AI: The dawn of the data age

Since its inception as an academic field in 1956, Artificial Intelligence has gone through a boom-and-bust cycle with proponents alternating between wild optimism and disappointment over a lack of technological or commercial breakthroughs. Since the introduction of the first smartphone in 2007, however, there has been continuous exponential growth in computing power and an explosion in human connectivity. This has meant vastly more and better data to analyse, and since there is now enough computing power to do so at a manageable cost, AI algorithms are performing much better. The rise of Big Data means that consumers interact with AI on a daily basis, through chat bots, virtual assistants, online shopping and media, biometric identification and fraud detection, to name a few examples. AI has entered the mainstream because it is now creating commercial value.