The last few months have been by far the most exciting of my 17 years working on artificial intelligence. Among many other advances, OpenAI's ChatGPT – a type of AI known as a large language model – smashed records in January to become the fastest-growing consumer application of all time, achieving 100 million users in two months. No one knows for certain what's going to happen next with AI. There's too much going on, on too many fronts, behind too many closed doors. However, we do know that AI is now in the hands of the world, and, as a consequence, the world seems likely to be transformed.

The Buzzword of 2021 is "AIoT", which stands for a blend of Artificial Intelligence with the Internet of Things. IoT is capable of capturing tremendous amounts of data from multiple sources. However, it is a significant yet highly complicated task to process and analyze this data. Artificial Intelligence enabled IoT can empower machines to utilize this data, act intelligently and make decisions with little or no human interference. Let's look at the individual definitions of both technologies.

Do machines really have the power to improve upon and transform the way we make decisions? The answer is an astounding: yes! With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) already upon us, our society is advancing technologically by turning what used to be a science fiction fantasy into reality. In short, AI allows us to rethink the ways in which we use and analyze data to help improve decision-making abilities. The choices formulated by AI machines are meant to mimic a human response which is quite literally what they do. This might seem a little frightening, but more often than not, it's all a good thing.

Big data, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence have quickly become the cornerstones that define and uphold our interconnected, internet-driven reality. It's no surprise, then, that the three subjects continue to dominate the tech news reel in 2017 as their tendrils of connectivity permeate in the deeper recess of our lives. What are the new trends guiding these three technologies in the current year? Big data The key to understanding big data is in the use of the word "big" -- the set of data is so large that traditional methods of dealing with it are inadequate. According to The Next Web, smart contracts represent the future of big data.