When I joined Toyota Research Institute (TRI) more than five years ago, I believed that an industrial research lab like TRI could make fundamental contributions to robotics that would be hard to make in an academic lab or a startup. And I joined with a commitment that we would share our best tools and results with the world through open-source software. Just before joining TRI, I competed in the DARPA Robotics Challenge to program a humanoid robot for nearly-autonomous operation in a disaster response scenario. This experience gave me a deep appreciation for the value of software engineering and helped me realize the world has never seen truly mature implementations of the best ideas from control theory, machine learning, mathematical optimization, and verification applied to robots at scale. The introduction of scale and real-world testing poses a host of basic research challenges that simply aren't visible in simpler prototypes.

Transport and logistics businesses are investing in Internet of Things (IoT)-based smart technologies to help them take advantage of the wealth of opportunities that the Fourth Industrial Revolution offers. This is according to research data collected by Inmarsat, the mobile satellite communications provider, which reveals that the sector is prioritising IoT, machine learning and robotics to increase efficiencies across the supply chain. Inmarsat's The Future of IoT in Enterprise report, featuring responses from 100 large global transportation companies, found that respondents see IoT as the top priority in their approach to digital transformation, with 36% having already deployed IoT-based solutions, and a further 45% expecting to roll the technology out by 2019. The research further revealed that transport companies are rapidly exploring a wide range of other next generation technologies in the pursuit of digital transformation. The most popular are machine learning (37%), robotics (37%) and 3D printing (29%).

Not a day goes by when one is not bombarded by the latest innovations around artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and machine learning (ML). The inflationary use of these terms makes many people question if they are simply catchy buzzwords ― part of a short-lived market hype. On the other hand, expectations concerning the capabilities of AI and robotics are at an all-time high. From the ultimate AI-built utopia to Skynet apocalypse ― everything seems possible. Time for a grounded look at what AI, ML and robotics actually can and should do in the area of finance process automation.

Many executives ask me what artificial intelligence can do. They want to know how it will disrupt their industry and how they can use it to reinvent their own companies. But lately the media has sometimes painted an unrealistic picture of the powers of AI. (Perhaps soon it will take over the world!) AI is already transforming web search, advertising, e-commerce, finance, logistics, media, and more. As the founding lead of the Google Brain team, former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and now overall lead of Baidu's AI team of some 1,200 people, I've been privileged to nurture many of the world's leading AI groups and have built many AI products that are used by hundreds of millions of people. Having seen AI's impact, I can say: AI will transform many industries.