AI’s real potential: Orchestrating the technology around us

Many of America’s defining innovations have been things you could point to: the telephone, television, personal computer, and smartphone. Each expanded what people could do by putting a powerful new capability in their hands. Artificial intelligence is following a different pattern. It is appearing across the technology people already use every day—from the phone in your pocket and the watch on your wrist, to the television on your wall and the appliances in your home. Just as the internet and mobile connectivity added a layer of intelligence by linking those devices together, artificial intelligence is evolving in a similar way. It is not just a new tool, but a force that makes the entire technological landscape work intelligently together. The opportunity ahead is to make the technology around us more responsive, connected, and useful as a whole. FROM SMART PRODUCTS TO SMART SYSTEMS A typical morning already involves several connected technologies. You might check a wearable to see how you slept, use a calendar app to organize your day, and rely on connected devices to adjust the temperature or notify you that a package has arrived. Most of these interactions remain separate. Pe…