The use of robots is increasingly becoming inevitable in our daily lives. From social and domestic bots like Alexia – Amazon Echo to financial robo-advisors, Robots exist in real life and no longer synonymous with science fiction alone. The nature of work and the role of human in getting work done is constantly being redefined, as we see more machines take on, and even getting better and more efficient that human in routine task execution. Robots are always related with industrial applications, but have gradually crept into our offices, banks, homes, roads, labs and even hospitals. Below is an illustration of broad application of robots.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not something that we will use in the future but something that's being used today by brands across world in their marketing efforts. It's an integral part of marketing efforts for brands to help build a better customer experience. FMCG brands are adopting AI to help recognise customer behavior, provide predictive customer service, integrate it as part of the product offering and in many other ways. A leading FMCG brand used AI technology to help recognise micro facial expressions of joy, anger and surprise in a focus group research for a fragrance to help predict whether the consumer liked the product or not. The AI technology developed by Emotient, a startup recently acquired by Apple was able to more accurately predict preferences of the focus group than surveys. Knorr used cognitive technology, a component of AI in its latest campaign Love at First Taste campaign - "Flavour Profiler".

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We don't understand AI because we don't understand intelligence

John McCarthy, the late computer scientist who first coined the term "artificial intelligence," famously said: "As soon as it works, no one calls it AI any more." What was once cutting-edge AI is now considered standard behavior for computers. As I write this, my computer is continuously performing millions of tasks, caching files, managing RAM and balancing CPU loads. The algorithms behind many of these operations would have been considered AI years ago. Last year, I looked into how well neural networks -- programs that behave like a scaled-down version of your brain's neurons -- are able to write.

Take a look around and you'll see evidence of the widespread adoption of wearable sensors for health and fitness, such as the Fitbit, Garmin or other devices. What many people may not know is that we are also using sensors to monitor the structural integrity of bridges and buildings, as well as tracking the movements of insects and other animals. With the rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), tens of billions of sensor devices are projected to connect in the next decade. These connected sensor devices will automate processes across a broad range of economic sectors, from industrial plants to healthcare management, delivering productivity gains and hopefully quality-of-life improvements. The core of these sensor devices that will be deployed across this broad range of applications is largely the same, featuring a microprocessor, memory and a wired or wireless communication interface to the internet, along with a battery or other energy source.

If you've seen one too many mediocre sci-fi movies, the phrase'artificial intelligence' might bring to mind images of evil robots and technology taking over the world. In reality, AI is not a Hollywood concept, but a timely and practical tool for marketers. Essentially, we're talking about AI in the context of a technology that aims to solve a specific problem, one that uses datasets in order to learn and replicate information and behaviours. With AI playing an increasing role in all our lives, our Marketing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence report predicts the various ways it will continue to impact consumers. As well as making things more complicated for marketers, the appearance of multiple social channels has led to a non-linear and fractured path to purchase.

The concept of artificial intelligence, or AI, has existed for centuries, even if the phrase itself wasn't coined until 1956. The idea that humans could create something capable of thought processes similar to, or even superior to, their own, existed with the ancient Greeks and has extended through the millennia. The concept ramped up significantly in the 1950s, though computer memory and construction limitations prevented significant breakthroughs from occurring. Science fiction novels and films began foreseeing an ominous future, and recently, AI applications have started infiltrating our world. More recent years have seen some interest spikes: Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997, and IBM's Watson destroyed its human competition in Jeopardy! in 2011.

We don't understand AI because we don't understand intelligence

We don't understand AI because we don't understand intelligence