Brown-Forman, whose brands include Old Forester and Woodford Reserve bourbon, has spent the past three years taking inventory and integrating diverse pools of consumer, production and sales data across its global operations, as part of a broader effort to update an aging technology stack, Mr. Nall said. That was no small task. Founded nearly 150 year ago, Brown-Forman today has some 4,800 employees and operates in more than 170 countries world-wide. Since becoming CIO in 2015, Mr. Nall has led a gradual strategic shift in the role of the company's enterprise information-technology hub, from a backroom tech support service to a business partner aligned with marketing and sales teams, as well as other corporate and global production functions. That shift has seen data scientists and other IT pros increasingly working across the entire business on efforts to drive efficiencies and generate revenue: "Technology is interwoven into the whole process," he said. Nowhere is the need for a more business-oriented IT model more clear than with the emerging powers of artificial intelligence and machine learning to supercharge corporate decision-making, he said.

A natural reaction today may be to chalk up the sale of a smudgy-looking portrait as the latest sign that AI, no longer satisfied with taking jobs, is now moving on to creating artwork and general AI is here and don't forget Skynet, etc. But leave it to Artnet, an art market website, to provide a clear description of Generative Adversarial Networks, an AI system of algorithms and two neural networks used to generate photorealistic images. It also put artificial intelligence's potential in context for artists and business practitioners alike. "We would do better to stop asking where the boundary line lies between human artists' agency and that of AI toolsets, and instead start asking whether human artists are using AI to plumb greater conceptual and aesthetic depths than researchers or coders," Artnet writes. In art and in business, everyone would be better served if AI was treated as a tool, with benefits and risks noted.

How certain one is in the belief that artificial intelligence is set to take over the world may depend on how close their career is positioned vis-à-vis the technology. In Brooklyn on Tuesday at a conference hosted by Ai4 Media., machine learning experts from Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley shared their perspective. CIO Journal's Sara Castellanos was there to take the view from the AI front lines. Great for detecting anomalies, but… Today, snippets of code do much of the job of a trader, as WSJ has previously reported, but when it comes to answering questions that need contextual understanding and financial acumen, AI algorithms are easily fooled, said Ambika Sukla, executive director of machine learning and AI at Morgan Stanley. "It's not clear that these models are learning or just memorizing the data," he said.

Artificial intelligence can't replace your doctor yet but it can help diagnose illness. Pfizer Inc. is expanding its AI-enabled analytics toolset to catch diseases that are easy to miss because they're rare or disguised by other illnesses a patient may have. The cloud-based system, called Virtual Analytics Workbench, brings together physicians notes, lab reports, demographics and other patient particulars, as CIO Journal's Sara Castellanos reports. Health care presents exciting opportunities to apply AI, but we're still far from Dr. McCoy's tricorder instant diagnostic device on Star Trek. One obstacle slowing AI's progress generally is a lack of suitable data with which to train algorithms, according to Kate Crawford, a distinguished research professor at New York University and a principal researcher at Microsoft Research New York, She spoke at the WSJ Future of Everything Festival this week.

From AI personalities that can help you order a meal, to chatbots designed to relay your banking information, companies are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to improve the consumer experience. Experts say these messaging services have taken off in the last year, and will likely expand further in months to come – but, they warn the use of bots can blur the line between business and personal interactions. As AI continue to grow as conversationalists, exchanges between humans and chatbots have begun to edge into'flirty' territory, which can affect customers' trust in the service. Experts say these messaging services have taken off in the last year, and will likely expand further in months to come – but, they warn the use of bots can blur the line between business and personal interactions. An end-of-life chatbot that helps terminally ill patients struggling with tough decisions is being tested by researchers.

As the price-performance ratio of artificial intelligence improves, business software companies are building deep learning and other new tools into mainstream products, extending the reach of automation into once-human realms and giving people a powerful decision-support system. Salesforce.com Inc. said it would add an AI-based component called Einstein to its sales software. "The new offering is a set of online AI services designed to automate tasks, predict behavior and spotlight relevant information," the WSJ's Rachael King reports. Other companies from Microsoft Corp. to International Business Machines Corp. are investing heavily into the development of AI-powered platforms for business users. AI is taking off after years of promise, and the market is expected to grow to 16.5 billion in 2019 from 1.6 billion in 2015 with a compound-annual growth rate of 65.2%, the WSJ says.

The sale of artificial intelligence-based platforms to business started off as a multi-million dollar pitch targeted toward the CEO, according to Nova Spivack, the founder and CEO of Bottlenose. The Los Angeles-based startup is looking to automate the application of AI to business intelligence, as well as much of the work of data scientists, currently in scarce supply. That should lower the price, a lot. In recent years, AI-driven applications have been targeted toward the CIO. In the future, Mr. Spivack says, they well may be sold directly to business leaders, and the price will drop to thousands or even hundreds of dollars per user, he told CIO Journal.

The sale of artificial intelligence-based platforms to business started off as a multi-million dollar pitch targeted toward the CEO, according to Nova Spivack, the founder and CEO of Bottlenose. The Los Angeles-based startup is looking to automate the application of AI to business intelligence, as well as much of the work of data scientists, currently in scarce supply. That should lower the price, a lot. In recent years, AI-driven applications have been targeted toward the CIO. In the future, Mr. Spivack says, they well may be sold directly to business leaders, and the price will drop to thousands or even hundreds of dollars per user, he told CIO Journal.

Microsoft Corp.'s acquisition of the smart scheduling app Genee reflects a drive to add artificial intelligence to all of its digital experiences. The deal, announced Monday, could let Microsoft enhance its virtual assistant Cortana, to better compete with Alphabet Inc.'s Google Now and Apple Inc.'s Siri, as CIO Journal's Angus Loten reports. With Genee, Cortana could automatically set up business meetings by interpreting keywords in email. Though AI gets much attention these days, many CIOs don't have a clear idea about how to use the technology or maximize its value. Microsoft is expanding its AI expertise partly through acquisition, recently buying Wand Labs, a smart messaging app, and SwiftKey, a tool that predicts what users want to type next.

The use of artificial intelligence, which has been growing in fits and starts for years, is starting to play a much bigger role in business. The worldwide market for AI platforms and applications is expected to grow to 16.5 billion in 2019 from 1.6 billion in 2015, according to the International Data Corp. Faster and cheaper computing is helping fuel today's AI revolution. But while many large tech firms and startups have been able to build new AI-influenced business models, many organizations, with access to much of the same computing power, are still grappling with how to best employ AI, CIO Journal's Steven Norton writes in CIO Explainer: What is Artificial Intelligence? A host of issues, from executive confusion over AI capabilities to concerns over the effect intelligent machines will have on a human workforce, could slow deployment. "The number one issue for CIOs is how can I invest anything in artificial intelligence without having clear visibility into real business results," Gartner Inc. fellow and research vice president Tom Austin, tells CIO Journal.