Has enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) lived up to the hype generated at a decade's worth of industry conferences? Or is it coming up short? Maybe putting the word "enterprise" in front of AI just adds up to a marketing spin. It depends on how individual businesses deploy AI. When companies adopt AI wisely, they do more than shift repeatable tasks and processes from humans to more efficient computers.

When chief information officers think about their organizations and where machine learning might be deployed, the process often begins with an inventory of tasks. The CIOs and department leaders identify routine, repeatable processes that humans can pass off to computers. Then the operations and IT teams set up targeted programs to make those tasks more efficient. As legendary CIO Paul Strassmann has pointed out -- not without controversy -- it's a piecemeal approach that has become standard practice in most businesses. Strassmann's career includes serving as NASA's CIO from 2001 to 2003 and serving in an equivalent role in the Pentagon before that.