Understanding AI's Potential in Digital Media

Science fiction turns fact--the term artificial intelligence seems ubiquitous at the moment, whether it's marketing technology firms boasting about superior processing power for campaign personalization or the coming singularity and robot apocalypse. Those of us in the trenches of the digital advertising world have become immune to the lure of buzzwords, no matter how many times and in how many contexts they are repeated. But at some point our curiosity bests us and we have to ask, "How much of this is the real deal and what's sheer hype?" AI is an even more unusual case--sure, chatbots and virtual personal assistants are neat, but how does that relate to the digital media world, and more precisely digital advertising and media monetization? In the end, it's all about UX--AI has the potential to be the ultimate user experience tool. But to see why, we have to take a step back and consider the roots of AI, or really--and pardon the philosophical turn--intelligence itself.