Digital transformation is no longer an inward tactic used to reform an organisation's operations; it's now a necessary undertaking sought out by CIOs and IT leaders. Recent developments have pushed organisations to embrace digitisation, causing the fourth industrial revolution and technologies such as artificial intelligence to go mainstream. Even though, according to Gartner, only 53 per cent of AI projects make it from prototype into production, companies can't ignore the benefits of successful AI implementation. Enhanced AI solutions such as the artificial intelligence of things (AIoT), conversational AI and machine learning (ML) are improving the future of digital transformation and offer more innovative ways than ever before to address business challenges. Today's AI solutions can be customised to address a company's unique set of challenges.

Access to AI and blockchain technologies has been democratised, but humans still lack full control of their digital interactions. This is now beginning to change. Technologies such as AI and blockchain are now becoming more commonplace across multiple industries – healthcare, finance, agriculture, construction and more. As a result, increasing numbers of people worldwide – even in economies still in the early stages of technological empowerment – are, knowingly or not, starting to come into contact with them on a near-daily basis. However, until recently, these technologies had been the domain of large companies in the tech, pharmaceutical or trading worlds, which meant that, on the whole, access to them for the everyday person was either minimal, or indirect.

"Augmented workforce" is a term we hear increasingly often these days, but the concept is hardly new. Think, for example, of the cotton mills of the Industrial Revolution. Scores of looms were driven not by the millworkers, who had other tasks, but by a series of steam-powered belts, resulting in a larger production output, higher quality, and new ways of working that combined humans and machines. However, as the cotton mill example shows, it's important not just that technology delivers benefits like these, but that it does so in concert with the human workforce. That's where AI can really take off – when you combine it with people, you create an outcome that is greater than the sum of its parts.

A survey by Tata Consultancy Services reveals that while some jobs have been lost to machine intelligence, that's not the major way companies are using AI today. Companies are more likely to be using AI to improve computer-to-computer tasks while employing the same number of people. The 170-year-old news service Associated Press offers a case in point. In 2013, demand for quarterly earnings stories was insatiable, and staff reporters could barely keep up. So that year, AP began working with an AI firm to train software to automatically write short earnings news stories. By 2015, AP's AI system was writing 3,700 quarterly earnings stories – 12 times the number written by its business reporters.

Visit John Keble Primary School in Hampshire and you will see Year Six pupils being captivated by the magic of machine learning. Artificial intelligence (AI) is all around us and many of these 10 and 11 year olds and their parents will have used AI assistants such as Amazon's Alexa to play music or turn their lights on and off. Do they understand how these devices work? Experts from IBM visited the school to demonstrate its Watson question and answer computer system which uses machine learning and natural language programming. The children played the Guess Who Bluemix game to illustrate how cognitive technology works.

PROFESSOR STEPHEN Hawking has told the BBC that he fears artificial intelligence (AI) could eventually spell the end for the human race. This depressing prediction doesn't worry today's marketers, however. They are too excited about using the technology to interact more effectively with consumers at an individual level. AI is not about robotics. It is about creating computers that can think like a human and can learn and improve.

Technology / What countries are investing in robots? A recent study by Redwood Software and the Centre for Economic and Business Research (Cebr) has focused on the impact of robotics automation on economic development across OECD countries, including the UK and the US. How does UK robotics investment compare to other countries? The report found that the UK has a much smaller robotics investment/GDP share in comparison to Japan, Germany and the US. Expressed in 2015 PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) terms, robotics investment in the US was $86billion in 2015, approximately 62 times that of the UK, recovering strongly from less than $30billion during the recession in 2009.

Every few months it seems another study warns that a big slice of the workforce is about to lose their jobs because of artificial intelligence. Four years ago, an Oxford University study predicted 47% of jobs could be automated by 2033. Even the near-term outlook has been quite negative: A 2016 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said 9% of jobs in the 21 countries that make up its membership could be automated. And in January 2017, McKinsey's research arm estimated AI-driven job losses at 5%. My own firm released a survey recently of 835 large companies (with an average revenue of $20 billion) that predicts a net job loss of between 4% and 7% in key business functions by the year 2020 due to AI. Yet our research also found that, in the shorter term, these fears may be overblown.

The acceleration of changes driven through technology and the demographic changes affecting the global workforce are working against each other. While the speed of innovation and change is ever increasing, we see a shrinking and aging workforce with fewer and fewer young people. In other words, our economy is facing a major workforce crisis in both capacity and capabilities. Research says that only 46 per cent of an employee's work week is spent on their primary job duties. In an economy where people and talent are scarce, this is a major issue.

Let's consider what factors are driving artificial intelligence applications for payments and transaction processing: Digital banking and ecommerce channels are growing exponentially as more and more people use apps and mobile connectivity for transactions. For retailers, newer business models are evolving every day, from instant delivery of goods to digital downloads. Commerce is now operating in an omni-channel environment across multiple devices and touchpoints. Growth comes with a price, as it has led to a corresponding rise in fraud - and fraud loss - in online marketplaces that connect buyers and sellers. That's especially true in e-commerce, where it is harder and more complex to prevent fraud than in person transactions.