Business executives in the United States and European nations investing in artificial intelligence to improve their business also see investment in internal initiatives to motivate or inspire their human employees as important, according to a survey commissioned by Microsoft about the impact of AI on company culture and leadership released today. Motivating or inspiring employees ranked highest among 15 response options to answer how executives plan to invest alongside AI. Exploration of new market opportunities, adapting to new circumstances, and connecting people and facilitating exchange were also seen as investment priorities for executives incorporating AI in their businesses. About 800 business executives in the United States and 7 European nations including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Russia participated in the survey. The survey also found that the faster a company is growing, the more likely they are to consider implementation of AI systems in their company.

Artificial intelligence is presented as the opposite of natural intelligence, which is demonstrated by animals. By that definition, AI would appear to be free from the social neuroses and discriminations that can plague humans. But machine learning originates from human makers, meaning those shortcomings can be passed along via algorithms and data input. AI is increasingly customer-facing: It includes asking Siri details about an upcoming trip or turning on Netflix and seeing recommendations based on viewing habits. AI touches numerous points along the customer journey, meaning its limitations can have organization-wide consequences.

The Internet of Things, or IoT, is a fast-growing and seemingly all-encompassing field. At least 8.4 billion connected devices will be in use worldwide by the end of this year--and that number is expected to reach 20.4 billion by 2020, according to Gartner, which predicts total spending on IoT endpoints and services to reach $2 trillion this year. IoT is an umbrella term for various unrelated devices such as wearables and connected appliances. IoT marketing strategists can help their organizations cut through the noise with specialized skills in retail sensors, radio frequency technology, digital signage, smartphones, wearables, automobiles and virtually anything that transmits data. Those who want to enter the field ought to have a predilection for embracing a world where humans and machines seamlessly interact. For instance, says IBM vp of marketing analytics Ari Sheinkin, TVs and couch potatoes will soon be regularly chatting it up. "We really want to make the insights ubiquitous," he adds, "so it's not contained in a laptop or database."

I remember sitting in a conference audience in the late 1990s during the fat part of the first dot-com expansion curve, when everyone was complaining that the Internet was irrationally overhyped. Then, pre-Google Eric Schmidt took the stage and told us that, "I actually think the Internet is underhyped." As a tech journalist in those days, I'd had the privilege of long talks with Schmidt and hadn't wasted the opportunity to learn. Other people laughed, but I knew he was serious -- and he was right. The point is, I've begun to get the sense that most marketers aren't yet taking AI seriously enough.

Kodak's "Shirley Card" was given to photo processors to judge coloring in photos (Photo: the Nick DeWolf Foundation / Susan Etlinger) Is artificial intelligence bound to its makers' prejudices? At TEDxBerlin, data analyst Susan Etlinger turns to the past to investigate the future of AI. In the 1950s, photography in the U.S. was dominated by the Kodak company, and its staff's opinions of what is normal, Etlinger says. The company sent photo processors color-correction cards based on a single model named Shirley -- a white woman -- and Shirley became the poster woman for "normal" coloring in photos. "If Shirley looked good, the prints looked good," Etlinger says, "…and this was terrible for photographs of people of color."