As the world confronts the challenge of declining productivity growth, many organisations have turned to artificial intelligence (AI) as a solution. But by limiting AI's application to simple automation and cost-cutting, companies may overlook key business intelligence that is trapped inside legacy silos, and which could unlock new models for growth. Play the video to hear how organisations can boost their Artificial Intelligent Quotient for growth. By 2035, Accenture estimates the UK could achieve an annual economic growth rate of 3.9 percent and increase labour productivity by 25 percent if enterprises, large and small, take full advantage of AI. Achieving this potential requires organisations to go beyond conventional uses of AI and create new products and services that are based on intelligent use of data.

The figures are contained in a new report, How AI Boosts Industry Profits and Innovation, authored by Mark Purdy, managing director – economic research, and Paul Daugherty, chief technology and Innovation officer, Accenture. "Artificial intelligence will revolutionise how businesses compete and grow, representing an entirely new factor of production that can ignite corporate profitability," said Paul Daugherty, chief technology & innovation officer, Accenture. Just as AI is continually learning, human intelligence must continue to develop and interweave with machine intelligence, according to the report. But the role needs to be expanded or supplemented by a chief data supply chain officer, Accenture argues.

At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. We're a network of firms in 157 countries with more than 223,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services. Find out more and tell us what matters to you by visiting us at www.pwc.com. PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details.

How can CEOs and their top teams even begin to make sense of the swirl of technological breakthroughs affecting business today? How do they gauge the impact of artificial intelligence on their companies' future compared with, say, the Internet of Things or virtual reality? Given the sheer pace and acceleration of technological advances in recent years, business leaders can be forgiven for feeling dazed and perhaps a little frustrated. When we talked to CEOs as part of our annual Global CEO Survey, 61% of them told us they were concerned about the speed of technological change in their industries. Sure, more and more C-suite executives are genuinely tech-savvy - increasingly effective champions for their companies' IT vision - and more and more of them know that digital disruption can be friend as well as enemy.

Accenture Interactive is often pointed to as one of the major consultancy arms stepping onto marketing turf typically owned by ad agencies, and the latest news suggests the shop might be edging further into the ad tech business as well. While the streaming tool appears to be early days, the descriptions of its use cases point to how marketers might leverage AI technology past simple customer service and e-commerce tools like chatbots or solutions largely used for data-crunching and insights like IBM's Watson or Salesforce's Einstein. As video and streaming video, in particular, become growing focus areas for more marketers, the programmatic AI feature showcases how brand content might be more regionally tailored and targeted at relevant audiences in an efficient way. Accenture's product combines automatic semantic analysis with human insights and moderation to offer brand safety and provide contextual relevance, Alex Naressi, managing director of Accenture Interactive's research and development unit, told Digiday. Accenture isn't alone in looking to AI to craft more relevant advertising campaigns and product placement.

Businesses that dive into artificial intelligence now could see a boost in profitability. According to a new Accenture report, AI has the potential to increase corporate profitability in 16 industries an average of 38 per cent by 2035. This is on top of a predicted economic boost of $14 trillion US in additional gross value added across those same industries and 12 different economies. The report points to information and communication, manufacturing, and financial services as the three sectors that will see the highest annual growth rates in the AI scenario. Labor-intensive sectors will benefit from augments in the human workforce, while AI powered machines will eliminate faulty machines and idle equipment.

But the reaction around these developments is mixed. Many extol the merits of machines that will free us from work and open us to new realms of human capability. Others forecast a dire future of increasing inequality and widespread unemployment. There are also those that question whether machine intelligence is ready to be put into production, or will live up to its ever-increasing hype. For executive leaders, the result can be paralyzing: Is it a business imperative to try and replace employees with machines or would it create an even greater risk in broken trust with shareholders, customers, and the public?

Insurance and technology are inextricably linked. The risks we seek to manage have always been connected to the tools we use. But, as Accenture's 2017 Technology Vision for Insurance points out, this relationship recently reached an inflection point. In the past, humans generally changed themselves to make use of new technologies--we learned to drive, we learned to type, we learned to code. But now modern technologies are sophisticated enough to adapt themselves to us.

Over the past few decades, technology has dramatically increased the productivity of the average worker, and through them, the profitability of the average large business. It's a trend that has payed enormous dividends for those companies that have been able to adapt, but in the past couple of years the trend seems to have slowed, and corporate profits have stagnated. Industry researchers from Accenture Research and Frontier Economics recently forecasted a dramatic return to growth in corporate productivity and profit. Called How A.I. Boosts Industry Profits and Innovation, their report foresees a number of improvements to profitability, thanks to A.I. moving into the workplace. The most dramatic predictions of the bunch have to do with overall growth in the economy.

AI could lead to "cliff-edge" scenario of mass unemployment, PWC warns The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) by businesses to replace workers could lead to a "cliff-edge" scenario where huge swathes of the working population suddenly lose their jobs as the technology reaches financial viability, the accounting firm PWC has warned. The professional services firm said AI had the power to overhaul business models and could leave workers sidelined and companies struggling to adjust unless preparations are made now. It said firms and the state must double down on their efforts to improve the education system and help workers retrain to ensure AI delivers the much-heralded boost to the UK economy. Jon Andrews, PwC's head of technology and investments, said: "There are different sectors that will be impacted in different ways. "The vast majority [of workers] will not see the change happening to them and they will have a very different job by 2030.