Most people were uncertain until a few years ago about the potency of artificial intelligence to shape our daily lives.

However, belying all expectations and predictions, artificial intelligence has crept in to every facet of our daily lives and has brought in immense benefits cutting across all sectors.

Artificial intelligence in common parlance would refer to a software or machine that simulates smart, human- like intelligence and responds in a manner that it is programmed to respond. Artificial intelligence thinks intelligently and in the manner humans think.

Instead of relying on keyboards and typing in to computers, we can use artificial intelligence powered voice commands and facial recognition technology to scan the web. Artificial intelligent systems also power the world’s largest search engines and companies in the finance and banking sectors take the help of AI robots to manage a portion of their routine jobs.

Using the computational power of artificial intelligence and with the collection, segmentation and accurate targeting of data, businesses have achieved greater customer interaction.
Let us now look at the major drivers of this artificial intelligence technology.

Machine Learning
Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence that provides computers with the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. Machine learning uses algorithms to find hidden insights and to solve problems based on the data they have stored in their database.

Machine learning is used to identify people’s faces, detect network intrusions, email filtering, predict fluctuations on the stock market, recommend news topics to users based on their interests etc. Machine learning has helped drive the growth of artificial intelligence.

Neural Networks
The ability of artificial intelligence robots to perform various tasks in the manner and scale as seen today would not have been possible had it not been for the use of neural networks.

Neural networks is a computing system made up of a number of simple, highly interconnected processing elements and modeled on the human brain and nervous system. Neural networks are a part of the deep learning technology and processes information in response to initial training and external inputs.

Commercial applications of this technology would involve complex pattern abilities such as handwriting recognition, facial recognition, speech recognition, weather prediction etc. They are also able to derive meaning from complicated data and also extract patterns and detect trends that are too complex to be noticed by humans.

Algorithms
Algorithms are a major force driving the growth and adaption of artificial intelligence. The development of more complex and smarter algorithms has helped drive the growth of artificial intelligence products.

Data
The ability of artificial intelligence to do important functions is directly linked to the availability of sufficient data. Artificial intelligence robots scan through vast amount of data and make the needed responses based on the available data.

Applications
We experience artificial intelligence through the several applications we use like the Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana and Amazon Echo. These artificial intelligence applications help us play games, helps speech recognition, helps in heuristic classification, and understand natural language.

The growth of artificial intelligence is also closely allied with the development and adaption of such applications.

Conclusion
We are living in a world where intelligent systems have achieved great strides and are able to perform increasingly complex tasks. However, we are still a long way off from where machines can come anywhere near the complex thinking abilities of humans. However, in the coming years, we  hope to witnesses the monumental adaption and the continued growth of artificial intelligence driven by the factors as mentioned above.