Lanea George pulls open a steel security door and enters a windowless room where a video camera stares at what looks like a commercial-grade refrigerator. The machine, dubbed Bodhi, whirrs and spins before spitting out seven small plastic bottles containing precisely 70ml of methadone, a bright pink liquid resembling cherry cough syrup. It is used as a substitute for morphine or heroin in addiction treatment. She scoops the bottles off the tray, bundles them with a rubber band and sets them on a shelf. It's not yet 10am and George, the nurse manager at Man Alive, an opioid treatment program – known colloquially as a methadone clinic – in Baltimore, has already finished prepping the doses for the 100 or so patients who will arrive the next day.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a developing force in the innovation business. Artificial intelligence is becoming the center point at meetings and showing potential across a wide variety of projects, including retail and manufacturing. New items are being integrated with virtual assistants, while chatbots address client inquiries on everything from your online office provider's website to your web hosting service provider's help page. But then, organizations, for example, Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce are integrating AI as an insight layer across their whole tech stack. Indeed, AI is having its moment.

IBM's and Google's platforms work in similar ways. They make it easy for clients to spin up chat or voice-based agents that act a lot like Alexa or Siri but are tailored to different applications. When users text or call in, they are free to speak in open-ended sentences. The system then uses natural-language processing to parse their "intent" and responds with the appropriate scripted answer or reroutes them to a human agent. For queries that can't be answered automatically, the algorithms group similar ones together to show the most commonly missed intents.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is clearly a growing force in the technology industry. AI is taking center stage at conferences and showing potential across a wide variety of industries, including retail and manufacturing. New products are being embedded with virtual assistants, while chatbots are answering customer questions on everything from your online office supplier's site to your web hosting service provider's support page. Meanwhile, companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce are integrating AI as an intelligence layer across their entire tech stack. Yes, AI is definietely having its moment.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is clearly a growing force in the technology industry. Chatbots and virtual assistants are becoming a key part of new products, and robots are taking center stage at conferences and showing potential in their roles in various industries like retail and manufacturing. Meanwhile, companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce are integrated AI as an intelligence layer into the entire tech stack. Yes, AI is now having its moment. This isn't the AI that pop culture has conditioned us to expect; it's not sentient robots or Skynet, or even Tony Stark's Jarvis assistant.