As emerging technologies go, artificial intelligence (AI) has certainly taken its time in making its presence felt on the world.

Surprising as that may be, the term AI has actually been around for almost 70 years, having been first coined back in 1955 by computer scientist John McCarthy, a.k.a. the ‘father of AI’, the same year Emmett Brown invented time travel in the movie Back to the Future.

Since then, AI has experienced a largely stop-start existence, principally due to sporadic funding and below-par technology. In truth, the term AI has (arguably) gained more notoriety for storylines of killer robots (and the occasional Wall-e) hell-bent on destroying mankind than for its practical use and business benefits. But that’s all changing.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Thanks to breakthroughs in computing power, the advent and availability of big data, cloud hosting/storage, highly sophisticated software, and complex algorithms, the potential of AI is now starting to be fulfilled—with the business world being the biggest benefactors.