The demographics of Canada are changing quickly. By 2050, 26% of Canada's population is expected to be aged 65 or better, up from 18% today. With smaller families, busier schedules, and tighter budgets, the pressure is on to find solutions to ensure this growing group of people receives quality care. Fortunately, artificial intelligence is helping the retirement industry serve up innovative solutions to meet the burgeoning need. Though results from our 2019 Sklar Wilton AI tracker* indicate that 57% of people aged 65 and older don't understand the current state of artificial intelligence, 71% believe AI may affect them.

In so many ways, artificial intelligence (AI) is helping both Fortune 500 companies and tiny start-ups improve their engagement with people and optimize their consumer processes to grow their brand and increase their chances of success. Marketers can no longer afford to be ignorant about AI. They can no longer reject AI simply because they don't yet understand it or they don't know how to incorporate it into their strategic marketing plans. Marketers also don't need to become experts in AI. If they want to continue to be relevant to consumers, marketers simply need to understand the role that AI plays in consumers' lives.

If you've spent any time on social networks like Facebook or Twitter, you've probably seen the word'chatbot' pass through your timeline many times. In short, a chatbot is a computerized communications service that follows specific rules to interact with people in a text based environment. They are becoming increasingly sophisticated and some are starting to incorporate artificial intelligence as well. Chatbots serve many purposes, from functional to fun, and can live in any messaging or chat product such as Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, or even plain old text messages. They may use a chatbot to make it easier to engage with a brand in real time, inject their brand's personality into the consumer's online experience, or to help simplify the process their consumers go through.

Artificial intelligence has already disrupted myriad consumer products and services. Soon, a company's ability to remain competitive will necessitate that they incorporate AI, not only to save time and money, but also to develop products that better serve consumer needs. While human beings remain necessary for creating ethical AI strategies and responding appropriately to ambiguity, applications of artificial intelligence are already widespread. To gain a better understanding of how Canadians view artificial intelligence and its impact on their personal and work lives, we surveyed 1001 adults in our Canadian Artificial Intelligence Tracker. One piece of that study, which we share here, focused on perceptions about seven consumer facing companies applying AI technologies.

Would you implement an AI system that led millions of people to feel lonelier? That resulted in massive unemployment? There is no doubt that artificial intelligence has many benefits. It frees people from repetitive, predictable tasks that could be more easily and safely completed by machines and AI. This would allow people to work on tasks that depend on the human brain's ability to handle ambiguity.