Artificial intelligence is one of the more heavily hyped and widely misunderstood topics over the past 20 years—right there with blockchain. This report looks to demystify Artificial Intelligence (AI) starting with a history of AI from a technical perspective. We also describe where we see AI and Machine Learning (ML) going and the impact on our enterprise clients. We start with a brief history and a technical description of what AI is, what it isn’t as well as early use cases.

We examine the three major waves of Artificial Intelligence technologies, when each was introduced and the impact of each wave. The first wave started with symbolic reasoning serving up basic reasoning based on logic rules over narrowly defined problems. This progressed to a second wave of AI that focused on learning ability with predictive capabilities based on statistical learning models. The third wave is contextual adaption with added reasoning capabilities, real world use cases, and self-learning ability. Each wave has specific use cases, but adds complexity and real-world applicability.

This foundational document will set the stage for deeper dives into specific instantiations of AI/ML in various use cases. This report will provide high-level recommendations and an action plan for enterprises developing strategies and tactical plans in AI and related areas.