The market report from Technavio states that the cognitive EW market, which includes artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms in …

This year's report shows a maturing industry, significant private investment, and rising competition between China and the U.S. The last decade was a pivotal one for the AI industry, and 2020 saw AI substantially increase its impact on the world despite the chaos brought about by the COVID pandemic: Technologists made significant strides in massive language and generative models; the United States witnessed its first drop in AI hiring ever – pointing to a maturation of the industry – while hiring around the world increased; more dollars flowed to government use of AI than ever before, while colleges and universities offered students double the AI courses from a few years ago. These are just some of the findings from the 2021 AI Index, an annual study of AI impact and progress developed by an interdisciplinary team at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) in partnership with organizations from industry, academia, and government. "The impact of AI this past year was both societal and economic, driven by the increasingly rapid progress of the technology itself," said AI Index co-chair Jack Clark. "With the AI Index, we can actually measure and evaluate the changes, enabling leaders and decision makers to take meaningful action to advance AI responsibly and ethically with humans in mind." The 2021 AI Index is one of the most comprehensive reports about AI to date, analyzing and distilling patterns about AI's impact on everything from national economies to job growth to the analysis of technical progress within AI research itself, and analysis of the diversity (or lack of) among the people who create AI systems.

Top photos are courtesy of Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Florida, and feature Andy Day, GE Healthcare's Chief Tile Designer of Clinical Command Centers. Bottom photo is courtesy of Humber River Hospital, Toronto, Canada, a leading partner in command center innovation. When the world rallied around the celebration of the Apollo 11 anniversary this past July, another moonshot was unfolding to somewhat less fanfare not far from where NASA launched Apollo at the Kennedy Space Center – a medical moonshot. Two Florida hospitals, Tampa General Hospital and AdventHealth Orlando, launched mission control-like centers to serve as the nerve-center of their hospitals. Surrounded by big screens, monitors and flashing lights – all meant to help staff across the hospital coordinate care, drive efficiency and improve the way patients move around the hospital – those who were there could be forgiven for thinking they had stepped into a NASA control center.

Artificial intelligence assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant have been a major topic of discussion over the past few months. From the release of the Google Home smart speaker to huge sales of Amazon Echo devices over Christmas, there's been a buzz in the air for months -- and that buzz is still building in 2018. Rumor has it Apple will release the HomePod smart speaker soon. This has prompted a flurry of speculation about how it's too little, too late for the company to jump into the AI-enabled smart speaker sector. Meanwhile, experts point to these assistants as the next big boom in consumer tech and AI.