ZEITGUIDE TO THE AI NEED TO KNOWS

Advances in Artificial Intelligence have been occurring at such warp speed that we could easily devote the full space of this newsletter to them every Sunday. But this week’s headlines around AI warranted special consideration.

So, what happened?

—AI took center stage at Google’s I/O conference, most impressively with Google Duplex. A demonstration of this improvement to the Google Assistant showed a user asking Google to make a haircut appointment for them, followed by a human-sounding voice (complete with “ums” and “uhs”) making a call to the salon to book it. AI-boosted improvements to Google News, Photos and Maps also featured heavily. The company foreshadowed its focus on AI ahead of I/O by announcing the rebranding of Google Research to Google AI.

—Google was one of about 40 companies, along with Facebook, Amazon, Intel and Microsoft, to send representatives to a White House meeting on how the government can remove barriers to AI advances. The U.S. faces mounting pressure to stay ahead of China, which has a robust national policy geared to foster AI innovation. In fact, per CB Insights, Chinese startups currently receive around 48% of all funding for AI investments.

When considering the impacts of AI, the more apt question may be not where has it been applied, but where it hasn’t already had a transformational impact. To that end, we compiled some of our favorite examples of how AI is being applied across different industries in ZEITGUIDE 2018. We’re proud to share that with you here. For our full insight into the big picture implications for AI in 2018, order our annual cultural almanac.