Welcome to 2018, the year of Artificial Intelligence

If the history of human advancement has taught us one thing it is this: genuine step-change progress does not occur because of a single technology breakthrough, but a combination of multiple complementary factors coming together at the same time. The Industrial Revolution, which began around 1760, was driven by an amalgamation of steam power, improvements in iron production and the development of the first machine tools. Similarly, the PC revolution of the early 1970's was the outcome of simultaneous advancements in micro-processing, memory storage, software programming and other factors. Now, as we enter 2018, we are at the cusp of a new revolution, one that will ultimately transform every organisation, every industry and every public service across the world. The concept of AI is not new.