West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has joined forces with CMR Surgical to install two Versius robotic systems at Watford General Hospital. The investment in two systems comes as part of the trust's commitment to scaling up its robotic-assisted surgery programme and becoming a centre of excellence in minimally invasive robotic surgery. Once fully implemented, West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals plans to provide surgical procedures using Versius across multiple specialities, including colorectal, gynaecology, urology and upper gastrointestinal surgery. The trust intends to replicate the savings in bed days seen at sites with existing Versius programmes, helping to ease the pressure NHS services are facing with bed capacity. Vanash Patel, consultant colorectal surgeon at West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals, said: "We are excited to implement our surgical robotics programme, helping to drive better outcomes for our patients. With Versius, our surgeons will be able to perform complex operations with the enhanced precision and control that robotics offer. "We are committed to scaling up our robotics programme at speed and believe that having two robotic systems from the outset, which can be easily moved between operating rooms and integrated into existing workflows, will help us achieve this." As well as Versius being easily movable, the system also has an open console that facilitates clear verbal and non-verbal communication between the surgeon and surgical team. West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals expects that scaling its surgical robotics programme will see more patients being offered a minimal access approach, bringing with it benefits that include a reduction in post-operative pain, blood loss and scarring as well as improved patient recovery times and a reduced stay in hospitals for patients. The trust also hopes the programme, alongside its teaching hospital status, will increase staff wellbeing, morale, and talent attraction and retention. The two robotic systems have been designed by CMR Surgical, a global medical devices company. CMR has successfully negotiated competitive tenders in numerous markets and Versius is continuing to expand rapidly within the NHS in the UK. In the last 18 months, the robots have been implemented at several trusts and hospitals, including Frimley Health Trust, East Surrey Hospital, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and Guy's and St Thomas' Trust. Dr Mark Slack, chief medical officer at CMR Surgical, said: "We're hugely proud to partner with WHTH on an NHS-first implementation of two Versius systems.

Learn more about what comes next. In 2016, Dr. Peter Kim, founder of Activ Surgical, a digital surgery company, demonstrated a proof of concept of fully autonomous robotic surgery on soft tissue, suturing, or stitching up a wound. Since then, Activ Surgical has been working on harnessing machine learning, augmented reality, and other advanced technologies to develop new ways of collaborating with surgeons. "We want to keep surgeons in the loop, to give them more data than they ever had before," says CEO Todd Usen. Usen likens Activ Surgical's work in surgery to crossing goalposts in the drive toward autonomous driving: It might take a while to get there, but the industry is ramping up systematically.

Here are a few predictions about how several industries that impact our everyday lives will be impacted by AI not only this year but beyond. The buzz surrounding AI and its impact in 2020 and beyond shows no signs of slowing down. Driven by the emergence of virtual assistants, such as the Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant ecosystems of devices, AI has now been incorporated into the everyday life of consumers. While it's impossible to predict the future with certainty, technologies that incorporate AI and automation are maturing at an incredibly rapid rate across some industries. Here are a few predictions about how several industries that impact our everyday lives – specifically healthcare, manufacturing, and mobility – will be impacted by AI not only this year but beyond.

GUANGZHOU, CHINA - APRIL 15: (CHINA OUT) Surgeons operate a da Vinci Surgical robot to remove the tumor at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University on April 15, 2015 in Guangzhou, Guangdong province of China. Intuitive Surgical Inc. is an American corporation that manufactures robotic surgical systems, most notably the da Vinci Surgical System. The da Vinci Surgical System allows surgery to be performed using robotic manipulators. Intuitive Surgical Inc. is scheduled to release earnings after Thursday's close. The stock just hit a record high of $532.30/share and is trading near $523/share.

It is the most exacting of surgical skills: tying a knot deep inside a patient's abdomen, pivoting long graspers through keyhole incisions with no direct view of the thread. Trainee surgeons typically require 60 to 80 hours of practice, but in a mock-up operating theatre outside Cambridge, a non-medic with just a few hours of experience is expertly wielding a hook-shaped needle – in this case stitching a square of pink sponge rather than an artery or appendix. The feat is performed with the assistance of Versius, the world's smallest surgical robot, which could be used in NHS operating theatres for the first time later this year if approved for clinical use. Versius is one of a handful of advanced surgical robots that are predicted to transform the way operations are performed by allowing tens or hundreds of thousands more surgeries each year to be carried out as keyhole procedures. "The vast majority of patients, despite all the advantages of minimal-access surgery, are still getting open surgery, because so few surgeons have the skills," said Mark Slack, head of gynaecology at Addenbrooke's hospital, Cambridge, and co-founder of CMR Surgical, the company behind Versius.

Since Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci system earned the FDA nod in 2000, the company has enjoyed a sizable head start in the minimally invasive robotic surgery field. Competition has been brewing for years, from players large and small, but 2018 could be the year the market finally sees a shake-up. North Carolina's TransEnterix scored an FDA nod for its Senhance system in October, triggering a 75% bump in its stock price. The device, a rare new entrant to the robotic abdominal surgery market, is designed to make it easier to perform laparoscopic surgery. It is cleared for colorectal and gynecological surgery and features haptic feedback, so the surgeon can "feel" the tissue that the robotic arm is touching.

From drone warfare to self-checkout lines at the grocery store, the change is clear. Sales of automated industrial "robots" rose 15% year-over-year in 2015, to reach an annual record of 253,748 units, according to the International Federation of Robotics. Those units were valued at $11 billion, 9% more than the year before. That lifted the total installed base, worldwide, to 1.6 million industrial bots, a number that the IFR projects will reach 2.6 million in 2019. For investors, it smells like opportunity.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just approved the first medical robot from Auris Surgical, a stealthy startup led by the co-founder of industry leader Intuitive Surgical, makers of the widely-used da Vinci robot. The teleoperated ARES robot (the acronym stands for Auris Robotic Endoscopy System), was cleared by the FDA at the end of May, and could now be used for diagnosing and treating patients. Auris, which describes itself only as a "technology company based in Silicon Valley," was previously thought to be working on a robotic microsurgical system designed to remove cataracts, and the company has in fact filed several patent applications along those lines. However, an investigation by IEEE Spectrum suggests that the company has greater ambitions, including, according to current and former employees, "building the next generation of surgical robots… capable of expanding the applicability of robotics to a broad spectrum of medical procedures." A close reading of recent patent applications filed by Auris scientists shows that the company is focusing on so-called endolumenal (or endoluminal) surgery.

This week, Google's Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences) and Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson medical device company, announced the formation of a startup called Verb. "In the coming years, Verb aims to develop a comprehensive surgical solutions platform that will incorporate leading-edge robotic capabilities and best-in-class medical device technology for operating room professionals." But seriously, that's not much to go on, so let's see what we can piece together from the press releases put out from the various companies involved. It's Taurus, from SRI Robotics, which (according to a press release) "is licensing next-generation robotics technology to Verb Surgical that we believe will impact both the open and minimally invasive surgery markets and ultimately make the benefits of robotic surgery accessible to more patients around the world." While Taurus, originally designed as a bomb-disposal robot, is very much not a surgical robot in its current implementation, it represents several technologies that are very valuable in a surgical context: highly dexterous small manipulators and an advanced teleoperation system with haptic feedback.