CEOs see the potential--and the risks. Our strategist's guide and responsible AI framework can set companies on the right path. As machines continue to assume many of the tasks that once depended on human agency--such as driving a car or making a decision--we find ourselves looking toward a future in which nearly all technology applications will likely incorporate some form of artificial intelligence (AI). It has already changed the trajectory of scientific research, enabling new creative and technological milestones. At the same time, the rapid advancement of AI technologies has raised fundamental questions about social values and the potential unintended consequences of AI.

Artificial Intelligence, as a true change agent, is coming, and in many ways, its early rumblings are already being felt. It's clear that some people will eagerly adopt and integrate the new tools and ways of working it makes possible, while others will be more cautious or even oppose the changes it brings to their life or work. AI is poised to have a transformative effect on consumer, enterprise, and government markets around the world. While there are certainly obstacles to overcome, consumers believe that AI has the potential to assist in medical breakthroughs, democratise costly services, elevate poor customer service, and free up an overburdened workforce. Some tech optimists believe AI could create a world where human abilities are amplified as machines help mankind process, analyse, and evaluate the abundance of data that creates today's world, allowing humans to spend more time engaged in high-level thinking, creativity, and decision-making workforce.

William Bao Bean, general partner at early stage venture capital firm SOSV, said at a panel at the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology that significant sums of money were flowing into AI. "So the last 15 years, entrepreneurs and [venture capitalists], like us, have been investing in companies that solve basic problems," he said, adding most of the problems today are solved "pretty well" in the country. Currently, China is a "lot more like the U.S., where, in order to make an impact, you have to have a revolution in tech," Bao Bean said. Global consulting firm KPMG said in January that China set a record high in terms of VC investments in 2016, despite a global slowdown in the field. The firm said the strong performance was expected to continue as AI becoming a stronger focus for investors.

Accenture published a report, entitled the 2017 Technology Vision, which studied how artificial intelligence might effect banks going forward. Over 600 of the world's foremost bankers were surveyed and asked a series of questions about the new technology and how it'll change the way banks operate internally and how they handle their customers externally. According to the report, three quarters of the bankers surveyed, four out of five to be exact, believe that AI will become the primary way banks interact with their customers. This is in relation to customer service, and these bankers see AI technologies such as chatbots becoming increasingly essential for banks in the not-so-distant future. Experts and academics in the technology industry were also among the individuals surveyed, which demonstrates how thorough Accenture's study into the effects of artificial intelligence on the financial sector was.

Companies are using robots in more places than factories. Many are looking for ways to use robotics to be more efficient. Boards should understand if their company plans to use robotics and how this technology might impact the company's strategy.

Will pessimistic predictions of the rise of the robots come true? Will humans be made redundant by artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, unable to find work and left to face a future defined by an absence of jobs? Or will the optimists be right? Will historical norms reassert themselves and technology create more jobs than it destroys, resulting in new occupations that require new skills and knowledge and new ways of working? The debate will undoubtedly continue for some time. But both views have been founded on a traditional conception of work as a collection of specialized tasks and activities performed mostly by humans. As AI becomes more capable and automates an ever-increasing proportion of these tasks, is it now time to consider a third path? Might AI enable work itself to be reconstructed? It is possible that the most effective use of AI is not simply as a means to automate more tasks, but as an enabler to achieve higher-level goals, to create more value. The advent of AI makes it possible--indeed, desirable--to reconceptualize work, not as a set of discrete tasks laid end to end in a predefined process, but as a collaborative problem-solving effort where humans define the problems, machines help find the solutions, and humans verify the acceptability of those solutions.

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When something new makes life easier or better, we welcome it. History is filled with innovations that have transformed how we live and work and left us wondering how we ever got by without them. Yet with artificial intelligence (AI), many seem to be quite conflicted. It is heralded as part of the fourth industrial revolution, yet a lot of people -- if they are honest -- fear it. Why? There's been quite a bit of noise about how an AI-powered future is like a dystopian collection of nightmares where the machines decide that the humans need to be "overthrown."

For the people most immersed in the tech sector, it's hard to think of a more controversial topic than the ultimate impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on society. In the below infographic, we look recent projections from PwC and Accenture regarding AI's economic impact, as well as the industries and countries that will be the most profoundly affected. According to PwC's most recent report on the topic, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) will be transformative. For that, we turn to Accenture's recent report, which breaks down a similar projection of $14 trillion of gross value added (GVA) by 2035, with estimates for AI's impact on specific industries.

For the people most immersed in the tech sector, it's hard to think of a more controversial topic than the ultimate impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on society. By eventually empowering machines with a level of superintelligence, there are many different possible outcomes ranging from Kurzweil's technological singularity to the more dire predictions popularized by Elon Musk. Despite this wide gap in potential outcomes, most technologists do agree on one thing: AI will have a profound impact on the society and the way we do business. Today's infographic comes from the Extraordinary Future 2017, a new conference in Vancouver, BC that focuses on emerging technologies such as AI, autonomous vehicles, fintech, and blockchain tech. In the below infographic, we look recent projections from PwC and Accenture regarding AI's economic impact, as well as the industries and countries that will be the most profoundly affected.