Microsoft says its racist chatbot illustrates how AI isn't adaptable enough to help most businesses

The AI revolution may take longer than some expect to spread from Silicon Valley into other industries. Recent breakthroughs in machine learning have let tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Facebook build impressive new businesses and products powered by software that parses text and images. Some have launched cloud services they say can "democratize AI" by helping other companies do the same. But Peter Lee, vice president at Microsoft's research division, said this week that the most valuable, high-end machine-learning systems so useful to tech giants are still too inflexible and expensive for the company to offer its business customers. "We are right now in terms of enterprise application of machine learning and AI concepts in an in-between spot," said Lee at MIT Technology Review's EmTech Digital conference in San Francisco this week.