Artificial intelligence is no different to Lego; you want to make sure that different algorithms are compatible with each other, you want to make sure that the algorithms are correct and have minimal fault tolerance and when you start to combine different algorithms, you can create an algorithmic business with enormous potential. And to manage this AI Lego building process, your organisation requires a Chief AI. Since the Chief AI has a clear understanding of the business objectives of the organisation as well as the available technology already in-house, the Chief AI should be able to attract the right AI talent. Next to attracting the right AI talent, the Chief AI should be able to retain this talent by offering them interesting and challenging AI projects. Therefore, the Chief AI should be able to understand the business needs and be able to translate these to technical requirements and adapt (existing) AI tools to the business needs.

While many think abstraction has to do with being vague, abstraction in algorithmic business thinking does the opposite -- it removes the noise from the signal, McDonagh-Smith said. Amid so much data, being able to abstract and remove things that aren't necessary for a certain task is especially valuable and allows people to focus on what's important.

Artificial Intelligence is like Lego; to build something nice, you need to combine the right pieces in the right way. Most of us have played with Lego when we were small. I did at least and I absolutely loved it. I can remember the days when my friends and I were playing with Lego for hours on end, constantly creating new structures and building complete cities. We loved it and I am sure it stimulated my creativity. Even adults still play with Lego, often in group exercises to get some creativity flowing.

You wouldn't think a 9th century Persian mathematician would be relevant to modern business. But the term algorithm stems from his name, Muhammed Al Khwarizmi (along with the Greek word arithmos), and the algorithmic business is sweeping across the business landscape with its autonomous, rules-based, lightning-fast operations--augmenting, and in some cases supplanting, human decision making. An algorithm is a step-by-step process or set of rules for calculating and solving problems. "Algorithmic business is the industrialized use of complex mathematical algorithms pivotal to driving improved business decisions or process automation for competitive differentiation," Gartner explains. The algorithmic business is based upon capturing knowledge in software, which then takes automated actions that speed business processes and perform decision making. Supply chain uses algorithms to forecast demand, optimize inventory, schedule production, and route transportation.

Artificial Intelligence is like Lego; to build something nice, you need to combine the right pieces in the right way. Most of us have played with Lego when we were small. I did at least and I absolutely loved it. I can remember the days when my friends and I were playing with Lego for hours on end, constantly creating new structures and building complete cities. We loved it and I am sure it stimulated my creativity. Even adults still play with Lego, often in group exercises to get some creativity flowing.

No one can predict the future of technology with 100 percent accuracy. But these four pillars are certainly at the forefront of innovation in the years ahead. Speaking at a machine learning and artificial intelligence event hosted by Madrona Venture Group in Seattle on Wednesday, Joseph Sirosh, corporate VP of the Data Group at Microsoft, outlined five trends to watch in a world he described as "ACID": Algorithm, Cloud, IoT, and Data. "We live in a time of great change in computing, where unreasonable effectiveness of algorithms, cloud, IoT, and data are changing how applications are built, period," he said. "Even if you are on the right track, if you don't hop on this bandwagon and actually build things and deploy them and take advantage of their strength, you won't be very effective."

Tomorrow's companies are going to rely on algorithms more than ever before, the firm said in its latest research note, which could lead to business models that morph and change automatically. It all sounds like something from science fiction, but what does it really mean? An algorithm is simply a set of instructions to follow when completing a process. Every piece of software is algorithmic, meaning that business has been using algorithms since the launch of the LEO I, so we might well ask why the term is being bandied about so breathlessly now. Whereas businesses used software logic in discrete ways to automate certain processes, in the new model algorithms become a more central part of the business, making decisions that couldn't easily be reached without them, and then even taking action on them automatically.