Vladimir Klimontovich is the CTO and founder of GetIntent. In the near future, ads will just be part of the conversation. Bots, and the AI technologies that drive them, are taking huge leaps forward in sophistication and reach. Facebook and Telegram recently added bot APIs to their platforms, and Apple Messages will soon allow third-parties to plug in, too. While bots had previously been limited to very specific requests, such as checking a balance or flight status, next-generation AI, like the recently unveiled Viv, will better understand context and integrate with a host of services -- including programmatic advertising.

Written by our strategist and resident science fiction nerd Erik Magnuson, these monthly roundups won't cover every development in the ever accelerating world of technology, but they will hopefully provide a little insight into why things are happening, and what might happen next. I will start this roundup as I often do by talking about artificial intelligence. I am convinced that Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research is correct when he says "the next if not last enduring battlefield between technology companies is artificial intelligence." That battle has so far been fought mostly between digital assistants from Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. But recently a new player entered the arena: Viv.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence exhibited by machines. In computer science, an ideal "intelligent" machine is a flexible rational agent that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal.[1] Colloquially, the term "artificial intelligence" is applied when a machine mimics "cognitive" functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as "learning" and "problem solving".[2] As machines become increasingly capable, facilities once thought to require intelligence are removed from the definition. For example, optical character recognition is no longer perceived as an exemplar of "artificial intelligence" having become a routine technology.[3] Capabilities still classified as AI include advanced Chess and Go systems and self-driving cars. AI research is divided into subfields[4] that focus on specific problems or on specific approaches or on the use of a particular tool or towards satisfying particular applications. The central problems (or goals) of AI research include reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, natural language processing (communication), perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects.[5] General intelligence is among the field's long-term goals.[6] Approaches include statistical methods, computational intelligence, soft computing (e.g. machine learning), and traditional symbolic AI. Many tools are used in AI, including versions of search and mathematical optimization, logic, methods based on probability and economics. The AI field draws upon computer science, mathematics, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience and artificial psychology. The field was founded on the claim that human intelligence "can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it."[7] This raises philosophical arguments about the nature of the mind and the ethics of creating artificial beings endowed with human-like intelligence, issues which have been explored by myth, fiction and philosophy since antiquity.[8] Attempts to create artificial intelligence has experienced many setbacks, including the ALPAC report of 1966, the abandonment of perceptrons in 1970, the Lighthill Report of 1973 and the collapse of the Lisp machine market in 1987. In the twenty-first century AI techniques became an essential part of the technology industry, helping to solve many challenging problems in computer science.[9]

A year ago today, I published my original attempt at mapping the machine intelligence ecosystem. So much has happened since. I spent the last 12 months geeking out on every company and nibble of information I can find, chatting with hundreds of academics, entrepreneurs, and investors about machine intelligence. This year, given the explosion of activity, my focus is on highlighting areas of innovation, rather than on trying to be comprehensive. Despite the noisy hype, which sometimes distracts, machine intelligence is already being used in several valuable ways.

The government is using artificial intelligence in tasks ranging from planning space missions to forecasting job growth. Given the potential effects of these technologies on culture and economy, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith says the government's larger challenge is to bring "humanity's greatest talent" to bear on the development and direction of AI. To hear more, watch her talk at the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit partner event, "The Future of Artificial Intelligence."

A similar process is done on the target images to mask out the faces and intelligently put your own in their place -- and voila! It's not limited to hairstyles, either: put yourself in a movie, a location, a painting -- as long as there's a similarly positioned face to swap yours with, the software can do it. Kemelmacher-Shlizerman has also created systems that do automated age progression, something that can be useful in missing persons cases. "This is a first step in trying to imagine how a missing person's appearance might change over time."

Ever wonder what you would look like with long, wavy hair? I think you'd look great. But how can you try on a few looks without spending a fortune at the salon, or hours in photoshop? All you need is a selfie and Dreambit, the face-swapping search engine. The system analyzes the picture of your face and determines how to intelligently crop it to leave nothing but your face.

The author reflects on new research reports on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the workplace. His prediction: AI will make internal politics nastier within management ranks. Artificial intelligence is a hot topic these days. Not surprisingly, news outlets north of the 49th parallel jumped on the release of a new research report cleverly titled "The Talented Mr. Robot: The Impact of Automation on Canada's Workforce." The study was conducted by the Brookfield Institute for Innovation Entrepreneurship, a newly created independent and nonpartisan institute, housed within the Ryerson University of Toronto, dedicated to advancing Canada's innovation and entrepreneurship.

At first this may come as a disappointment to those who imagined a future of conversing with intelligent machines capable of completing a variety of tasks. But upon closer inspection, there's still plenty of potential value behind the more limited AI apps being developed today. Bowles said one of the chief benefits of today's AI apps is they will help businesses make sense of all the data they've been piling up since the early days of big data. AI systems will be able to quickly deliver insights from large data stores by using machine learning to pick out relevant information and natural language processing to write up human-readable reports, all in a matter of minutes. "It's mostly about helping people discover what's in the data," he said.

You'll have to get in the habit of stepping away from your computer to create the social capital you need. Grab lunch with a developer who may build out your next design. No need for an agenda -- just get to know each other. Spend time with researchers who have their finger on the pulse of your customers, sales people who hear frequent requests, product managers who understand schedules and scope, and customer service agents who know where users struggle the most. All have valuable context to offer you.