Artificial intelligence is at the forefront of the minds of many pharmaceutical and health care executives. We know this because, as life sciences consultants, our clients frequently ask us for advice on how best to navigate AI. But along with enthusiasm in areas as diverse as phenotypic screening, drug repositioning, and analysis of CT scans, we are also finding a growing skepticism: What is real and what is hype? An example often cited by skeptical clients are the problems surrounding IBM Watson Health, especially in the cancer treatment sphere, where reporting by STAT and the Wall Street Journal, among others, has revealed a chasm between the public relations stories and the reality as experienced by clinicians. Now is an appropriate time to ask: What is holding back artificial intelligence in health care and the life sciences?

In MIT Technology Review, Jeff Ding shares five takeaways from his experience writing about and translating Chinese-language writing about artificial intelligence (AI) research in China. Ding is a researcher at the University of Oxford who has now published 48 issues of his insightful ChinAI newsletter. Four out of Ding's five points are likely to remain true through at least 2019. The odd one out is number four: AI research, in the near future, may no longer be an area of active China-U.S. collaboration. For more discussion of U.S.-China technology connections, listen to this recent Sinica Podcast with Samm Sacks.

It seems like almost everyone in the martech space is claiming to offer AI as part of their products and platforms, but behind the scenes there's not even much agreement on what constitutes artificial intelligence. In our latest Marketing Land Live podcast, we invite you to put on your thinking caps. This week's show runs about 34 minutes. You can listen here or use the link below to subscribe via your favorite podcast service. We invite you to subscribe via iTunes or Google Play Podcasts.