Artificial intelligence gets real

Is artificial intelligence over-hyped, or are we at the vanguard of a new wave of corporate productivity improvements ushered in by next-generation technology?

In recent investor presentations and earnings calls, we have increasingly come across the terms ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) and its terminology bedfellows, ‘machine learning’ (ML) and ‘Big Data’.

While companies have addressed these concepts for a few years now, they have taken centre stage in the last 12 months. While we see a lot of hype in the near term, there are enough real-life examples underway to indicate AI will be a significant investment theme in the next decade.

In its purest form, AI is defined as ‘computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence’. In practice, it is self-learning technology driven by machine-learning algorithms that try and fail, learning from experience and improving millions of times over. The algorithms require access to vast amounts of data to allow them to fail, learn and discover ways to improve.