All these applications have benefited from a new era of computing and machine learning in which vast amounts of data can be leveraged instantly to facilitate the best-possible evidence-based decision-making in various fields.

In hospitality, the pilot project started on March 9 at the Hilton McLean hotel in the US state of Virginia, where the Connie robot was stationed to greet and help guests. Connie capitalises on domain knowledge from IBM Watson and WayBlazer, a cognitive travel recommendation engine, to provide guests with local tourist attractions, dining recommendations and hotel features as well as amenities.

In fact, Connie, named after Hilton’s founder Conrad Hilton, works side by side with real-life hotel staff to serve visitors better by personalising the guest experience and empowering them with more information so that they can plan their trips better.

The robot also learns to interact with guests and respond to their questions in a friendly manner – thanks to its machine-learning capability. According to IBM Watson, it uses dialogue, speech-to-text, text-to-speech and natural-language-classifier interfaces to enable it to greet guests upon arrival and to answer questions about hotel amenities, services and operating hours.

It also uses WayBlazer’s travel-domain knowledge to recommend local tourist attractions outside the hotel.

More important, the more guests interact with Connie, the more it learns and adapts to improve suggestions.

Jonathan Wilson, vice president of Hilton Worldwide, said the collaboration with IBM allowed the hotel chain to re-imagine the entire travel experience to make it smarter, easier and more enjoyable for guests.

In healthcare, Thailand’s Bumrungrad Hospital was one of the world’s first hospitals to use IBM Watson for Oncology, a cognitive computing system for cancer treatment, which also works together with real-life doctors to provide better service to patients.

Fredrik Tunvall, senior client-engagement leader at New York-based IBM Watson, said Bumrungrad, the largest private hospital facility in Southeast Asia, started to use the system about a year ago and it went live in January.

This has resulted in faster and more accurate evidence-based treatment options for Thai and foreign cancer patients as Bumrungrad is also well known internationally, according to Tunvall.

Bumrungrad, which has about 40 cancer doctors, also benefits from the expertise of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering, a leading cancer centre, which helps train the cognitive computing system in partnership with IBM Watson.

In practice, Bumrungrad’s doctors feed patient profiles and existing medical evidence into the cognitive system which then works through huge amounts of data, including 23 million cancer-treatment and related documents to come up with a reliable ranking of evidenced-based options for each of the patients.

This allows doctors to make the best-possible decision for their patients, Tunvall said, adding that computing has entered the new era of machine-learning algorithms in which a system can be trained for specific areas and dataset curated for qualitative purposes.

In other words, computers with machine-learning capability help humans make faster and more accurate decisions, thus possibly extending the power of all human activities.

Besides hospitality and healthcare, IBM Watson has embarked on applying its cognitive-computing know-how in professional financial services by collaborating with KPMG to extend the human capability in the analysis of financial and operational data that are crucial to the health of organisations and capital markets around the world.

“Auditing and similar knowledge services are increasingly challenged with tackling immense volumes of unstructured data. Cognitive technology can transform how this data is understood and how critical decisions are made,” said John Kelly, senior vice president of IBM Research, adding that this will help clients gain new insights from vast amounts of information.

The collaboration also allows auditors to teach the computer how to fine-tune assessments over time, enabling auditing teams to have faster access to more precise measurements that help examine anomalies and assess whether additional steps are necessary.

Phawit, a former managing director of Ogilvy and Mather Advertising Thailand with more than two decades of experience in communication business with multinational and local brands, has been appointed chief marketing officer for the group to connect and manage demand both from ad agencies and advertisers to utilise GMM Grammy’s media across all platforms, he said.

Phawit is taking care of GMM Grammy’s total media solution unit, which works with clients to co-create branded content and distribution through its various media platforms, ranging from TV channels, radio stations and on-ground activities to digital platforms and its social network, Paiboon added.

“Apart from advertising spending, GMM Grammy is now putting more focus on offering more value creation, such as branded entertainment, influencer marketing and tailor-made campaigns,” Phawit said.

Under this new strategy, the company is launching an influencer hub to provide marketing service for brands and advertisers that are interested in using the company’s famous artists and singers either as brand presenters or endorsers through various communication channels such as show business, TV shows, radio programmes and social networking to engage with target customers.

