Companies can be easily dazzled by their newest workers, the chatbots. They never complain or get sick. And they don't ask for raises. But companies can be just as easily disappointed when customers become frustrated by opaque and time-consuming interactions with the bots. It's not the bots' fault, said a panel of artificial intelligence experts at a recent Executive Roundtable hosted by Earley Information Science (EIS), a leading consulting firm focused on organizing information for business impact.

Accenture, which now has over 50 per cent of its revenues coming from digital, is betting big on Artificial Intelligence as the company feels AI has the ability to enable socio-economic development in India, unlocking at least a trillion dollars of economic value by 2035. In a conversation with BusinessLine, Rekha M Menon, Chairman and Senior Managing Director, Accenture in India, talked about how AI is transforming not just Accenture's clients but also the tech giant itself. People are worried about AI taking away their jobs, and in several instances, bots have in fact replaced humans. Should humans worry about AI taking over? AI is the'alpha' of all technology trends, and someday it will be as pervasive as electricity, truly transforming the way businesses and societies function.

The dominant tech trend in places like Southeast Asia will not be artificial intelligence as a whole, but rather it will be the more specific AI field of machine learning, according to a researcher from Deloitte. "Machine learning is the big one, not AI. AI's a very broad field, we are talking about the very narrow field of machine learning," Duncan Stewart, the director of technology, media, and telecommunications research at Deloitte Canada, told CNBC. Deloitte predicts that the next 12 months will see significant progress in augmented reality, mobile device usage, and increasingly sophisticated chips. But the most dominant trend will be machine learning -- when programs predict or explain using large amounts of data without being explicitly programmed -- according to Stewart.

With robots potentially as not only your coworkers but also your competition, what capabilities and unique talents are essential to keep your job? We asked the co-chairs of IAOP's Global Human Capital Chapter: What skills do humans need to compete with robots? A recent KPMG white paper titled Rise of the Humans states that automation and robotics will transform jobs according to two main dimensions – Cognitive Automation and Cognitive Processing & Robotic Automation. The authors said Cognitive Automation changes fall into two main areas: the Leveraged Professional, which enables the people of lesser qualifications to perform at substantially higher levels, e.g., a paralegal giving attorney-level advice, or allowing a lower qualified professional deliver a world-class output. Second is the Connected Worker, which affords everyone in a specific role to access technologies and the best ideas and knowledge on a topic.

The automation of work, including the use of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), is expected to rapidly increase. In fact, recent research by think tank'Centre for Cities' found that one in five jobs in Britain will fall victim to automation by 2030. These findings are further echoed by auditing firm'PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC)', who estimate more than 10 million UK workers will be at high risk of being displaced by robots within the next 15 years. As the prevalence of automation becomes more common in our day-to-day routines (supermarket self-service tills, air travel self-check in etc.), it's threat towards human jobs only becomes more apparent. Interested in this phenomenon, Reboot Digital Marketing analysed findings from Mindshare, who surveyed more than 6,000 individuals from across the UK to see whether they would prefer robots or humans in eight different occupations/scenarios.

Are you ready to compete as intelligent technology meets human ingenuity to create the future workforce? Ryan Shanks from Accenture has some recommendations. A recent Accenture Strategy report, Reworking the Revolution: Are you ready to compete as intelligent technology meets human ingenuity to create the future workforce?, estimates that if businesses invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and human-machine collaboration at the same rate as top-performing companies, they could boost revenues by 38pc by 2022 and raise employment levels by 10pc. Collectively, this would lift profits by $4.8trn globally over the same period. For the average S&P 500 company, this equates to $7.5bn of revenues and a $880m lift to profitability.

Bottom line: Machine learning algorithms, applications, and platforms are helping manufacturers find new business models, fine-tune product quality, and optimise manufacturing operations to the shop floor level. Manufacturers care most about finding new ways to grow, excel at product quality while still being able to take on short lead-time production runs from customers. New business models often bring the paradox of new product lines that strain existing ERP, CRM and PLM systems by the need always to improve time-to-customer performance. New products are proliferating in manufacturing today, and delivery windows are tightening. Manufacturers are turning to machine learning to improve the end-to-end performance of their operations and find a performance-based solution to this paradox.

Bigoted AI systems rightly deserve the universal flak they get. But there's a problem: we might still be screwed even if AI is neutral. Unless artificial intelligence has the "right" biases, AI and people won't coexist very well. Unless purposely wired to be ethical and people-centric, AI can be commandeered for malicious purposes or inadvertently cause serious socio-economic problems, not least of which is the precipitous loss of jobs. With machines already beating humans at manual tasks, games, back-office work, and even lawyering, who knows whether there'll be any job left in the future for the vast majority of humans to build their careers on.

Booz Allen Epidemico is a platform for monitoring health topics derived from online conversations across media sources. The platform provides custom portfolios by topic, including disease outbreaks, drug safety, product and brand sentiment, patient experience, food safety, and more. This health vigilance product blends leading edge technologies to deliver accessible, high-quality, and actionable insights. Booz Allen Epidemico was developed by a team of industry-recognized and mission-driven epidemiologists, health leaders, scientists, and engineers. Booz Allen Epidemico is a cloud-based software for understanding health topics.

Rob McCargow is the Artificial Intelligence programme leader at PWC and is a renowned speaker and thought leader on AI. He's mission-led and has been leading the debate about how AI can do good for the world. In this conversation, Rob and I look at the opportunities for AI in business, why and how businesses should onboard the technology, the need for ethics and data governance, the place for AI in digital transformation, the minefield of legislation and much more. "At PWC, we believe the big 8 new technologies are: AI, drones, robotics, blockchain, IoT, VR, AR, and 3d printing when they are harnessed together drive the biggest business benefit." Below, you'll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to go over to iTunes to rate it.