How Google is powering its next-generation AI

If you paid any attention to Google's big developer conference earlier this year then you'll know artificial intelligence is about to get big - really big. It's already powering most of Google's apps, one way or another, and the other giants in tech are scrambling to keep up. Here we're going to dig deeper into some of the AI announcements Google shared at I/O 2017, and explain how they're going to change the way you interact with your gadgets - from your smartphone to your music speakers. In broad terms artificial intelligence (usually) refers to a piece of software or a machine that simulates smart, human-like intelligence - even if it's just a hollow robot being operated by a person behind a curtain, pretending to respond to your commands, that's still a kind of AI. Within that you've got all kinds of branches, categories and approaches.