In the first phase, at least 300 out of a total 500 artists and singers will be involved in the influencer hub, Phawit said.

“We aim to have at least 10 per cent of the Bt1-billion influencer-marketing business by the end of this year, translating to about Bt100 million,” he added.

In line with this new service, the company will also provide marketing solutions related to creating branded entertainment content, which will help its clients to place their products seamlessly into music content, as well as into other formats of entertainment content, he explained.

“From my experience, brands and advertisers are generally only pouring roughly 15 per cent of their total advertising expenditure into branded content production. After this introduction, we hope to see an increase in this segment,” the chief marketing officer said.

Paiboon said this new direction was aimed at improving performance in GMM Grammy’s core businesses of music, two terrestrial-based digital-TV channels and film production.

For this year, music and television business operations are expected to be the key revenue drivers for the group.

An analyst at Capital Nomura Securities forecast that GMM Grammy would achieve 2-per-cent revenue growth this year, generating Bt8.8 billion.

The new room features an iconic bed, wider window design, a 40-inch TV, adjustable sofa, flexible use of space, new amenity layout, and more device ports.

As Novotel is a recognised brand for business and leisure travellers, accounting for 55 per cent and 45 per cent of its business respectively, guests staying in the new type of room will able to both work and rest in the same space.

Patrick Basset, chief operating officer for Upper Southeast and Northeast Asia, said Thailand was the first country to have the new-concept room, designed by a Thai architecture firm – Soda.

The initiative room will be implemented at Novotels in other countries all over the world.

Novotel is the most popular brand in AccorHotels’ portfolio in Asia-Pacific, while Thailand is one of the most dynamic markets in the region, offering more room for growth in the long term, he said.

“This year, we will open new Novotels with the new room, while some existing properties will get renovations [under the N Room concept], including our first |local Novotel at Siam Square,” he added.

The transformation cost for each new-concept room is Bt750,000. However, once the renovation work is complete, the company can increase the room rate by 15-20 per cent, thus increasing its overall average room rate, Basset explained.

The group expects that this year’s business in Thailand will grow by 9 per cent from last year’s impressive level, which was achieved despite the bomb blast at the Erawan Shrine in August.

The group operates 450 Novotel hotels and resorts in 61 countries around the world.

More than a quarter of the properties are in the Asia-Pacific region, including 16 hotels comprising 4,313 rooms in Thailand.

The chief operating officer said 42 hotels and resorts were currently in the pipeline for Asia-Pacific between now and 2019, including four hotels comprising a total of 908 rooms in Thailand. The Thai properties are: the 240-room Novotel Bangkok Sukhumvit 20, due to open in May; the 180-room Novotel Phuket Phokeethra, scheduled to open in the third quarter; the 303-room Novotel Sriracha Marina Bay, due to open next year; and the 185-room Novotel Bangkok Nana, which is due to start operations in 2018.

Other AccorHotel brands in the pipeline for Thailand through 2019 total 17 hotels, with 4,044 rooms in total. They include eight Ibis Styles hotels, two MGallery by Sofitel properties, and a Sofitel, a Mercure and an Ibis.

Aside from Thailand, Basset said the group was now also expanding in the emerging market of Myanmar, where it already has three properties.

Six hotels with a total of 1,393 rooms are in the pipeline: the 160-room Ibis Styles Yangon Stadium, due to open this year; the 356-room Pullman Mandalay Mingalar and the 100-room MGallery Inle Lake Myat Min, both scheduled to open next year; the 200-room Ibis Styles Muse and the 268-room ibis Styles Mandalay Centre, both due to open in 2018; and the 300-room Pullman Yangon Myat Min, due to start operations in 2019.

Once JASMBB pays the instalment, the NBTC telecom committee will consider appealing against the court’s ruling on Tuesday, which extends the remedy period for AIS’s second-generation cellular service on the 900-megahertz spectrum by 30 days to April 14.

The two companies that last year won licences to use the 900MHz spectrum have to pay the first instalment of the upfront licence fee and place bank guarantees for the remaining fees to the NBTC by Monday.

