Examining the General Artificial Intelligence Market

The market for Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come a long way in recent years, with some advancements very transparent to consumers (such as Amazon’s Alexa), and others not so obvious with many behind the scenes efforts by leading companies. What most have in common is that they are typically narrowly focused AI enabled applications. This will all change with developments within the General Artificial Intelligence Market, which is also referred to as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

This is where it is important to understand the often used terms “Weak AI” vs. “Strong AI”. In the case of the former, solutions are designed to be relatively limited in focus. For example, when you say “Hey Alexa, what is my schedule today?”, you don’t expect this AI solution to make adjustments based on your communications or behaviors.

Firstly, Alexa has a narrowly defined range of functions. It simply responds to request for information and commands such as turn off the light. Secondly, it is not supposed to be listening to your conversations unless you say “Hey Alexa” (privacy and security issue). Thirdly, AI solutions like Alexa do not (yet) have a comprehensive view into your daily life. Therefore, it could not see your emails, text, digital calendar, social media exchanges, etc.

There are some efforts underway in this area, such as how Google (through gmail) sees text that one has written and will automatically put events into calendar, make recommendations, etc. However, solutions like this are still considered “weak” because they do not meet the definition of “Strong AI”, which is characteristic of AGI solutions.

Strong AI operates much more like a human being in the sense that it can take information from one area, lessons learned from another area, and make decisions based on inputs.

For example Strong AI technologies enable AGI solutions to help a person make scheduling decisions based on both personal and professional information, constraints, resources, and requests. One specific example is time available for meetings and phone calls in relation to personal matters.

Strong AI will know that saltwater fishing in the Puget Sound area is a high priority for someone, and based on the time of the year, tides, and solunar activity, early morning on a particular day should be reserved.

AGI solutions can help a person make decisions based on both personal and professional information, constraints, resources, and requests

The General Artificial Intelligence market consists of solutions that may support the following: (1) Alert a person to go to bed early the night before, (2) Inform regarding vehicle status such as whether the fuel tank is full, (3) Inquire about availability of fishing buddies, (4) Reserve time on calendar so that no meetings or conference calls are scheduled.

This is a very specific solution, and one that is not necessarily going to drive significant commercial activity, but it helps to illustrate the point of how omnipresent AGI can and will become part of everyday life.

While the previous example can easily be written-off as contrived and somewhat trivial, the implications are quite profound when one considers the far-reaching effects anticipated in terms of General Artificial Intelligence market impacts.

One important area to consider is that AGI will render many current AI solutions obsolete. Rather than rely upon purpose-built AI solutions, which also often closely tie together specific software with hardware (e.g. Amazon’s Alexa software and Amazon’s Echo hardware), AGI will enable general purpose AI that may be leveraged conceivably by any device and/or via any software program.

One of the major hurtles will be accessibility and interoperability. Therefore, major vendors will develop AI platforms that can act as a utility AI function, offering AGI functionality to virtually any other network element such as Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, software programs, and/or devices via an AGI Application Programming Interfaces (API).

This will be a great way for the AGI market to get started, but longer-term, there will be a need for AGI solutions to operate in a more flat hierarchical structure. Peer-to-peer AGI interchanges will occur via open APIs. This will enable vendor and solution independent implementation and operation of AGI systems.

Another aspect of the overall evolutions of AI that pertains especially to Strong AI and AGI is security and privacy. In a future of pervasive AI (e.g. artificial intelligence integrated into everything digital, which means everything with IoT and digital twin technologies), there will be a need for personal AI to protect companies and individuals from potential harm that may occur.

There need not be a fear of some “Terminator/Skynet” type future for humanity. However, there is a very real concern about things like hacking, botnets, and even AI making decisions from a collective perspective that are not necessarily in the interest of the individual. One of the best examples perhaps is AI-enabled autonomous vehicles that are engaging in hive-mind type decision making. When it comes time to avoid a collision, will your AI protect you?

While Mind Commerce has addressed the current technology trends and market potential for personal AI, it remains to be seen when solutions will be put in place. However, we feel strongly (no pun intended) that AGI will usher in the need for AI that watches out for other AI decisions – something we have referred to as the “AI Watcher Function”.

The future is wide open for the General Artificial Intelligence market ecosystem. Leading vendors, both public and private, are positioning themselves for success. Mind Commerce has recently concluded some research to answer some important questions such as: Where is the General Artificial Intelligence market going?  How big will AGI be? What industry verticals will impacted the most and why? Learn more from our AGI market report!

In the Mind Commerce general purpose AI market report, we identify AGI market opportunities across platforms (hardware, software, and related services), use cases, services and applications. The report also analyzes the market for AGI Agent Platforms and Software.

This artificial general intelligence market report also analyzes the AI agent market and the relationship between General Purpose AI with other technologies including edge computing, 5G networks, and blockchain. The report provides forecasts for the Artificial General Intelligence market by application and industry verticals, globally and regionally. The report also estimates the AI agent driven market for software and platform globally and regionally along with AI embedded deployment forecasts for IoT devices, semiconductors, and software.