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Also on that frontier, Google, which launched Quick, Draw!, an AI experiment to see if a neural network can learn to recognize doodling, and Project Magenta, where researchers are trying to teach machines to create compelling art and music. Still, there haven’t been many commercial applications — at least not yet. “We don’t really know what we want from creative machines but [Logojoy] is an early example. AI will be like software in that it will impact every industry,” says Taylor.

That’s because AI and machine learning are all about machines being able to write computer programs automatically based on the data they receive. Because there is more data available than ever, those programs can be very specific to a company or a sector or even to a consumer.

“Instead of Amazon looking at the purchasing habits of every single individual and trying to write a program to recommend them products, it makes a lot more sense to write an algorithm to aggregate across the previous purchase data and share data across customers and do those personalizations automatically,” says Taylor.

Not surprisingly, IDC Research forecasts global revenue for cognitive and AI systems to hit US$12.5 billion in 2017, up 59.3 per cent from 2016. This is expected to jump to more than US$46 billion by 2020.

AI is disrupting even the most traditional industries in surprising ways. For example, Toronto-based Intuitive, Inc. is using AI technology to transform the global US$1 trillion-plus waste management industry. “Our vision is to empower a zero-waste world, where everything that is thrown away is recycled or reused and diverted away from landfills and oceans,” says cofounder Hassan Murad. He and cofounder Vivek Viyas, are developing smart waste bins that automatically route waste for recycling and composting using computer vision, robotics and machine learning. Murad and Viyas are in talks with Canadian municipalities and plan to have a pilot in place by the end of the year. The technology will also identify each piece of garbage. “We are able to generate granular insights on people’s consumption in real-time in a given location, so that waste can be used to inform marketing strategies,” says Murad.