Introduction to the Special Issue on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence

We are very pleased to republish here extended versions of a sample of the papers drawn from the Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI-06), which was held July 17-20, 2006, in Boston, Massachusetts. Three of these articles describe deployed applications and two describe emerging applications. By this measure, artificial intelligence is going strong. Evidence comes from the annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI), the premier conference on AI applications. The papers presented at the conference provide compelling case studies of the value and impact of AI technology.