The concern is so prevalent that new responsible A.I. measures have been floated by federal government, requiring companies to vet for these biases and to run systems past humans to avoid them. Ray Eitel-Porter, managing director and global lead for responsible A.I. at Accenture, outlined during a virtual event hosted by Fortune on Thursday that the tech consulting firm operates around four "pillars" for implementing A.I.: principles and governance, policies and controls, technology and platforms, and culture and training. "The four pillars basically came from our engagement with a number of clients in this area and really recognizing where people are in their journey," he said. "Most of the time now, that's really about how you take your principles and put them into practice." Many companies these days have an A.I. framework.

Today the world creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data daily, but data growth will explode further as the internet of things expands. This is a challenge for businesses since – after people – data is arguably their most important asset. What they do with their data will increasingly make all the difference between failure and success. According to a study by research firm IDC, the big data technology and services market will be worth $58.9bn globally in 2020. Already companies are using cloud-based data analytics to improve their businesses.

The world of artificial intelligence is beset by hype and hubris. But make no mistake: AI has the potential to make businesses more efficient and faster. Yet, as transformative technologies keep getting smarter and cheaper, businesses' return on innovation investment has declined by 27 per cent over the last five years, according to a report from Accenture. To Ray Eitel-Porter, who heads up Accenture Applied Intelligence in the UK, the evidence points to one problem: companies don't know how to make the most of AI and data analytics, and how they can apply to business problems. AI is a transformative technology, so businesses should be ambitious and think about solutions that would yield ten times the impact of traditional investments – not just a ten per cent improvement.

Until now, humans have held sway as the most dominant force on Earth. Despite lacking some of the physical attributes of a host of other species, we have conquered the planet by virtue of our mighty minds. Yet by 2025, a computer costing as little as $1,000 will have the equivalent processing speed of the human brain, according to Silicon Valley engineer and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. And artificial intelligence systems are already faster and more accurate than humans when searching vast databases for anomalies or patterns in customer behaviour. They can also "learn" from what they have discovered and react to those findings.

Until now, humans have held sway as the most dominant force on Earth. Despite lacking some of the physical attributes of a host of other species, we have conquered the planet by virtue of our mighty minds. Yet by 2025, a computer costing as little as $1,000 will have the equivalent processing speed of the human brain, according to Silicon Valley engineer and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. And artificial intelligence systems are already faster and more accurate than humans when searching vast databases for anomalies or patterns in customer behaviour. They can also "learn" from what they have discovered and react to those findings.

Data is only getting bigger, but it is getting better at helping businesses, says Sally Percy. Today the world creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data daily, but data growth will explode further as the internet of things expands. This is a challenge for businesses since – after people – data is arguably their most important asset. What they do with their data will increasingly make all the difference between failure and success. According to a study by research firm IDC, the big data technology and services market will be worth $58.9bn globally in 2020.