Demystifying Artificial Intelligence

In the last several years, interest in artificial intelligence (AI) has surged. Venture capital investments in companies developing and commercializing AI-related products and technology have exceeded 2 billion since 2011.1 Technology companies have invested billions more acquiring AI startups. Press coverage of the topic has been breathless, fueled by the huge investments and by pundits asserting that computers are starting to kill jobs, will soon be smarter than people, and could threaten the survival of humankind. Amid all the hype, there is significant commercial activity underway in the area of AI that is affecting or will likely soon affect organizations in every sector. Business leaders should understand what AI really is and where it is heading. The first steps in demystifying AI are defining the term, outlining its history, and describing some of the core technologies underlying it. The field of AI suffers from both too few and too many definitions. Nils Nilsson, one of the founding researchers in the field, has written that AI "may lack an agreed-upon definition. . .