Editor's note: On August 12th and 13th, 2016, Lei Feng network held an unprecedented “Global Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Summit (CCF-GAIR)†in Shenzhen, China, the United States and Canada from the world's top scientific research laboratory, academic authority, The industry leaders and investment leaders jointly discussed the future trends and directions of production, research and development in the four major areas of artificial intelligence, robotics, drones, and smart driving. Lei Feng Network (search "Lei Feng Net" public concern) will elaborately edit the content of the speech and the video, and will be released gradually in the near future.
In the field of artificial intelligence and robotics, entrepreneurship is in full swing. At the same time, various companies are also under the sand. Regardless of whether they are related to artificial intelligence, they all call themselves artificial intelligence companies. In this case, how should investors respond? How can you get gold out of the gravel? At the CCF-GAIR conference held in August, smart investor Yobie Benjamin introduced us to some of his investment methods.
About Yobie BenjaminYobie Benjamin is an advisor to the World Economic Organization. The organization has just held an annual meeting in Tianjin, followed by a meeting in Dalian. At the same time, he is the CTO of Token.io, a partner of Silver Trail Ventures, the founder of Avegant, and other positions. He was an advisor to Intel Capital and a CTO of Citibank. Yobie's recent investment in a company is GUSTO.
Yobie Benjamin used three PPTs to tell how to systematically capture the unicorn startup company in the technology industry.
First of all, he made the above chart in the hottest business direction of the technology industry and its possible application direction. Based on the above diagram, he cited two examples. First, he believes that all corporate IT services will eventually be transferred to the cloud. This will be a multi-billion dollar opportunity from software, hardware, systems, infrastructure, networks, and storage. All industries need to adapt to this change in order to seize the opportunity. The unicorns are those companies that have really solved the key issues in this transition.
In the second example, AR/VR startups have the potential to change our daily lives and have a lot of imagination in entertainment, e-commerce, and education. This is achieved through existing devices, networks, and clouds. The unicorns were born precisely because they discovered innovation in these areas.
Yobie Benjamin pointed out the problems that have already existed in society. He stated that in the United States, Western Europe and East Asia, the population is rapidly aging and a large proportion of the population will not be able to take care of themselves. At the same time, big families are no longer fashionable due to low birth rates, labor shortages, and changes in social attitudes. More and more elderly people are living alone, and the existing response plans are usually costly. The cost of asking a home care worker in the United States is thousands of dollars per month. Robots and artificial intelligence can meet the ever-increasing demand at a lower cost.
This is why Benjamin has invested in a companion robot company. A robot that only needs a few hundred dollars can carry out functions such as chatting and reminding him to take drugs. However, these feature phones can also be made. The reason why the companion robot is designed to be adult-shaped is that Benjamin said it is to give people a sense of intimacy. In fact, robots cannot do many things that real people can do. For example, it is very easy to help a fallen old man. This is why many robots are not getting fired.
Therefore, in Benjamin's view, robots and AIs become products, and they also need to consider application scenarios and grasp pain points in terms of functionality. Some robots are very cool, but may not be able to achieve commercial success, such as the big hot dog robot launched by Boston Dynamics. According to Benjamin, the real reason it was abandoned by Goolge is that the product is not mature enough, although everyone sees the video The robot/dog did not fall, but the actual situation is far from smooth.
The first is that the noise is too loud and loud noises can be heard in the experiment;
Secondly, stability is not enough. Although everyone sees it in the video as well as in the mountains, in actual tests, it often falls on the ground and cannot stand on its own.
However, a robot that is made by the Japan Institute of Physical Chemistry has only one function. It is to pick up the patient from the bed. Although it looks simple, it is a special need for hospitals and nursing homes.
Finally, Benjamin provided some investment directions in the AI ​​and robotics fields, basically in the commercial field. He believes that robots will be mainly used in the direction of industrial and manufacturing automation, and the other direction is social robots; while AI will have military and marketing prospects, and the general AI direction will be combined with social robots to become social AI.
Aimed at the direction and related companies, how to achieve investment? Benjamin believes that it is still necessary to pass his own network of contacts and the reputation of the industry. At the same time, he must have a good investment theory and use an already proven process to guide the investment process.
Attachment: Record of Yobie Benjamin's speech .