From e-commerce and healthcare to banking, custom chatbots and the increasing number of IoT devices in your home, artificial intelligence is something you interact with on a daily basis, many times without realizing it.

Its capacity of sifting through huge amounts of data makes AI the number one choice for a series of applications across major industries, but … what is artificial intelligence after all?

Artificial intelligence definition

Coined as an academic discipline in the 1950s, AI refers to a machine’s capability to perform certain tasks that would otherwise require human and animal intelligence, mimicking their cognitive functions, mostly learning and problem-solving.

When creating artificial intelligence tools, other desired traits and goals are knowledge representation, planning, natural language processing (NLP), perception and social intelligence. Machine perception further branches out into facial recognition, speech recognition and object recognition, all of which are increasingly present in our lives.

Artificial intelligence applications

Did you know that Netflix uses AI to market shows? It does this by creating similarity maps and deciding what would perform best and where. Through a comparable approach, online shops offer you tailored product recommendations and increased search relevance.

When it comes to artificial intelligence and healthcare, AI can be used to pinpoint specific treatments for cancer patients with genetic abnormalities, and several companies have developed wearable AI like Fitbits and smartwatches that analyze data, track symptoms and alert users and their doctors of potential health risks.

Other artificial intelligence technologies optimize the energy consumption of buildings or use facial recognition to provide high-end security to organizations of all sizes, but the most exciting AI usage lately is in emotional robotic models. These can sense the mood of a person and react accordingly to elevate it. They can also help children be kinder and improve their health through breathing exercises and meditation routines.

Artificial intelligence benefits

One of the most prominent advantages that AI technology brings to the table is automation, and it highly benefits consumer products, transportation, communications and the service industry. AI-powered automation leads to reduced expenses and lead time, increased productivity, more efficient use of raw materials and even improved product quality.

Artificial intelligence also helps you make smarter business decisions as it analyzes trends and provides forecasts better and faster than any human specialist. However, it is important for AI used in decision-making to not be programmed to mimic human emotions.

It brings you enhanced customer experience through fast response to queries and highly personalized messages that point customers to the best solution. In addition to this, AI can solve complex problems like fraud detection and medical diagnosis, it can manage repetitive tasks without interruption and helps minimize errors by removing the human factor.

Last but not least, artificial intelligence ensures business continuity through AI-powered risk management tools and takes risks instead of humans for many hazardous interventions.

Artificial intelligence future

Now that you know more about AI benefits and current applications, it’s time to take a quick look at what the future holds, because what is artificial intelligence if not a trailblazer and a great opportunity to push innovation further?

The way the tech and business landscape looks right now, AI projects in the near future will most likely focus on perfecting personal assistants, deep learning, further medical advances, more IoT devices and better robotization, with a special emphasis on combining AI with cloud computing.