OVERVIEW

Artificial intelligence and machine learning has become one of the hottest topics in business. An army of startups has been funded to pursue the commercial opportunities, whilst the bosses of big companies increasingly look to implement AI strategies at scale. This has encouraged hopes of massive efficiency gains as machines learn to get ever better in their crunching of increasing volumes of data to understand what works. Yet at the same time, there have also been darker predictions, from machines taking all the jobs once done by humans (Bill Gates even wants to tax robots to slow down this shift) to possible existential threats to humanity.

ALEXANDRA SUICH BASS
Technology editor, The Economist

FEI-FEI LI
Chief scientist, Google Cloud AI

FIONA TAN
Head of AI and customer technology, Walmart

SAMI ATIYA
President, robotics and motion, ABB

AVI GOLDFARB
Professor, University of Toronto and co-author, Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence

ALEX SALKEVER
Futurist and co-author 'The Driver in the Driverless Car'

And many more...

Executives urgently need to develop a strategy to make their firm into a truly intelligent company. That means breaking through what now seems to be Peak Hype around AI to get to the still considerable reality.

• Where is AI poised to make the biggest impacts soonest?
• Where can it create significant new value?
• Where will it mostly undermine existing business models?
• What can be done to equip the company’s existing workforce to be able to make the most of those opportunities that are there, rather than merely see AI as a threat?

The Economist Events’ Innovation Summit will gather leading thinkers and practitioners to explore these opportunities and challenges. Editors from The Economist will ask the searching questions as Fortune 500 CEOs, policymakers, academics and disruptive entrepreneurs share their insights and strategies for successfully embracing AI and machine learning to build a truly intelligent company.