Report: Over three million Canadians will own smartphones with machine learning abilities this year

By the end of 2017, over three million Canadians will own smartphones with machine learning capabilities. Machine learning tops the list of Deloitte's 2017 Canadian Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions, which claims that 300 million people around the world will own smartphones with the capacity to do onboard machine learning. This amounts to over a third of the smartphones sold in the coming year, though this trend won't end with smartphones. These capabilities will soon be found in tens of millions more devices such as drones, tablets, cars, virtual or augmented reality devices, medical tools, IoT, etc. "Machine learning will see everyday tasks become even faster and more effortless -- so simple, that Canadians may not even realize their mobile devices have in fact learned these new capabilities," said Anders McKenzie, partner and national TMT Leader for Deloitte Canada. "Not only will machine learning revolutionize how we conduct simple tasks through our mobile devices, but it will also improve the safety of Canadians through other platforms, such as better autonomous vehicles, responding to disasters and more resilient to cyberattacks," he continues.