From references of Mechanical men and artificial beings in Greek myths, such as the golden robots of Hephaestus and Pygmalion's Galatea, the Antikythera to realistic humanoid automatons built by craftsmen from diverse civilizations, including Yan Shi, Hero of Alexandria, Al-Jazari, Pierre Jaquet-Droz, and Wolfgang von Kempelen to the discovery of Leonardo Da Vinci's complex sentient machine diagrams, one thing has remained constant: Artificial intelligence has always piqued society's interest. AI has come a long way from Greek Mythology and Hollywood's outlandish creative interpretations over the last few decades to becoming mainstream in a whole gamut of applications from autonomous cars, to facial recognition to smart speakers. It's safe to say AI is gradually but surely getting on to the realistic side of the hype cycle. This boom in consumer side of AI is driving a massive shift in the enterprise ecosystem. The last decade has truly defined "DIGITAL" for enterprises with the incredulous boom of mobile, social, Internet and now AI.

Join executive leaders at the Conversational AI & Intelligent AI Assistants Summit, presented by Five9. AI technologies are becoming prevalent in enterprises around the world. While the adoption rate varies between businesses, a majority of them -- 95% in a recent S&P Global report -- consider AI to be important in their digital transformation efforts. Organizations were expected to invest more than $50 billion in AI systems globally in 2020, according to IDC, up from $37.5 billion in 2019. And by 2024, investment is expected to reach $110 billion.

Under the watchful eyes of the public and lawmakers, several traditional automakers and tech companies have been racing to the finish line of "fully autonomous driving." Companies are already testing their cars in real-world conditions on public streets, and to date, some have driven millions of miles. Though opinions vary, it is hypothesized that we will be safer in autonomous vehicles (AKA self-driving cars). And while we would really need significantly more data to determine this as a statistic, I can imagine the experience of riding in full autopilot will be somewhat like flying: though much scarier than driving (for most), you are still safer, statistically-speaking. Regardless, it will be some time before the majority of average consumers have replaced their conventional vehicles.