2018 - the year AI comes to the fore

RESEARCHERS have been working on artificial intelligence (AI) for decades, but my colleagues and I at Microsoft believe that 2018 will be the year AI comes to the fore and begins to drive real impact in a truly ubiquitous and meaningful way. Increased availability of data, growing cloud computing power, and more powerful algorithms are giving rise to computing systems that can see, hear, learn and reason, creating new opportunities to improve education and healthcare, address poverty and achieve a more sustainable future. In business, AI is also fast becoming one of the top technologies organisations are exploring to accelerate their own digital transformation as they seek to create new value for their customers in today's digital-first world. AI needs to be people first and technology second. Put simply, we need to develop AI to augment human capabilities, especially humankind's innate ingenuity.