Greater transparency and digital transformation, what 2018 holds for artificial intelligence

One of the most interesting trends we've seen in 2017 is the spread of artificial intelligence into areas like marketing and security. Is this set to continue into next year, and are there new fields where AI is set to make a significant impact? Here are the views of some industry experts. AI isn't yet ready to go mainstream, but more businesses will be laying the ground work to use it in future, says Couchbase SVP of engineering and CTO Ravi Mayuram. "Today AI is more of a trendy buzzword than practical reality, and it's difficult to execute because AI is only as good as its data. While data integrity still varies within the enterprise, true implementation of AI is still a concept that will not come to fruition for a few years. However, we've seen early stages of machine learning applications in verticals such as advertising and retail. In the years ahead, we'll see more industries, including industrial IoT, digital health and digital finance, begin taking advantage of machine learning within applications to provide more meaningful user experiences. Throughout this transformation, the database will play an instrumental role by accommodating rapidly-changing data at scale while keeping big data sets reliable and secure."