That Sound You Hear Is Your Enterprise's AI Technology

This article is part of an MIT SMR initiative exploring how technology is reshaping the practice of management. Hearables are here: Apple held its "Special Event" and, among other things, officially killed the iPhone's 3.5-millimeter earbud jack, replacing it with 159 wireless AirPods. But then I read Mike Elgan's paean to this development in Computerworld. Elgan says that AirPods are actually artificial intelligence hardware. "The biggest thing going on here is the end of'dumb speaker' earbuds, and the mainstreaming of hearables -- actual computers that go in your ears," he says.