Robots taking over the world as we know it has always been a fear of mankind, for as long as we can remember. While the older generations are finally getting involved in this technology, the new generations are adapting to new inventions at an unseen speed. But "what if robots take over?" is a question that is still asked by most among us. This question however, despite the fearful intonation to it, has been mostly replaced by commands. Commands such as "Turn off the light" and "Play some Lounge Music". Artificial Intelligence has become such a normal part of our lives that we barely question it anymore, we prefer to command it.

This adaption and acceptance to AI in the general public can be clearly seen in the evolutions of companies too. A survey by McKinsey & Company says that since 2013, companies have tripled their investments in Artificial Intelligence. As more companies invest in AI, they pave the way for companies who are waiting to jump on the bandwagon, but we can already say that AI has the potential to change the lives of consumers and to change the way we do business. Developments made by companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft are being implemented and new businesses are being built upon these developments every day.

Artificial Intelligence is here to stay, so much is certain, but what can you expect from it in 2019?

Here are our four key points.

When it comes to help desks, people still prefer to be helped out by a human. On the other hand some people have no time to wait and the speed of the service is more important than who exactly is helping them. With advanced screenplays and chatbots it's getting harder and harder for people to recognize if it's a person or a chatbot who is helping them out.

Chatbots have been improving customer service for quite some time now and it even evolved into all kinds of chat communication, you can even order and pay food with your Facebook chatbot nowadays. The ever friendly Ask Emma is the perfect example for this.

In 2019 we believe that the evolution of chatbots will be seen in the integrating of conversational chatbots. With natural language processing, the conversations will no longer sound robotic and customers will be able to talk to the chatbot as if they were talking to a real person.

Consumers have been loving their AI assistants in their homes the day they were released. By giving them human names they have become friends and an important part of our lives for many of us. Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Google Assist are just a few of them. By giving them simple commands they make our lives easier like by turning the lights on or off, playing music, knowing the weather, searching for information online and much more.

According to a study by Adobe Analytics, 71% of smart-speaker owners use them daily, while 44% even said that they use them more than once a day. When looking at these numbers it's clear that AI assistants have already become integrated in our society, it's just a matter of time before more and more people will start using them.

We expect to see some big changes in tasks that AI assistants are able to perform in the near future, for personal as much as for professional use. As the trend of personal approach is rising, we expect this to be implemented in the AI developments as well. More advanced individual experiences and voice-recognition are just a few of them.

Finding the workers you're looking for is a hard job for as long the job has been around. It's a time-consuming, money-consuming and stressful task and according to a survey released by Indeed, 42% of employers fear that they won't be able to find the talent they need. Thanks to the development of AI this process can be smoothed out where the AI filters the irrelevant profiles to eventually provide the HR officers with relevant profiles.

Mya, for example, which stands for "My Recruiting Assistant one of the leading chatbots when it comes to AI recruitment. It has been developed in such a way that she can communicate with candidates via email, text and even Skype.

This candidate-screening and communication tool powered by AI is just one of many developments we've seen in the past years and we expect this to broaden in many ways to save employers time and to find the perfect candidate for the job.

As mentioned earlier, we love our smart-speakers. Owners love using them and they love showing them off to their friends. this has led to a public fascination and acceptance of it. While they currently can only perform "easy" tasks we expect this to evolve as fast as it will be accepted by the public. Voice search isn't new, but there are still some bugs to be worked out. Nonetheless it will change the way we use our search-tools. Instead of entering a search query like "televisions for sale", consumers will be able to speak more in a conversational way like "What's the best television I can buy on a small budget?"

With such an advanced search query it is obvious that the answer to it will have to be advanced too. Search engines will in the future be able to ask more detailed questions to provide even more detailed solutions. To continue using the car example, the search engine could reply with questions such as:

• What size are you looking for?
  
  
• What technology would you like?
  
  
• Are you looking for a specific brand?

Thanks to narrowing down options with these advanced questions, bots will be able to give personal solutions to the users search query. This increase in quality service will again only improve the acceptance and adoption of AI in our society.

We are expecting big things in the AI development for 2019, so much is certain. With our Shopitag platform we piggyback on this wave of disruption. What are your thoughts on the development of AI in 2019? Would you like to know more about AI and chatbots, send us a mail! You don't agree with our point our view? Let us know!