Cognitive AI systems like IBM Watson are working to understand all forms of data, interact naturally with people, and learn and reason at scale. Intel's Movidius compute stick is capturing our imaginations with low power computer vision and object recognition. Google is investing heavily in the open source TensorFlow machine learning project and a computer farm of TPUs (tensor processing units) to run TensorFlow algorithms at scale. Google also recently acquired our friends at API.ai, a natural language conversation engine with search capabilities. Machine learning focuses on the development of computer programs that can access data and use it to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed.. Artificial Intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.

This article originally appeared in Buzz Business for TIME. Last October, the Mirai botnet took advantage of hacked IoT devices to take high profile websites, such as Twitter, Reddit, Netflix, Airbnb--and, it was rumored (incorrectly), the entire nation of Liberia. How do you secure a world of dizzying interconnectivity? If innovation is generating this unprecedented security challenge, it's only fair for innovation to help solve it--AI to the rescue. Look to the evolution of our telephone system.