The prospect of standing for hours on end has become all too common at airports around the world. But soon, airports may be piloting security programs based on behavior recognition and machine learning, instead of asking passengers to practice patience. As we know, patience is becoming a lost art, but predictive analytics based on sensor, device, and video data is a technology art form that airlines and airports are exploring. The 9/11 attacks and the 2001 Shoe Bomber's attempt are among the most well-known security threats, and they upended how we travel. To protect passengers and crews, airports have made finding dangerous items their primary objective.

E-commerce and cloud giant Amazon has revealed that it now has 45,000 robots across 20 fulfilment centres around the world. This is a 50pc increase on the same time last year, when the company said that it employed 30,000 robots alongside its 306,000 people. Amazon uses the robots to automate the picking and packing process at large warehouses. The robots are 16in tall and weigh 145kg. They can travel at 5mph and can carry packages that weigh 317kg.

Artificial intelligence (AI) had a fair bit of air time last year – from tech imitating art in the recreation of Rembrandt's work, to robots outsmarting humans in technical games. Unsurprisingly, some of the biggest names in technology are working hard to establish what AI can do for them, with Facebook, Amazon Google, IBM and Microsoft setting up a partnership to discover just that. So as we settle into 2017, what can we expect from this fascinating field of technology in the next 12 months? The fun projects and headline grabbing tests have done a great job of raising the profile of artificial intelligence, but this year we're going to start seeing some more interesting movement in real-world applications – with gaming, driverless cars and smart cities standing out as three industries that are ready to be boosted by developments in AI. AI in these industries has tended to focus on limited decision trees, which follow'if X then Y' principals.

And the TVs will come with a voice-control remote that features Alexa – Amazon's artificial intelligence personal assistant, similar to Apple's Siri or Google Assistant. Users, for example, will be able to ask Alexa via the TV set to control lights in their home. For consumers, the Fire TV software will allow them to access all of their streaming services and many apps, including Amazon's own, from their TVs in their living room and bedrooms. Also, Amazon hosts 4K content, which will allow consumers to consume this high-resolution programming on their new TVs. And for Amazon, this is a further push into consumers' lives and homes.

The most futuristic car ever made has just been revealed – an electric vehicle with the acceleration of a Formula 1 car and the ability to learn about its driver. But some have already voiced fears that the car might not ever actually be made. And it appeared to run into problem during its first outing, unable to complete a demonstration that served as the centrepiece of the big reveal. The Faraday FF91 was revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. As a highly-designed, self-driving and fast electric vehicle it looks to take on Tesla – but is likely to cost significantly more than any of that company's cars.

"What gets you out of bed in the morning when you think forward to data and analytics in 2016?" Their answers did not disappoint, so here's an update to what industry advocates, colleagues, friends, and even my close competitors in digital analytics are thinking about as we move into the new year. There are two exciting things on the horizon in 2017, one technical and the other human. On the software side of things, we see the very beginnings of machine learning in marketing. More companies are giving it a try. By the end of the year, we'll have some solid use cases and best practices.

Philipp Pointner, VP Product of digital ID verification experts Jumio, highlights key issues in CNP fraud, mobile banking and the sharing economy that are set to affect businesses in 2017, whilst looking back at 2016's major trends to make insightful recommendations As 2016 draws to a close, businesses are taking stock of a year that witnessed ever more data breaches and cybersecurity incidents, the continued development of digital and mobile banking, as well as initiatives to boost consumer trust in the Sharing Economy. One thing that ties these three issues together is their reliance on security, specifically in the authentication and ID verification space. As we move into 2017, Philipp Pointner, VP Product of digital ID verification experts Jumio, outlines the opportunities and pitfalls for businesses operating in these areas, and how best to learn from 2016's major trends: Jumio delivers the next-generation in digital ID verification, enabling businesses to reduce fraud and increase revenue while providing a fast, seamless customer experience. Jumio uses computer vision technology combined with biometric facial recognition to verify credentials issued by over 200 countries in real time web and mobile transactions. Jumio's solutions are used by leading companies in the financial services, sharing economy, retail, travel and online gaming sectors.

Just as Skype revolutionized the way we communicate, and TransferWise found a way to break worn patterns in the financial world, Estonia is about to make a transforming difference in the dynamic field of robotics too. Besides the country being a Mecca for data and tech-driven startups, more and more Estonians, in addition to excelling in code writing and software development, are thrusting their hands deep into the wiring and metal of robots. Imagine a vacuum-cleaner-sized, yellow'turtle' diving elegantly down hundreds of metres to probe ship wrecks, thus gathering valuable data for archaeologists and maybe even finding lost treasures buried somewhere deep under the sea. But this intelligent'turtle' is actually a robot. Equipped with a camera and a searchlight, the relatively cheap and highly manoeuvrable U-CAT (Underwater Curious Archaeology Turtle) locomotion principle is similar to that of the sea turtles of the natural world.

Not a day goes by when we don't hear of something related to artificial intelligence in the news. But AI (sometimes confused with machine learning, which is simply a technique within AI) wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't for one seminal event in 2016: AlphaGo beating Lee Sedol. In March last year, an AI program that trained itself to play the ancient game of Go beat the 18-time world champion. The reason it was such a feat for AI, was because Go is about feel, strategic judgment and winning multiple battles across the board – and a computer cannot simply memorise all possible combinations of board pieces, assess the situation, construct and execute a strategy to win, like chess. So the programmers of AlphaGo, from Google DeepMind, set up the basic heuristics of the game, allowed AlphaGo to analyse previous games and then split its brain so it could play itself millions of times.

Companies invested billions of dollars in AI research and development. Machines ingested trillions upon trillions of pieces of data to train themselves to be experts in fields such as healthcare, financial services and customer service. 1 By all accounts, 2016 proved to be a major year for artificial intelligence. We asked AI experts to weigh in … 4. 3 What advances in AI do you predict will happen in 2017? 5. "5% of all new enterprise apps will have some form of AI in 2017 and 50% by the year of 2021." Patrick Moorhead Founder, President and Principal Analyst Moor Insights and Strategy 5 More Information Powerful partnerships are already in place to accelerate AI in the enterprise. Over the last several decades, nations have competed on speed, intent to build the world's fastest supercomputer.