If 2017 left you breathless, exhausted by unexpected headlines, then brace yourself. The coming year may bring even more turbulent change, according to the CEOs, academics, economists and other bold thinkers we consulted for our annual peek at the year ahead.

Over the past few months, industry and government have pledged more than $500-million toward AI, a commitment that has led to the rise of powerful institutions such as the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, the Vector Institute and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. These structures are well positioned to keep churning out cutting-edge research, train the next generation of AI leaders, and advance the innovation and technology transfer of AI. Our three AI Institutes are set up to offer Canadian businesses similar training programs and there's good reason for them to use these resources: Canadian enterprises that consider investing in state-of-the-art machine-learning and data infrastructure can enjoy results such as increased efficiency in manufacturing, better management of underwriting risk, minimization of fraud and reduction of health-care costs. Among the most urgent are ensuring the market is well supplied by streamlining immigration, ensuring higher education and industrial research-funding programs are well capitalized and targeted, modifying tax policies to encourage entrepreneurship and streamlining research and development tax credits to support AI investments.

"So there's no sales tax revenue because there's no sales," says Joseph Henchman, vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation. Cities and states get about 30 percent of their revenue from property taxes, 20 percent from sales tax, and another 20 from individual income taxes. "If revenues drop by a third"--the projected impact of automation--Henchman says, "that means services need to be cut back by a third, either through trying to be more focused or efficient with the services we do provide, or by actually having to pare back what government does." A robot tax isn't going to save jobs, but the idea is that it could help cushion the impact of mass automation by funding a universal basic income.