Jas has yet to pay the first instalment, while TrueMove H Universal Communication (TUC) paid the first instalment and later received its licence on Monday. Takorn said JASMBB had reportedly clinched funding from foreign financial sources to fulfil this payment condition.

Takorn said the court ruling had no impact on TUC’s licence.

True Corp said in a statement that it welcomed the court ruling to protect these 900MHz customers for 30 days. It will also speed up the process to finish covering Thailand nationwide with its 2G network using the 900MHz and 1,800MHz spectra by April 14, ahead of the original May schedule. Both the NBTC and its telecom committee acknowledged the court injunction.

AIS had petitioned the court to order the telecom committee to extend its remedy period. On Monday, the authority ordered AIS to shut the service at midnight Tuesday. This was in line with its rule that AIS has to switch off the 900MHz service once it grants the 900MHz licence to either of the two licence winners. The order prompted AIS to seek an injunction.

As a result of the court ruling, AIS’s 2G-900MHz customers will have more time to port their mobile phone number to another network.

The court cited the NBTC’s rule on the remedy period – that the regulator has to inform AIS 30 days in advance of the end of the remedy period. The telecom committee informed AIS on Monday that AIS had to switch off the service on midnight of Tuesday.

During the inquiry by the court on its injunction on Tuesday, AIS informed the court that it had 800,000 2G customers on its own network, of whom 400,000 were active. It also has 7.6 million 2G customers on the network of its subsidiary Advanced Wireless Network.

AIS planned to roam these 7.6 million customers on the 1,800MHz network of Total Access Communication (DTAC) if it had to shut down its service on Tuesday.

There are also 200,000 TOT 3G subscribers roaming on AIS’s 900MHz network for voice service.

AIS had used the 900MHz band to provide service until its concession ended last September.

This lot of the band was assigned to Jas after the auction of two lots of 900MHz licences last December.

According to the NBTC, AIS is entitled to use only 7.5MHz of its lot during the remedy period, of which 6.9MHz is being used.

Ariya Banomyong, managing director of Line Thailand, said that after having tested LINE@ in February last year, the new service was now available with full features to solve the “pain points” of SMEs’ online business and to help simply the digitisation of SMEs.

Out of a total of around 2.8 million SMEs in the country, only about 500,000 are online, while 2 million are small office and home office (SOHO) users and 42 per cent are retailers.

Meanwhile, there are 33 million LINE users in the Kingdom, who are all potentially accessible via LINE@, he said.LINE@ is designed to provide marketing tools for SMEs with an easy-to-use concept at an affordable price, the MD said.

LINE@ services will be charged from April 1 via a pricing plan of Basic, Pro and Pro+ packages.

The Basic package will cost Bt998 per month, with unlimited followers and 50,000 broadcast messages, and unlimited timeline posts.

The Pro package will cost Bt1,998 per month with a maximum of 50,000 followers, while the Pro+ package is Bt6,888 a month with up to 300,000 followers.

Both the Pro and Pro+ packages cover unlimited broadcast messages and timeline posts.

“We are offering a promotion for three months at Bt998 per month with unlimited usage, including the number of followers, broadcast messages and timeline posts,” he said.

During last year’s trial period of LINE@ in Thailand, in February and early March, there were 429,520 LINE@ accounts, he said.The company is not, however, disclosing its targets for the LINE@ service.

The beauty of LINE@, Ariya said, is that it offers powerful features, including Broadcast, for the instant broadcasting of messages, or coupons, to a LINE@ account’s followers; Coupon, to easily create coupons and promotions, for PC usage only; Rich Message, which shows a full-screen image embedding up to six links, helping to increase traffic to a website; a Poll & Survey feature; 1-on-1 chat, to easily chat with customers via LINE@; Auto Reply and Timeline; as well as LINE@ Premium ID.

“Normally, a LINE@ account will come with a random ID, but if users want to have their own name for their LINE@ account, they can use LINE Premium ID for Bt200 per 11 months,” he added. Moreover, it is not only SMEs that can benefit from using LINE@.

The Pullman Grand Sukhumvit Hotel – a 325-room, four-restaurant property – used LINE@ as a marketing communication channel to get exposure to the mass market shortly after an eight-month renovation, said Philippe Le Bourhis, general manager of the hotel.