Notable advances have been made in artificial intelligence technologies over the last few years, especially in the realm of speech recognition. The ability of computers to listen to and understand what humans say has a long way to go, but it is finding many uses already in a wide variety of industries.

With speech recognition software, companies are able to automate a growing percentage of call center activity, Steve Lohr and John Markoff report in an article at The New York Times. There are technologies available that can pick up callers' emotions, like anger, and route the calls accordingly. Panasonic uses speech recognition software in its Chesapeake, Va., call center that identifies key words spoken by callers so that the computer can respond intelligently. The automated system handles 50 percent of the calls the center receives, five times as many as it could handle five years ago, Lohr and Markoff report.

As computing power becomes less expensive, the possibilities for artificial intelligence grow, writes Christopher Steiner in an article at Forbes. Face recognition technology is being used to help retailers target their advertising with razor sharp precision. Macy's uses it to scan a shopper's face to identify age, gender, hairstyle, sense of fashion and other traits. The information is then instantly used to determine relevant ads to post on video screens in the shopper's view. Steiner describes this initiative as well as other A.I. projects underway in the health care, automotive and airline industries.

For more:
- see Steve Lohr and John Markoff's article at The New York Times
- see Christopher Steiner's article at Forbes

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