Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be a strategic capability and competitive advantage, no doubt. Statistics speak to that point. According to AI startup advisor Steve Ardire during his presentation (co-presented with Mico Yuk) at the DATAVERSITY Enterprise Data World Conference titled "Why Enterprise Organizations Use AI as a Strategic Capability and Competitive Advantage,"AI is expected to drive $15.7 trillion dollars of global GDP gains by 2030. It will grow to a $36.8 billon market by 2025, up from $643 million in 2016. Investment in AI over the last six years has grown from $300 million to more than $5 billion.

Artificial Intelligence is becoming a common topic of discussion in most occupation circles. We've heard many negatives and dire predictions about possible and probably job losses, but the facts are few and not easy to understand. Most of us have opinions as to whether Artificial Intelligence(AI) will ''make or break'' us. This is especially true in the tech and policy arenas. One side of the opinions declares that many or most of us will be out of jobs when Artificial Intelligence becomes smart enough to take over jobs.

Speaking at the DATAVERSITY Smart Data Online 2016 Conference, Adrian Bowles, industry analyst, recovering academic, and founder of STORM Insights, and Steve Ardire, Merchant of Light, both talked about the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI). They addressed the question: "Will robots take my job?" The short answer could be summarized as: "Maybe." Lower level jobs with easily improved productivity are likely candidates for automated replacements, says Bowles, but higher level positions with decision making capacity are more likely to have assistance from AI, rather than being replaced by it. Bowles talked about recently going through the stack of books he used early in his AI studies and discovering that "nowhere in these books is the key phrase'Machine Learning,' and yet today, that's sort of at the center of everything we're doing."

How can Artificial Intelligence (AI) help companies operate in the 21st century? How might it impact organisations and employees? AI has been around for years, but now it seems that it is taking the business world by storm. According to software startup advisor Steve Ardire (pictured right), it will fundamentally reshape organisations. "Human capital will start to shift from mundane tasks and transactions to higher-order and creative work. Along the way, we will see massive businesses where the technology transforms specific job functions," he tells me.

Gloria Lombardi speaks with software startup advisor Steve Ardire to explore the state of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its implications for the future of work. In Part 1 of this post, we covered the meaning of AI vs. machine intelligence and how AI will affect the future of work. Now we turn our attention to what's going on in the AI market and what this technology could mean for healthcare in particular. AI technology is developing, fast. "In 2016," Ardire says, "we are already seeing the emergence of applications for human resources, marketing and communications, sales, customer service, market and risk intelligence and more."

How can Artificial Intelligence (AI) help companies operate in the 21st century? How might it impact organisations and employees? AI has been around for years, but now it seems that it is taking the business world by storm. According to software startup advisor Steve Ardire, it will fundamentally reshape organisations. "Human capital will start to shift from mundane tasks and transactions to higher-order and creative work. Along the way, we will see massive businesses where the technology transforms specific job functions," says Ardire.

Gloria Lombardi speaks with software startup advisor Steve Ardire to explore the state of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its implications for the future of work. In Part 1 of this post, we covered the meaning of AI vs. machine intelligence and how AI will affect the future of work. Now we turn our attention to what's going on in the AI market and what this technology could mean for healthcare in particular. AI technology is developing, fast. "In 2016," Ardire says, "we are already seeing the emergence of applications for human resources, marketing and communications, sales, customer service, market and risk intelligence and more."