In the seven years since IBM's Watson beat two human champions in the game show Jeopardy!, cognitive technologies have gone from a science fiction pipe-dream to a platform for essential business initiatives. Clearly, if you don't have a plan for cognitive transformation, your chances for survival will be somewhat dim.

Yet progress to this point has been uneven. While there have clearly been some successes, we've all had tortured moments such as trying to access a human on customer service call. In some cases, things have gone seriously awry, such as when Amazon's Echo has ordered unwanted merchandise.

Progress is never smooth. The early industrial revolution certainly had more than its share of problems, as did the dotcom era (remember Webvan?). The key is to go in with your eyes open, understanding every transformative technology has its growing pains and avoid common pitfalls. With that in mind, here are four things you should know about big data and artificial intelligence.