7 predictions for the evolution of enterprise AI in 2018

While artificial intelligence applications in business and industry remain limited to narrow machine learning tasks, we are seeing progressive improvements in the convergence of algorithms and hardware that will have significant implications for how well and how quickly we can implement AI. Researchers can now train neural networks within a few hours or days, which opens up an amazing range of possibilities, products, and things to learn -- as well as challenges -- that we could not have even considered before. For example, Google's AI group, DeepMind, is hard at work unraveling the mysteries of how proteins fold themselves, a discovery that could have far-reaching implications for health care. It is also very much involved with the research community in working through the ethical issues of AI. As I see it, 2018 will be the year AI will meet a crossroads -- when companies are better able to skim the hype from the reality, and when we can apply AI for both the good and the bane of humanity.