Spending 2020 under the shadow of a pandemic has affected what we need and expect from technology. For many, COVID-19 accelerated the rate of digital transformation: as employees worked from home, companies needed AI systems that facilitated remote work and the computing power to support them. The question is, how should companies focus their resources in 2021 to prepare for this changed reality and the new technologies on the horizon? Here are three trends that I predict will see massive attention in 2021 and beyond. Progress in AI has already reached a point where it can add significant value to practically any business.

In the popular TV show Sherlock, visual depictions of our hero's deductive reasoning often look like machine algorithms. And probably not by accident, given that this version of Conan Doyle's detective processes tremendous amounts of observed data--the sort of minutiae that the average person tends to pass over or forget--more like a computer than a human. Sherlock's intelligence is both strength and limitation. His way of thinking is often bounded by an inability to intuitively understand social and emotional contexts. The show's central premise is that Sherlock Holmes needs his friend John Watson to help him synthesize empirical data into human truth.

The newest member of Yelp's security team awakes just after 8 pm, ready to begin its rounds. It traverses the lobby, gliding over polished concrete toward a small recess in the corner, where it inspects the emergency exit tucked inside. Last year, burglars tried to breach the office by rending the door from the building, frame and all. The low-resolution camera mounted in the lobby saw nothing. "We couldn't see what was going on inside the alcove," says Rick Lee, Yelp's head of security, who joined me on my late-night visit to one of the company's San Francisco offices.

One of the big trends we've seen over the last five years is automation. At the same time, we're also seeing more intelligence built into tools we already have, like phones and computers. Where do you see this process in five years? In the future, I believe that there will be a co-existence between humans and artificial intelligence systems that will be hopefully of service to humanity. These AI systems will involve software systems that handle the digital world, and also systems that move around in physical space, like drones, and robots, and autonomous cars, and also systems that process the physical space, like the Internet of Things. You will have more intelligent systems in the physical world, too -- not just on your cell phone or computer, but physically present around us, processing and sensing information about the physical world and helping us with decisions that include knowing a lot about features of the physical world.

In the popular TV show Sherlock, visual depictions of our hero's deductive reasoning often look like machine algorithms. And probably not by accident, given that this version of Conan Doyle's detective processes tremendous amounts of observed data--the sort of minutiae that the average person tends to pass over or forget--more like a computer than a human. Sherlock's intelligence is both strength and limitation. His way of thinking is often bounded by an inability to intuitively understand social and emotional contexts. The show's central premise is that Sherlock Holmes needs his friend John Watson to help him synthesize empirical data into human truth.

One of the big trends we've seen over the last five years is automation. At the same time, we're also seeing more intelligence built into tools we already have, like phones and computers. Where do you see this process in five years? In the future, I believe that there will be a co-existence between humans and artificial intelligence systems that will be hopefully of service to humanity. These AI systems will involve software systems that handle the digital world, and also systems that move around in physical space, like drones, and robots, and autonomous cars, and also systems that process the physical space, like the Internet of Things. You will have more intelligent systems in the physical world, too -- not just on your cell phone or computer, but physically present around us, processing and sensing information about the physical world and helping us with decisions that include knowing a lot about features of the physical world.

By 2021, everyday software will be vastly more intelligent and powerful, replacing humans in more and more tasks. How will we keep up? While some predict mass unemployment or all-out war between humans and artificial intelligence, others foresee a less bleak future. Professor Manuela Veloso, head of the machine learning department at Carnegie Mellon University, envisions a future in which humans and intelligent systems are inseparable, bound together in a continual exchange of information and goals that she calls "symbiotic autonomy." In Veloso's future, it will be hard to distinguish human agency from automated assistance -- but neither people nor software will be much use without the other. Veloso is already testing out the idea on the CMU campus, building roving, segway-shaped robots called "cobots" to autonomously escort guests from building to building and ask for human help when they fall short.

One of the big trends we've seen over the last five years is automation. At the same time, we're also seeing more intelligence built into tools we already have, like phones and computers. Where do you see this process in five years? In the future, I believe that there will be a co-existence between humans and artificial intelligence systems that will be hopefully of service to humanity. These AI systems will involve software systems that handle the digital world, and also systems that move around in physical space, like drones, and robots, and autonomous cars, and also systems that process the physical space, like the Internet of Things. You will have more intelligent systems in the physical world, too -- not just on your cell phone or computer, but physically present around us, processing and sensing information about the physical world and helping us with decisions that include knowing a lot about features of the physical world.

One of the big trends we've seen over the last five years is automation. At the same time, we're also seeing more intelligence built into tools we already have, like phones and computers. Where do you see this process in five years? In the future, I believe that there will be a co-existence between humans and artificial intelligence systems that will be hopefully of service to humanity. These AI systems will involve software systems that handle the digital world, and also systems that move around in physical space, like drones, and robots, and autonomous cars, and also systems that process the physical space, like the Internet of Things. You will have more intelligent systems in the physical world, too -- not just on your cell phone or computer, but physically present around us, processing and sensing information about the physical world and helping us with decisions that include knowing a lot about features of the physical world.

Home environments constitute a main target location where to deploy robots, which are expected to help humans in completing their tasks. However, modern robots do not meet yet user's expectations in terms of both knowledge and skills. In this scenario, users can provide robots with knowledge and help them in performing tasks, through a continuous human-robot interaction. This human-robot cooperation setting in shared environments is known as Symbiotic Autonomy or Symbiotic Robotics. In this paper, we address the problem of an effective coexistence of robots and humans, by analyzing the proposed approaches in literature and by presenting our perspective on the topic. In particular, our focus is on specific contexts that can be embraced within Symbiotic Autonomy: Human Augmented Semantic Mapping, Task Teaching and Social Robotics. Finally, we sketch our view on the problem of knowledge acquisition in robotic platforms by introducing three essential aspects that are to be dealt with: environmental, procedural and social knowledge.