By now, most of us have heard about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Once the exclusive domain of science fiction and futuristic movies, it is now becoming prolific in many aspects of our society!

But do you understand what it is? Are you and your business prepared for AI and how are you leveraging it in your business today?

AI has been around and evolving since about 1956 and it is now advancing at a speed that is almost incomprehensible!

According to Ray Kurzweil, the speed of advancement of society today is accelerating exponentially. Furthermore, he asserts that the entire progress of the 20th century would have been achieved in only 20 years at the rate of advancement we saw in the year 2000. So, the rate of advancement in the year 2000 was 5 times as fast as the average in the entire previous century!

He believes that another 20th century’s worth of advancement happened between 2000 and 2014 and another will happen between 2014 and 2021! In a few decades after this, a 20th century’s worth of progress will take place multiple times in the same year and a decade later it will happen multiple times in the same month!

Basically, it boils down to the “Law of Accelerating Returns.” Kurzweil believes that the 21st century will see 1000 times the progress as the 20th century!

A big part of the changes and advancement that we will see will be both in Artificial Intelligence and made possible by Artificial Intelligence.

Current State

The diagram below comes from a webcast from Dr. Kai-Fu Lee and Peter Diamandis. They classify AI into “waves” and show the high-profile companies that are leveraging AI into the core of their business.

• 1 – Internet AI
• 2 – Business AI
• 3 – Perception AI
• 4 – Autonomous AI