Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been in the public consciousness for much longer. For many, the most memorable incarnation is HAL 9000, a fictional artificial intelligence character that first appeared in 1968 in Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series. Happily, HAL 9000 bears very little resemblance to the reality of today’s AI systems, which have more straightforward intentions and almost always ‘live’ in massive, remote data centres. They are capable of absorbing, structuring and processing huge quantities of data, generating new insights based on sophisticated analytics algorithms and, in some still limited circumstances, streamlining decision making.
The Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) is the point at which these two parallel trends converge; bringing with it the potential for a complex, intelligent network of decision making and analytical processes, collating and interpreting swathes of data that enable previously impossible use cases. Crucially, the AIoT will process this data on the device itself. Part of the genius of these devices is that the magic is happening in the palm of your hand, or in your immediate vicinity, independent of data centres and external networks.
