From artificial intelligence (AI) that can recognize faces, choose music for you based on your mood, and even drive your car, the technology has come a long way in recent years. Although the concept of intelligent machines has been around since ancient history as part of Greek mythology, only in recent decades has the scientific community made significant advances in practical uses of AI. Consumer applications for AI only took off in the past few years, with the introduction of Amazon's Alexa, the AI that resides in the handy little Bluetooth speaker, Echo. The business world, too, is just starting to explore AI's possible applications in big data analysis for customer relationship management, marketing, and more. Most of the world's tech giants are taking note, exemplified through both internal investments in AI research and development and the acquisition of AI startups.

From artificial intelligence (AI) that can recognize faces, choose music for you based on your mood, and even drive your car, the technology has come a long way in recent years. Although the concept of intelligent machines has been around since ancient history as part of Greek mythology, only in recent decades has the scientific community made significant advances in practical uses of AI. Consumer applications for AI only took off in the past few years, with the introduction of Amazon's Alexa, the AI that resides in the handy little Bluetooth speaker, Echo. The business world, too, is just starting to explore AI's possible applications in big data analysis for customer relationship management, marketing, and more. Most of the world's tech giants are taking note, exemplified through both internal investments in AI research and development and the acquisition of AI startups.

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There have been only a handful of gadgets in my life that, upon their arrival, fundamentally altered how I use technology in my life. The Amazon Echo has been one of those products. I've long been a believer in the promise of hands-free computing. The basic concept is promising: Voice control promises the ability to engage with computers while still going about our business as normal. Over the past few years, us humans have become increasingly glued to our screens, even while we're out and about.

A lot can happen in 12 months. Last year, bots exploded into the mainstream, and adoption was rapid. For example, over $1.5 billion was invested in AI startups; Microsoft has over 35,000 bot developers on its platform; The Economist even asked if bots are the new apps. As with any technology that grows so quickly in such a short amount of time, sometimes we need to take a step back. Last year, we saw bots enter the home through the likes of Amazon Echo's Alexa and Google Assistant, and this paved the way for more bots to be introduced to our everyday lives.

Chinese search giant Baidu has named former Microsoft business group head Qi Lu as its COO and group president. Until last September Lu was head of Microsoft's Applications and Services Group, where he managed products including Microsoft Office and Office 365, Bing search engine and Cortana personal assistant. At Baidu, Lu will be in charge of products, technology, sales, marketing and operations. A key strategic focus for the company over the next ten years will be artificial intelligence, Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li said on Monday. Li is counting on Lu's leadership experience and knowledge of AI to help the company attract the necessary expertise to become a global leader in the field, he said.

It's only been a few months, but the Google Assistant has already become a reliable companion for me. The daily weather forecast, sports scores, news reports, and Google's ever-present smarts make it something that fits the test for what makes a good technology. You wonder how you lived without it. The presence of the Google Assistant in the Pixel and Google Home, however, brings into sharper focus the other side of that two-edged-sword of new tech. It makes you crave more.

You find yourself at your desk, hundreds of files have been imported into Lightroom as you start the process of editing your latest shoot. Clockwise," and just as quickly as you say your commands, Lightroom responds. No this isn't some pipe dream; a Siri-like intelligent assistant may be the future of Adobe. Our speech recognition system is able to directly accept natural user voice instructions for image editing either locally through on-device computing or through a cloud-based Natural Language understanding service. This is a first step towards a robust multimodal voice-based interface which allows our creative customers to search and edit images in an easy and engaging way using Adobe mobile applications.

A reminder of the person that you don't want to be as we move into 2017: In late 2014, I shared some of my thoughts regarding technologies that would shape our world between the years 2015-2020. One of the graphics that I created and shared talked about nine specific forces that would increasingly influence both our professional and personal lives. Located at the center of the diagram were three items: Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, and Machine Learning. I still believe that these items are properly situated in the center and that they will continue to dominate our conversations. If you, like millions of other people, received the Amazon Echo or Google Home this year during the holidays, you are starting to see the early promise and importance of all three of these technologies.

Cognitive computing is rapidly infusing every aspect of our lives. As 2017 approaches, the cognitive revolution--riding on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and data science -- is coming home to roost more rapidly than many realize. Here are my predictions for the many ways in which you may encounter cognitive technology. Most e-commerce applications now include in-line chatbots that pop out automatically and/or at your request to answer your questions, recommend products for you to purchase, and otherwise make your customer experience more seamless and satisfying. Behind the natural-language conversational interface are cognitive algorithms that are built and tuned by data scientists through real-world experiments, A/B tests, machine learning, and predictive analytics assets in line to merchants' applications.