In a world that operates on billions of digits every day, humans are too slow and inattentive. To adapt, we must automate the processing of millions of complex transactions on a daily basis, at speeds fast enough to satisfy impatient digital users. This adaption requires a massive level of digital transformation that can support operations, business processes and decision-making speeds faster than is humanly possible. Historically, digital technologies get faster, cheaper, more powerful and smaller every couple of years. We operate in human time, a biological cadence influenced by the physical environment, our well-documented physical, mental and emotional limitations, and the universe that we live in.

There can be little debate that artificial intelligence (AI) is now becoming more and more a part of everyday life. With the rise of AI consumer products like the Amazon Echo, the public is seeing how incredibly useful this technology is when applied to their lives. However, for businesses around the world, jumping on the AI bandwagon and effectively implementing it in the day-to-day running of a company probably seems like a far fetched idea. Much of the focus on AI and its business application has been related to job losses and phasing out certain professions. For example, recently a Japanese company laid off over 30 employees to be replaced by robots.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly integrated into many industries such as healthcare, alongside particular business departments such as sales and customer service. In a society where everything is becoming more technology dependent, it is inevitable that AI will play a role in sales interactions in the future. We expect that sales reps will increasingly use AI in their day to day activities within the next few years, and knowing where and how to take advantage of this new technology will ultimately help sales reps to improve their sales skills and leverage AI to deliver an enhanced service to clients. According to HBR, 85% of all sales rep activities have the potential to be automated (1). Tasks such as gathering information from customers and prospects, taking customers' orders for a particular product or processing the sales transaction itself could all be done by AI technology.

Both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are terms that evoke futuristic, sci-fi, and generally far-out imagery in us. But the truth is that AI and IoT are already our mundane reality and will continue to become prominent aspects of our lives in the near and far future. Chaney Ojinnaka, the founder, and CEO of VendorMach says in his recently published article that AI has been romanticized into this abstract concept conjuring images of robots doing our housework for us. But what do these terms really denote and what is their relation? Well, both concepts are strongly interrelated, and one can't really exist without the other.

Can we trust Artificial Intelligence (AI) to audit financial statements? Artificial intelligence advocates speak of a time to come when these systems will be capable of auditing 100% of a company's financial transactions. These visionaries foresee the day when AI will enable auditing that is a continuous and real-time process, not a prolonged exercise requiring large teams of accountants working overtime after the close of a fiscal year. But is AI in auditing a good idea? Or do we even have a choice -- is it just part of the data-focused technology wave that all companies must embrace?

That's the question many people ask when discussing implementing artificial intelligence (A.I.) in the workplace, fearing that computers will put them out of a job. Just this past September, Forrester released a report saying that 6 percent of U.S. jobs may be replaced by A.I. and bots by 2021. For employees, this may sound ominous, but it requires an explanation of what jobs, and what aspects of jobs, are evolving as a result of A.I. Companies across industries are beginning to leverage A.I. and virtual assistants to streamline communication with customers and increase productivity. The field service management industry, for example, is beginning to tap into A.I. capabilities to enhance workers' skills and improve efficiency. With A.I.-powered bots emerging as a new channel for customer service and engagement, this presents an opportunity for organizations to automate service and support for customers.

NASA is developing underwater robotic explorers that will search alien oceans for signs of life. The drones will be able to think for themselves as they navigate through the icy seas believed to exist beneath the crust of Europa, Jupiter's moon. Nasa scientists believe that water – the ingredient for life – can be found beneath Saturn's Dione and Ganymede too. There's compelling evidence that hidden oceans on dwarf planest Ceres and Pluto could also be home to mysterious extra-terrestrials. "Depending on the exact mission concept under consideration, autonomous underwater vehicles exploring ocean worlds will need to operate autonomously for days to months.

Despite 2016 being labelled the worst year ever in terms of politics and celebrity deaths, it was a pretty great year for the Montreal technology scene. We saw a lot of funding come in both publicly and privately, a lot of new companies being launched and the push for the city to cement its place as an AI and machine learning hub. I want to highlight some of the great companies that are being built in Montreal with a focus on the up-and-coming startups which are poised to have a HUGE 2017. Check out some of the rising stars in Montreal (in no particular order) that you should definitely keep your eye on. As part of the build-out of AI and machine learning in the city we saw the birth of Element AI, in mid-2016.

Artificial intelligence is an amazing technology that's changing the world in fantastic ways, but anybody who has ever seen the movie Terminator knows that there are some dangers associated with advanced AI. That's why Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and hundreds of other researchers, tech leaders, and scientists have endorsed a list of 23 guiding principles that should steer AI development in a productive, ethical, and safe direction. The Alisomar AI Principles were developed after the Future of Life Institute brought dozens of experts together for their Beneficial AI 2017 conference. The experts, whose ranks consisted of roboticists, physicists, economists, philosophers, and more, had fierce debates about AI safety, economic impact on human workers, and programming ethics, to name a few. In order to make the final list, 90 percent of the experts had to agree on its inclusion.

One day neural networks could help marketers with their online campaigns. Google's DeepMind is a tantalising glimpse of that future. It can not only recognise and analyse images in a video but in one publicised example, discovered cats. Yes, through its deep learning algorithms, without human guidance, it figured that YouTube is the home of cat videos. It identified 10 million of them (no doubt including my all-time favourite: keyboard cat).