The global market for intelligent machines is set to more than triple to 153 billion by 2020, says Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch, which has pinpointed companies particularly poised to ride the robotics wave. "Robots and AI are becoming an integral part of our daily lives as providers of labor, mobility, safety, convenience, and entertainment," strategists in London led by Beijia Ma wrote in a note dated Nov. 3. "Demographics, energy efficiency, productivity, urbanization, and wage inflation suggest long-term sustained growth." Bank of America expects robots to be performing 45% of manufacturing tasks by 2025, versus 10 percent today. Driven by China, 2014 was the third consecutive year for record sales of robots worldwide -- a jump of 29 percent, BofA said.