Technology leaders like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple have recently built personal assistants that use Artificial Intelligence to deliver customized search results. This trend is now gaining momentum in healthcare where the doctors expect the computer to assist them in treating their patients when in clinic. In the current times, besides prescribing medicines, doctors have to keep themselves updated on the evolving guidelines and drug discoveries. Doctors today have insufficient time to devote for the diagnosis and treatment of their patients. What they need is a system that can improve patient outcomes in a limited time.

Last month, our company had a bring your kids to work day. Teachers had announced a general strike, asking for more resources from the government. It meant that many parents needed an improvised daycare, which, I have to admit, was quite fun. The sentiment of teachers is not new, nor is it exclusive for the Netherlands; teachers are often put under difficult circumstances even though most people would agree that they have a noble task in educating our children. But something is slowly but steadily changing in the role of teachers which sheds a new light on their role and duress.

'We are at a tipping point where AI is really taking off … […] I think we will evolve in computing from a mobile first to an AI first world.' It is not surprising that Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, repeatedly praises the potential of AI. In an explanation of the quarterly figures of the world's largest search engine, he says that the past ten years have been about'mobile first'. In his view, the next ten years will be about'AI first'. He anticipates that in the near future the concept of the device will fade completely.

Tom van de Ven is active in the field of High Tech testing for 12 years. As a High Tech test expert he is a frequently asked sparring partner for Sogeti High Tech customers with regard to starting/professionalizing test projects. Besides a multitude of test assignments (eg. in the field of healthcare, semiconductors, agriculture and automotive) he is an active member of the Sogeti High Tech Test Competence Centre and a speaker for High Tech seminars. Tom uses his experience in a role as a coach for (starting) High Tech test engineers and is constantly looking for improvements in High Tech test methodologies (now working on the book that combines Internet of Things and TMap: IoTMap!!! Release date: 2016). He also teaches and develops several testing courses in the embedded and high tech domain.

Speech recognition, image recognition, analysis of behavioral pattern (e.g. for fraud detection), targeted adverts, recommendation for shopping, algorithmic trading are few examples of applied AI. In recent time, we have noticed AI boom primarily led by the internet giants; Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Baidu and others. Recent resurgence of startups is seen in the AI space. AI and Automation featured prominently on Gartner's hype cycle 2015 with Autonomous Vehicles put at the "Peak of Inflated Expectations". Garner also defined "Autonomous" as the sixth and final stage of an organization's journey towards being a truly "digital enterprise". It highlighted a range of technologies as emerging technologies.

Since Homo Sapiens created fire it is entangled with technology. We used it to battle predators, diseases, and each other. While constantly picking the fruits of our newest inventions, we kept improving our technology and build a technology advanced, and technology depended, society. In his book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow history Professor Yuval Noah Harari claims humanity is now waking up to the realization that we are so advanced that famine, plague, and war are becoming manageable challenges. We are not there yet, and still have a lot of work to do on national and global level, but statistics show that for more and more people famine, plague, and war aren't day-to-day threats anymore.

Regarding Fear and Artificial Intelligence (AI), one question often comes up:'Will we be killed by a Terminator Doppelganger?' I don't know if this will happen eventually, but I do know that we already have robots fighting our wars. This century is therefore, the first time in human history that we engage in Unmanned Warfare. What is the current status of this'Unmanned Warfare'? What do people think about drone strikes and will terminators be the next step?

Automation and Artificial Intelligence have been around for years, but, it has been gaining a lot of traction recently. So what is new and why are they being mentioned in every discussion these days? Well, the word automation by itself spans across a lot of things – it could be a simple script to run few commands or an advanced algorithm to drive a car or a complex program to read my mind and automatically serve me a cup of coffee without me saying a word! The level of automation done so far was limited by the resources available. For instance, automation tools like Selenium are used to test the user interface (UI) of products, but, tools like Applitools have taken UI test automation to the next level by using machine intelligence.

Digital assistants are a kind of software agents that reside on a device and help the user to perform tasks in more intuitive and efficient way. In most of the scenarios, the digital assistant is voice enabled and in some case, it can be text or gesture controlled. This article aims at covering the current landscape of voice-enabled digital assistants available today and their application in the field of automation. The most popular digital assistants that are available today are Apple's Siri, Google Assistant, Microsoft's Cortana and Amazon's Alexa. "By 2019, at least 25 percent of households in developed economies, digital assistants on smartphones and other devices will serve as the primary interface to connected home services" – Gartner "The virtual digital assistant market will reach $15.8 billion worldwide by 2021" – Tractica Let's have a look at these digital assistants from different companies.

The most recent SogetiLabs report, The Frankenstein Factor, is about the fear for Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). A fascinating read which made me think about how I personally relate to A.I. And how I relate to the increasing impact of technology on our world and society. I used to be very optimistic. When social media like Twitter started, about ten years ago, I had a lot of discussions with colleagues and friends. I saw huge possibilities to connect people around the globe, to be informed and educated.