Machine learning at Google and it’s applications to search rankings and other product innovations isn’t something that is talked about much in the marketing blogosphere. It’s critical, however, to understand that Google is pushing this type of technology throughout it’s enterprise.

One strong sign that Google is years into machine learning is an open source software library they created for Machine Intelligence called TensorFlow, which they have given to the world to iterate on top of.

They have openly admitted they use TensorFlow in assisting with search results. Jeff Dean calls attention to it in this video at the 27 second mark.

Aki Balogh, the Founder of MarketMuse, helps define it further.

“Machine learning and artificial intelligence are technologies that rely on computers to notice patterns in data. When you combine this with large volumes of data (‘Big Data’), you get systems that are really good at specific tasks, because they can pick up on patterns millions of times faster than a human. Often purpose-built systems like MarketMuse or what Brian calls attention to below that Google might use, are called Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI). Combining the pattern recognition of an ANI system with the creativity of a human being is a winning combination.”

Machine learning could be applied at Google in the following ways. Let’s take a look further. (more…)