Artificial intelligence became one of the hottest tech topics in 2017 and is still attracting attention and investments. Although scientists have been working on the technology and heralding its numerous anticipated benefits for more than four decades, it’s only in the past few years that society’s AI dreams have come to fruition. The impact AI applications stand to have on both consumer and business operations is profound. For example, a New York-based Harley Davidson dealer incorporated the Albert Algorithm AI-driven marketing platform into his marketing mix and saw a 2,930 percent increase in sales leads that helped triple his business over the previous year. Unfortunately, success stories like this aren’t as common as the more prevalent failed AI pilot projects. However, with growing volumes of raw data about people, places, and things, plus increasing compute power and real-time processing speeds, immediate AI applicability and business benefits are becoming a reality. According to a survey by Cowen and Company, 81 percent of IT leaders are currently investing in or planning to invest in AI, as CIOs have mandated that their companies need to integrate AI into their entire technology stacks. Another 43 percent are evaluating and doing an AI proof of concept, and 38 percent already have operational AI applications and are planning to invest more. Additionally, McKinsey research estimates tech giants spent $20 to $30 billion on AI in 2016, with 90 percent of it going to R&D and deployment and 10 percent to AI acquisitions. Industry analyst firm IDC predicts AI will grow to be a $47 billion market by 2020, with a CAGR of 55 percent. Of that market, IDC forecasts companies will spend some $18 billion on software applications, $5 billion on software platforms, and $24 billion on services and hardware. With this level of investment, if your business doesn’t already have a strategy to incorporate AI or machine learning (ML) into your development efforts by 2019, then you risk irrelevancy.