The term Artificial Intelligence sounds very intimidating. Isn't it? To me, it feels like this term is coming straight out of the movie where robots overthrow humanity and my favourite Will Smith saves the day. But AI is not a future technology, it is a right now technology. It is already living with us in our phone, browser, car and maybe even the fridge. In truth, AI is not a tool to be afraid of, instead it is a very efficient assistant which never sleeps.

So, let's break it down and see how AI is working in our everyday life and how far does this actually go.

Morning Routine: AI before Coffee

Who starts checking their phone just after waking up? Honestly, sometimes I do that too despite being busy in the mornings. Well, most of us start our day with a Zombie-like scroll through our mobiles. Yet, even this lazy habit is powered by some serious technology.  

Face Unlock: Facial recognition is a form of AI trained in order to understand the patterns in facial structure. At the time of recognition, it is not just looking for two eyes and nose, it is analysing many unique points in milliseconds.

Siri, Google Assistants and Alexa: These assistants use NLP (Natural Language Processing) which is a field of AI which lets machines understand and then respond to human speech. Now here’s the fun fact: they don’t actually understand “you” but they recognise keywords, match the intent of the user and then fetch pre-programmed responses and actions.

Smart Notifications: Your calendar reminds you of birthdays, reminds you of when to leave the meeting. The weather app reminds you of taking an umbrella. This is all a part of predictive AI which is built on historical data and location awareness.

The Commute: AI Is Your Backseat Driver

When a person drives or even orders a cab, AI is the tool that calls the shots.  

Google Maps & Waze: Such kinds of apps use real time data from other drivers with the combination of machine learning models for predicting traffic and offer various alternate routes. AI also learns from our habits of driving and yes, you can say that it is kind of creepy.

Uber/Ola Algorithms: Have you ever thought about how your rides are priced or how you are matched with the driver that is nearby. This is dynamic pricing with the combination of AI based matching algorithms that works together in real time.

Spotify & YouTube Recommendations: These are the platforms which use collaborative filtering. This means if a person liked X and another person liked X and Y, it might be possible that the first person likes Y too. This is how you go from singing one song to a 3-hour of singing every track it suggests.

During Work Hours: AI at Your Desk (or Couch)

Even if a person does not have any job related to the tech, AI quietly optimises everything he/she does.

Gmail’s Compose: Have you ever noticed gmail finishes your sentences by assuming what are you gonna write next? This is language modelling as similar to the tech behind ChatGPT (Hi).

Search Engines: Google doesn’t understand words, it actually tries to understand the intent towards the search. This is known as Semantic Search. It is a form of AI which analyses the context instead of just the keywords.

Social Media Feeds: Instagram or Linkedin always decides what to show you based on the engagement on posts, scroll time and even the reels of data we hover on. This is behavioural AI optimising attention and yes, it is actually designed in a way that people get addicted to it.

Back at Home: AI in Your Cozy Corner

AI just doesn’t get off when we close our work. It follows us back home because AI is everywhere.

Smart Thermostats: Devices like Google Nest learn about our daily routines and figure out the time of our leaving home and coming home etc. And then it adjusts itself accordingly.

Netflix Recommendations: Here, it is all about Clustering in Machine Learning. With the clustering algorithms, it groups the similar data based on our likings and then suggests us the shows.

Shopping & Payments: AI with a Wallet

Even when a person is buying a toothpaste or doing something bigger than this like booking a flight, AI tags along.

E-Commerce Personalisation: Amazon or Flipkart type portals, always know what we want before even searching for it. AI uses deep learning for analysing the past behaviour or similar customer profiles and product trends.

Virtual Try-Ons: Here AI uses Augmented Reality and computer vision to analyse and show how a person will look.

Fraud Detection: Banks use AI for tracking behaviour and spot anomalies. If someone suddenly makes a huge purchase from a different country, AI can flag it.

So, Is AI Really “Smart”?

Let’s be honest. AI is doing all the things as per the feeder data. AI is not magic. It is definitely not thinking like a human. It is what we call AI as narrow AI which means it's good at doing only one specific task like filtering spam or recognising faces.  There are things that make us feel that AI is smart. AI has access to huge amounts of data, the speed of processing that data is very high, and the algorithm adaptation based on feedback is awesome.  This is why we feel intimidated by AI.

But to be true, AI does not have any common sense, any feelings or any intuitions. It works on just patterns and possibilities.

Final Thought: The Best AI Is Invisible

"AI isn’t the future, it’s already in your pocket, in your playlist, and probably adjusting your thermostat right now."

AI is more of an ultra efficient, little nosy and a caffeine free assistant who is always one step ahead from us. It helps us send text chat faster, makes us binge our perfect shows and also reminds us to use the umbrella before it rains. And honestly, this is not bad for a bunch of algorithms.

Therefore, next time your phone knows what you are going to search or play a song that is as per your liking, just sit back and think about how well AI plays a big role in our lives. Because the best tech never shouts for attention. It rather just blends in and works silently to make our life smoother.

As I said, it is like Wi-Fi. You just don’t see it but oh boy, you are going to miss it when it is gone. So, there is no need to be afraid of AI. Just Stay Curious, Stay Calm!