Building Intelligent Apps with Cognitive APIs

Chapter 9. Paving the Road Ahead

Five decades ago, the early inventors in AI could only dream of what most consumers take for granted today. From smartphones to voice-powered assistants like Cortana, Siri, or Alexa and self-driving cars, we seem to be living in the pages of a sci-fi book. What do the next two decades hold for us? What about the next five? Microsoft has made it its mission to advance AI innovation by democratizing AI tools in the same way that it democratized the power of computing in the mainframe era by envisioning a personal computer in every home, school, and workplace.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a mainstream technology that is helping transform and empower us in unexpected ways. Here are just a few highlights.

Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric, a French multinational manufacturing company in the energy sector, is now using new technologies like AI and the IoT to transform the breadth of its offering, and the same versatility that has long powered the company’s growth now defines its AI strategy. Companies that survive for more than a century, as Schneider Electric has, share a key trait: an ability to adapt. After all, no enterprise can last that long without anticipating and planning for the challenges that will shape its journey. In Schneider’s case, a business that began as a steel manufacturing firm in France at the height of the first Industrial Revolution has strategically transformed itself into a twenty-first-century global leader ...