate without any human involvement – perhaps at the direction of another AI.
How is artificial intelligence being applied?
To date, AI has found application across a wide range of industries — most notably:
- Healthcare: In this field, AI applications are able to provide faster and more accurate diagnosis through mining patient data and other available data sources, as well as acting as personal healthcare assistants, reminding patients to take their pills, exercise or eat healthier.
- Education: AI in education offers the opportunity to automate the large number of repetitive tasks, such as grading, allowing educators more time for higher-value activities. AI is also able to provide additional support to students, ensuring they stay on track, even replacing the need for teachers in certain instances.
- Finance: Within finance, AI techniques are being used to identify potentially fraudulent transactions, as well as adopting faster and more accurate credit scoring.
- Manufacturing: An application of AI within manufacturing is its ability to quickly and accurately analyse IoT data as it’s received from connected devices, thus allowing the forecasting of expected load and demand using recurrent networks.
- Law: Artificial intelligence in this sector is able to automate the often overwhelming task of sorting through documents to advance legal proceedings.
- Automotive: Within the automotive industry, a well-known example of AI has been the evolution of self-driving cars through a combination of computer vision, image recognition and deep learning.
The value in AI is in its ability to automate repetitive learning and discovery through data analysis, whilst achieving incredible accuracy and adapting through progressive learning.
Which AIM companies are using or developing AI technology?
Beyond big name players such as Alphabet, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Amazon, there are a huge number of other companies working with this new technology – many of which can be found on the AIM Market. The following is a selection (not an exhaustive selection) of AIM companies currently using or developing AI technology:
Blue Prism Group PLC (PRSM):
Starting with the largest market cap company on the list, Blue Prism Group are pioneers of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), providing connected RPA intelligent software that has the ability to automate and perform repetitive tasks. With solutions across a large number of industries and business functions, PRSM recently won Best Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Company at the 2018 AI Breakthrough Awards. Reflecting such successes, current customers include big names such as Accenture, eBay, Fujitsu, Heineken and Siemens.
The Panoply Holdings PLC (TPX):
The Panoply is the parent company of a digitally native technology group with several member companies working with AI. One of which, TPX Human+, are also Robotic Process Automation (RPA) experts in the same guise as PRSM, helping to replace repetitive and rules-based tasks through automation technology. Another member of the group, GreenShoot Labs, is a chatbot and applied AI agency that uses conversational interfaces, data and automation to build intelligent services so that clients can better engage with their audience.
Albert Technologies Ltd (ALB):
Moving now to media and marketing, Albert Technologies have developed a self-learning marketing solution that is able to drive media and operational efficiencies through plugging into a company’s tech stack and then carrying out autonomous targeting, autonomous media buying, autonomous cross-channel execution, autonomous testing and optimisation, as well as autonomous analytics and insight. Although Albert Technologies CEO, Or Shani, believes humans will remain vital in guiding the overall vision and strategic thinking, he also believes it inevitable that humans have had their day when it comes to data analysis and optimisation.
Jaywing PLC (JWNG):
Coming from the same school of thought as Albert Technologies, Jaywing PLC also believe that to gain unique knowledge about your customers, your competitors and your marketplace, you need AI. As such, they have since developed an AI-powered technology suite called Archetype that is able to provide their marketing clients with greater opportunity to interpret their data and predict customer behaviour. Together with their consulting team of data scientists and strategists, Jaywing believe Archetype is better placed to assess pricing strategies, product and channel propensity, as well as customer value and marketing attribution, and more.
Attraqt Group PLC (ATQT):
Also with a customer-centric focus, Attraqt Group PLC uses Machine Learning to provide a more effective online shopping experience. Way in which their technology is applied include predicting items that will be of interest to a particular shopper, presenting items in order of most interest for that shopper, and enabling a shopper to consider all available alternatives to a selected item that are visually similar or complementary. As well as large fashion retailers such as ASOS, Missguided and M&M Direct, Attraqt also count the likes of Screwfix, Laura Ashley and Wilkinson within their long list of current customers.
ECSC Group PLC (ECSC):
Turning towards cyber security, ECSC is the UK’s longest running full-service cyber security information provider, specialising in 24/7/365 security breach detection and Artificial Intelligence. ECSC offers solutions and services to all sectors, including education, retail, legal, financial and local authorities. Most impressively, ECSC proudly count 10% of the FTSE 100 within their roster of clients.
IndigoVision Group PLC (IND):
Still staying with the theme of security, one particular product belonging to IndigoVision Group PLC helps keep businesses safe through advanced computer vision and deep learning technology. Such technology is able to intelligently condense hours of video footage into just a few minutes, presenting viewers with just the items of interest – thus allowing time to be spent more efficiently and effectively in video review.
RenalytixAI PLC (RENX):
With regards to the Healthcare Equipment & Services sector, there are two AIM listed companies working with AI. The first of which, RenalytixAI PLC, is a developer of artificial intelligence (AI) enabled clinical diagnostic solutions for kidney disease, which is one of the most common and costly chronic medical conditions globally. Through drawing from distinct sources of patient data, RENX intends to build a deep, unique pool of kidney disease-related data for different AI-enabled applications designed to improve predictive capability and clinical utility over time.
Sensyne Health PLC (SENS):
Another AIM company combining AI technology and patient data in order to improve patient outcomes is Sensyne Health. Through a unique partnership with the NHS that unlocks the value of electronic patient record data for research, SENS have created AI software that is able to analyse this data and answer clinically relevant questions and generate new discovery hypotheses. By doing so, improvements are so made in pharmaceutical development and clinical trials.
Never mind the future of the human race, can AI save your stock portfolio?
Artificial Intelligence is far from being the latest trend or buzzword in investment – at least not in in the same way as Blockchain Stocks were in 2017-18. Nor is it an emerging technology or industry struggling to find good commercial application in the same way that Graphene Stocks have struggled since first bursting onto the scene in 2004. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to revolutionise a huge number of industries, and this is already being realised.
The companies listed on AIM are only a small piece of the pie when it comes to deciding which AI Stocks are worth investing in, but certainly a very intriguing part of that pie. From cybersecurity and healthcare, to media and marketing and business transformation, the FTSE AIM Market offers investors a number of different AI investment opportunities.
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