The word Artificial Intelligence is no longer a figment of imagination but a stark reality which has entrenched itself in our daily being. It’s been for a while now, the narratives around AI had been gathering momentum, fueled by the exponential increase in the generation of unstructured data from sources like the Internet of Things and social media platforms. Although AI is a work in progress its capabilities are being touted as the biggest disruptors and game changers of the coming decade. The year 2018 has seen enough AI trends already, to understand the greater implications of AI advancement adoption and the way the AI-powered, big data computation enablement will transform the way the business and economies will function in the coming years.

The biggest breakthrough and impact of AI will be seen on mobile technology. Gartner has already predicted that 80% of the smartphones will have AI capabilities by 2022. There are many tools in the market which allow the developers to create apps embedded with AI capabilities smart enough to plan and solve problems for the users. For example, Augmented reality and AI leverage Google Assistant potential in getting user reviews of restaurants on the phone as you move through a mall. A “smart” phone with AI-powered apps learn your daily pattern and proactively organize your daily routine from turning the Bluetooth of the car before you enter to showing up all the meeting lined up for the day through virtual assistants.

The relentless pursuit of the organizations to sift through even the tiniest of the unstructured data to get the slightest advantage in making time-sensitive and business critical decisions has put a big onus on AI capabilities and its advantages in data analysis. The actionable data generated through AI provides actionable insights, unheard off before, into the business landscape, resulting in companies honing their operations and keeping themselves relevant in the ever-changing IT landscape.

Customer service and satisfaction is the cornerstone of any successful business. It’s become an intrinsic part of a business model, unlike being pushed on the fringes as it used to be in the bygone days. The customer expects an informative engagement and efficient service at various touchpoints, the lack of it being enough for the customer to serve a severance notice. This is where the NLP technology of AI act as a holy grail to improve customer experience in today’s ever-connected world. A chatbot is one such example of an application which interacts with the users over text through websites or any other integrated platform to provide clients a conversational experience from any device and in their own language. Chatbots use NLP to engage with the customers in real time in a dialogue very similar to a human interaction. Apart from a 24/7 presence, it provides more efficient service as it plows through a knowledge database to give a precise answer.    

From Google’s self-driving cars to managing road traffic to smart homes, AI has become a way of life in the 21st century. Alexa, Siri, Cortana have become household names and our beloved personal assistants due to the power of AI. Although the technology isn’t new, it’s advancements are paving way for bigger and better breakthroughs in every walk of life.