The top six trends in artificial intelligence for 2019

It's not all robot delivery dogs, self-driving cars that let you snooze, or digital assistants that can tell you need to talk about your day. Although these real examples of artificial intelligence developments are simultaneously terrifying and exciting, they are more indicative of what is to come in three or four years – Volvo's 360c "bed on wheels" is just a concept for now while Huawei is still working on their emotional AI software. Fresh from a CES demo, Continental's robo-dogs are just about hot to trot, so to speak. But the best way to predict what people will be talking about in AI in 2019 is to take a look at what happened in 2018 and pay close attention to those end of year reports issued by industry, academia and special interest groups for their expert insights into the year ahead. While some areas continue to steadily grow – machine learning and deep learning – others will creep up on us, suddenly feeling as ubiquitous as the smartphone while steadily becoming capable of increasingly complex behaviours: the AI voice assistant.