One in five enterprises sees modernizing its data infrastructure for AI as the top AI initiative to ... [ ] gain a competitive edge today. These and many other fascinating insights are from Deloitte Insights' Survey: State of AI in the Enterprise, Third Edition: Thriving in the Era of Pervasive AI. A PDF of the study is available for download here (28 pp., PDF, no opt-in). Deloitte surveyed 2,737 IT and line-of-business executives between October and December 2019 from nine countries. To qualify for the study, all responding executives needed to have experience evaluating, budgeting for and implementing AI investments.

EVP of products at Kofax, a supplier of intelligent automation software to digitally transform end-to-end business operations. Artificial intelligence (AI) is anything but new. It's been a major part of our everyday lives for some time now. But when it comes to the business world, AI hasn't fully arrived yet -- at least not for most companies. While many organizations consider AI to be the next frontier in digital transformation, they just can't shift into the next gear and further their investment in AI-powered processes.

AI solutions are proliferating, from custom offerings to enterprise applications to devices with embedded capabilities. However, this year's Deloitte AI survey found a growing awareness of the associated risks and wide variation in companies' preparedness for mitigating them. Over the past few years, more and more companies have been experimenting with AI, advancing their data-related capabilities, acquiring new technologies and talent, and integrating AI into their business processes. In coming years, AI will likely become even more pervasive. Just as companies no longer talk about isolated mobile strategies--they're just part of doing business--AI will soon become standard and routine, maybe even sooner than expected.

Together with the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society and Electron Device Society, IBM Research organized the 2nd AI Compute Symposium at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center THINKLab in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., on Oct 17. More than 200 distinguished academics, renowned thinkers, students, and innovators from across industry and academia assembled for the one-day symposium, which showcased leadership and advancement in research addressing AI compute from pervasive to general AI. The free event featured three keynotes, three invited talks, a student poster session, and a panel discussion. The keynoters were Dr. Luis Lastras, a researcher with IBM; Professor Wen-mei Hwu of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC); and Harvard University/Samsung Fellow Donhee Ham. Lastras provided an exciting overview of research projects from IBM related to natural language processing and its evolution.

Significant advances in artificial intelligence over the past few years have broadened AI's reach into industries such as healthcare, finance and even retail. Businesses and consumers alike are benefiting from the rise of big data and the growth of AI techniques like deep learning and natural language processing. But we're still only scratching the surface of what is possible with AI, and the full impact of the technology may be years away. In the near-future, however, AI advances will give rise to increasingly powerful applications like personal assistants with more robust utility in the workplace and in our personal lives. These assistants could provide personalized information, help us make more informed decisions, and perhaps even provide physical assistance.

Significant advances in artificial intelligence over the past few years have broadened AI's reach into industries such as healthcare, finance and even retail. Businesses and consumers alike are benefiting from the rise of big data and the growth of AI techniques like deep learning and natural language processing. But we're still only scratching the surface of what is possible with AI, and the full impact of the technology may be years away. In the near-future, however, AI advances will give rise to increasingly powerful applications like personal assistants with more robust utility in the workplace and in our personal lives. These assistants could provide personalized information, help us make more informed decisions, and perhaps even provide physical assistance.

Significant advances in artificial intelligence over the past few years have broadened AI's reach into industries such as healthcare, finance and even retail. Businesses and consumers alike are benefiting from the rise of big data and the growth of AI techniques like deep learning and natural language processing. But we're still only scratching the surface of what is possible with AI, and the full impact of the technology may be years away. In the near-future, however, AI advances will give rise to increasingly powerful applications like personal assistants with more robust utility in the workplace and in our personal lives. These assistants could provide personalized information, help us make more informed decisions, and perhaps even provide physical assistance.

Digital transformation has become an ongoing process rather than a one-time goal, with market-attuned companies continually on the hunt for the next big technology shift that gives them a competitive advantage. That next big shift is the fusion of artificial intelligence and cloud computing, which promises to be both a source of innovation and a means to accelerate change. With pervasive AI and cognitive capabilities underpinned by the cloud, digital pioneers in today's data-intensive world have the potential to harvest and build value from this unprecedented amount of data. A new IBM study, "The cognitive advantage," reveals that 65 percent of early adopters believe AI is very important to their organizational strategy and success. More than half say AI is essential to digital transformation.