The promise of AI as a social and business growth tool

Since 2005, artificial intelligence (AI) has been on a fast-growing streak as a collection of multiple technologies that enable machines to sense, comprehend, act and learn, either on their own or to augment human activities, and it has been figuring on many released trends to watch research notes and whitepapers from important organizations, such as Gartner, Forrester and IDC. Looking back the past 10-15 years, there has been a lot of work in developing different AI technologies by major market players, such as IBM's Watson system and Google's DeepMind's AlphaGo system. Currently, thanks to Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Google's Google Assistant, and Amazon's Alexa, consumers have easy access to a variety of AI-powered virtual assistants to help manage their daily routines and tasks. The potential uses of AI to identify patterns, learn from experience, and find novel solutions to new challenges continue to grow, as increasing investments will bring new AI technology advances to corporations and consumers. Further to that, AI is impacting many different sectors of the global economy and society in a very positive way, as humanitarian organizations are currently using intelligent chatbots to provide psychological support to Syrian refugees, and doctors are using AI to develop personalized treatments for cancer patients.