Artificial intelligence is certainly the most significant technological advance of this 21st century, although it appeared as early as the 1950s, with the Turing trials and the first uses of machine learning.
Like many technical breakthroughs – industrial machines, transistors, the Internet or mobile computing – AI was thought out and designed in academia before being marketed, in successive phases. Already present in the daily life of many of us, it nevertheless offers many additional fields of application to explore.
The first companies to use AI were large technology companies with the scientific know-how and computing resources to adopt and adapt neural networks to the demands of their customers. They did using the cloudand scaling AI from academia to real-world business applications.
Google, for example, then applies deep learning to natural language processing to design Google Translate, while Facebook uses AI to identify consumer goods from images.
Tech giants are succeeding in creating platforms that allow companies and startups to benefit from AI in the cloud, faster and at a lower cost. Large organizations in all sectors are the first to adopt this technology more massively to improve the quality, security and efficiency of their workflows.
Data scientists in finance, healthcare, environmental services, retail, and entertainment are then starting to train neural networks in their own data centers or in the cloud.
Conversational AI chatbots support call center teams by triaging requests and filtering emergencies. Fraud detection AI, meanwhile, monitors unusual activity in online marketplaces. Computer visualization acts as a virtual assistant for mechanics, doctors and pilots, providing them with accurate information and making their decisions more reliable, both in real time and in simulation.
Despite the democratization of AI applications (machine-learning, deep-learning, NLP), only 10 to 15% of companies in the world have succeeded in industrializing AI-based solutions in their company when 30 to 40% of them would be limited for the time being to experiments, according to a study carried out by the firm EY*.
In addition to the cloud or data centers, the advent of 5G is in the process of becoming the catalyst that accelerates the deployment of peripheral computing devices, closer to end users: in factories, hospitals, airports, stores, restaurants and within the electrical networks themselves.
With the adoption of IoT devices and advances in compute infrastructure, the proliferation of data is already enabling enterprises to create and train AI models to be deployed “at the edge”, to serve end users and the general public.
AI “at the edge”, already used in many sectors, appears to be a promising answer to the need to grow very quickly and very quickly. Computer visualization of comings and goings within factories detects security breaches, scans medical images for abnormalities, and suggests driving cars safely on the highway.
The potential for new applications is limitless. Recent technological advances even pave the way for a form of AI autonomy, that is, the ability to direct mobile machines without human intervention. Cars, trucks, boats, planes, drones and other robots will soon be able to operate without human piloting.
Over the past 75 years, AI has moved from labs to living rooms, improving business performance and the daily lives of consumers. If companies are investing in the field, many challenges and barriers to adoption remain.
In many sectors, simulation capabilities will be decisive for modeling and testing all possible scenarios, and knowing how to anticipate the security risks associated with the deployment of robots in the real world. Clear and appropriate regulations are also one of the key elements that condition the emergence of technologies in the daily life of consumers.
It is only by moving from the experimentation of companies to the well-framed marketing of a product designed or functioning with AI that its adoption can take off and fears about its biases will be lifted.
If the projects remain numerous, it is a safe bet that the new generation of innovators will be at the origin of a new era synonymous with greater confidence in AI. No wonder the market for trusted AI is now estimated at 53 billion euros*, covering all critical business sectors (automotive, bancassurance, industry, pharmaceuticals, etc.).
* Ernst & Young study for the Investment Secretariat
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