There's no question that artificial intelligence is changing our lives. A bot that sounds almost human can author your emails, teach you a new language, book your trip,s or even be your friend. Check out direct links to try those out here. One woman I spoke with on my national radio show even married her AI companion. No kidding, she says he's the perfect partner.

About 92% of large companies are achieving returns on their investments in artificial intelligence, and the same percentage are increasing their AI investments. But what does it take for startups and early-stage companies to get to this point? "AI utilization is tied to startups' products and services. It's more directly relevant," he said. In a new paper, Choi and his co-authors find that firms need to be ready to make a significant investment in AI to see any gains, because limited AI adoption doesn't contribute to revenue growth. Only when firms increase their intensity of AI adoption to at least 25% -- meaning that they are using a quarter of the AI tools currently available to them -- do growth rates pick up and investments in AI start to pay off.

Don't be fooled by the hype over AI. Just because there is a lot of hype doesn't mean there isn't huge potential value in AI. It would be a shame to miss out on the very real benefits of using artificial intelligence in your business, simply because the idea has become fashionable. How can you put AI to work to your advantage? Turns out, it is just as important to have good domain knowledge as it is to be able to work with fancy algorithms, statistics, and advanced programming.