Future of Artificial Intelligence - You May Question the Capabilities but Cannot Ignore

In the current era, emerging technologies are capturing our interest. Upcoming enterprises are engaged in a race on business analytics, data science, machine intelligence, robotics, cryptocurrency, blockchain, Internet of Things, cybersecurity, augmented reality and much more. Autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, drones and virtual reality are trending topics of discussion. While GDPR gets enforced effectively on May 25 and we have concerns with cybersecurity, we can neither leave our addiction of smartphone nor stay away from social media.

We can fathom the impact of technology when we see the changes in consumer behavior. We prefer online shopping, booking travel tickets, hotel rooms, not to forget about wearables and other gadgets. It’s a whole new world of exponential technologies in which the one that stands out is popularly called Artificial or Machine Intelligence.

Why AI is so important?  

Firstly, AI is important because it’s more than one technology. Actually, it’s a conglomeration of technologies. Secondly, AI is important because its application potential is so vast. The importance of AI is in the fact that it learns and sometimes even self-replicates. AI is also important because it satisfies ROI models of all shapes and sizes. Finally, AI is omnipotent and omnipresent, you can hardly find any business domain that has deprived itself of digging into the true potential of AI.

What does AI encompass?

AI was coined by John McCarthy, an American computer scientist, in 1956 at The Dartmouth Conference and is defined as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs”. Today, it encompasses everything from robotic process automation to actual robotics. It has gained prominence, due to the increase in speed, size, and variety of data that businesses are now collecting. AI includes at least machine learning, deep learning, robotic process automation, image recognition, natural language processing, text mining, vision systems, speech systems, neural networks and pattern recognition, among other methods, tools, and techniques. It can perform tasks such as identifying patterns in the data more efficiently than humans, empowering enterprises to gain more insight and extract maximum benefit from their data.

What is the potential of AI?

AI has gone far enough to find a solution to every identified problem. The areas of application are unlimited, including most of the vertical industries, almost every business process, and model that supports artificial intelligence. AI is having a deep impact on healthcare and life sciences, transportation, finance and accounting, manufacturing, education, customer service, aviation, sales and marketing, law, media and entertainment, security, war, and peace. As a matter of fact, every industry or process will have to embrace AI as there will be short-term as well as long-term impact. It is vital that AI will integrate across business and technology architectures, databases and applications.

What are the changes expected through AI?

AI is definitely creating waves of disruption in the technology ecosphere. So literally AI is going to affect any and everything, only the timing is uncertain, as always with the adoption of any exponential technology.

AI too entails the good and the bad. While good bots will make much of our personal and professional lives more efficient and productive, freeing us to pursue other activities, smart bots may service personal and professional confirmation biases intended to manipulate thinking and behavior. AI can be used to create and disseminate fake news with ease.

What about AI eliminating jobs? This will happen for sure, and this time the elimination of jobs will include intellectual as well as traditional jobs which we associate with automation and robotics that will increasingly behave in unsupervised contexts. Much of this capability will arrive simultaneously across global industries, such as the automotive industry which will utilize robotic AI to manufacture autonomous vehicles and then manage their movement across cities and towns around the world. Similarly, healthcare will be impacted by lifestyles, monitoring, sample testing, diagnosis, and treatment.

AI will augment and replace many of us in the workplace, creating new opportunities at the same time. Analysts and strategists may not predict the exact timeline, but in next seven to ten years we will visualize massive disruption.

Who are the major AI players?

Investment in anything intelligent is unprecedented. All of the major technology companies are heavily invested in artificial intelligence, but the most important investment portfolio belongs to nations which have declared AI as a strategic national objective. For example, China has defined AI as one of its core industries. Tech leaders like Google, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Samsung and many others are investing more in their AI research centers in China.

How to make your business AI ready?

AI may not be a priority for your business at the moment. But you may not be able to stay away from it for long, so start planning now. You may opt for AI enabling partners and even put a budget in place for hiring AI experts. So you see, AI will create plenty of new jobs. You will also need to invest in training and education before you can get productive on this front. Google is doing a splendid job in offering free online training.