There's no shortage of topics to discuss when we're talking about artificial intelligence (AI). It's hot for a good reason: AI changes the game for the future of everything from social marketing to search. It's particularly well-suited to change the latter, as search engine results placement (SERP) is already a science rooted squarely in a series of algorithms, some more understood than others. Because it thrives in this algorithmic space, AI is about to shake up search--and SEO--as you know it. If you want your business to succeed in this digital world where Google alone processes over 40,000 searches per second, optimizing your website and content is not a choice; it's a business imperative.

One of the biggest problems for businesses today is sorting through data to find customer insights. In fact, most companies today collect mass amounts of data--probably too much, in my opinion. Mining through it all can be difficult and time-consuming for sales teams hoping to learn more about their prospects and improve their chance of a sale. Thankfully, machine learning can help. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and as-a-Service (aaS) MarTech software, companies can better identify and interact with customers--without ever personally setting foot in the quagmire of dumped data.

Marketers know how important social media is to their business, because that's where so many of their customers are. In 2015, 65% of all Americans, and 2 billion people worldwide, were using social media. It's also an invaluable communication tool, where customers can talk directly to brands. However, social media comes with its own challenges. It can be a firehose of data, with hundreds of thousands of Twitter posts and millions of Facebook "likes" being generated every minute of every day.

Marketers use social in a variety of ways, from searching for social promoters to boost brand awareness to improving and personalizing the customer experience. As investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) continue to boom, marketers are looking for ways to combine the two powerhouses--AI and social--to optimize their reach and bring more value to consumers. Leveraging AI as part of your social media strategy can bolster your lead generation efforts, too. There are plenty of uses for AI when it comes to lead gen. In a recent article, Prepare for Artificial Intelligence to Power the B2B Sales Process, I predicted we'd see a lot of movement in this market, specifically in the development of AI apps used for enhancing the sales process and in AI acquisitions by SaaS powerhouses.

The dynamic duo of deep learning and search is on the move. Google, in fact, is already pressing forward. In late 2015, the search giant announced it had added the deep-learning enabled RankBrain algorithm to give Hummingbird a new dimension. Google doesn't sit still for long, so of course they've been experimenting since then. Google's plan for deep learning is AI-based and leans on humanizing the algorithm, training it to recognize images and even speech patterns.