In today's world, we're all used to talking to our smart devices – a form of human-computer communication that was unimaginable even a few years ago. The sharp rise in this kind of technology can be attributed to the fact that speaking to a machine is both intuitive and convenient, enabling us to access the information we need more quickly with minimal fuss. This frictionless user experience is already being put to good use in business, where chatbots have revolutionised the way companies interact with their customers and process their own internal operations. Whether they are voice or text-based, chatbots are powered by conversational AI – powerful computer programs which reproduce natural human conversation. Ahead of an exclusive event in London on the application of conversational AI in financial services, Dr Ronald Ashri spoke to DisruptionHub about the benefits, impact and future of this important technology. As with every aspect of AI, it's important to understand what we mean when using the term.

With the world's population on track to exceed nine billion by 2050, it's crunch time for a solution to sustainable food production. However, undermining efforts to feed the planet at every step are our attitudes to waste. Around a third of the total food produced in the world currently gets thrown away, with citizens of rich countries by far the worst offenders. For businesses in the food industry, fluctuating customer demand and inadequate access to data make it difficult to get quantities right. Innovating the supply chain is a clear solution to improving waste and delivering the kind of food services that consumers want.

In 1955, a group of scientists submitted a request to fund a ten person summer research project at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA. As part of their paperwork, they hypothesised that'every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.' This proposal is often cited as the birth of Artificial Intelligence. Within it, the ability for computers to understand language is the first such feature of intelligence mentioned. Even earlier than that, in 1950, Alan Turing decided to devise a test for intelligent conversation.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella once said, "We are pursuing AI so that we can empower every person and every institution that people build with tools of AI so that they can go on to solve the most pressing problems of our society and our economy." This is what's at stake as we enter a world where machine learning is no longer a luxury or an outlier, but a norm. If the First Industrial Revolution was about steam and railroads, the Second about electricity, and the Third brought about by the Internet, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is based on artificial intelligence (AI). It will completely change the way business is done and companies are run in the next five to ten years, just as the Internet has done in the last ten. The transformation will be bigger than that any previous revolution has brought about.

Exscientia is a UK startup founded in Oxford in 2012. It claims to be the first company to automate drug design with an artificially intelligent platform augmented with knowledge from human'drug hunters'. In 2017, Exscientia announced a strategic research collaboration with Sanofi to discover and develop therapies for metabolic diseases like diabetes. Metabolic diseases are difficult to find treatments for as they often lack single targets that respond well to drugs. Exscientia's AI platform addresses this issue by identifying and validating combinations of drug targets that could work together.

Data science is all about difficult choices. At the core of any professional framework lies guidance to making the right decision at each point, from proofs-of-concept to deployed enterprise solutions. A good framework will take a fail early approach, with multiple stage-checks which spot problems before they become serious and ensure appropriate levels of rigour when using data. The framework must have in-built agility to allow rapid experimentation, and be capable of effectively integrating into the complex landscapes of enterprise IT organisations.

Artificial intelligence is one of the technologies with the most transformative potential in business. According to research by McKinsey, 70 per cent of companies are likely to have adopted at least one form of AI by 2030. This will contribute to an additional $13tr of global economic activity. Machine learning – a subset of artificial intelligence – enables machines to get better at executing tasks without human intervention, by finding patterns in data, and learning from their experience. It's no surprise, therefore, that there has been an explosion in the number of machine learning companies worldwide.

Overcoming these hurdles will get easier over time -- each iteration reduces the challenges for the next one, and scaled roll-out will ultimately make this simply one tool amongst many. But the situation at the moment is analogous to the early days of the world wide web. To make change happen, many organisations turned to a Chief Digital Officer. Over time this became redundant as digital became something that every process had baked in. But, initially, they had a critical role: part prophet, part teacher, part strategist, part operator and part venture capitalist.

From the most basic tools of the past to the complicated machines we use today, technology has changed the course of human history. In the fundamental sense, technology augments our abilities – it helps us to solve problems, and allows us to achieve things that would never have been possible before. But there's a clear difference between the simple tools used by our distant ancestors and the artificially intelligent computer programmes currently shaping the world: one enhances our bodies, and the other supplements the workings of our brains. This raises a whole host of philosophical questions about the nature of intelligent machines, their ethical use, and the state of humanity itself. One man who has more than a passing interest on this subject is Byron Reese, GigaOm publisher, futurist, and author of the recent book The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity.

Businesses are increasingly understanding that their employees will need to work alongside artificial intelligence to deliver the best results. Merging AI and human intelligence (HI) has the potential to provide better products and services, tap into different approaches to tasks, and free people from repetitive tasks as well as uncovering previously undiscovered creative solutions to problems. The more work that is shared with an artificially intelligent system, the more innovative solutions can be discovered and the human ability to build connections with customers and clients can flourish. However, recognising that AI can augment human workforces is only the first step. Businesses have to consider a whole host of infrastructural issues, and prepare their workers for a very different style of working.