A couple of years ago, I remember sitting at a local coffee shop in the middle of the city overhearing a conversation between two middle-aged executives. They both looked about the same in appearance. Middle-aged men with short brunette hair, combed over and sprayed stiff with hairspray. They each had thousand dollar suits on along with almost identical Patek Philippe watches, which were clearly visible as they sipped their black espressos and talked about how technology has transformed their roles as c-suite executives.

One guy’s name was Colby, I know because I heard the barista call his name. Colby shared how he was concerned about the impending dominance of “AI” in the workplace. Notably, he was worried about AI replacing his role at the agency he worked at.

After a few more minutes, the two men ended their discussion laughing about how the Terminator is basically real life now and that soon robots and AIs will run the world.

Thankfully, only some of that has actually happened.

To this day, though, many people are still terrified when they hear the words artificial intelligence, or AI. Even many of my friends, family members, colleagues, and clients avoid the AI discussion and look a little weary when I bring it up.

But what I’ve found is that most people’s anxiety around AI stems from the hysteria caused by the media’s sensational coverage around it. While there are real concerns regarding AI, the greatest minds in the world are working on solving those problems.

For the rest of us, AI is a new and exciting frontier with huge implications and endless possibilities. Most people I talk to eventually become proponents and users of AI themselves once they fully understand it.

A great starting place to demystify AI is to properly define it.

Artificial intelligence is a field of science concerned with building computers and machines that can reason, learn, and act in such a way that would normally require human intelligence or that involves data whose scale exceeds what humans can analyze.

When you read this definition, it seems a lot less scary, doesn’t it?

The real function of artificial intelligence is to create more efficient ways of doing things. Solving complex equations in mere minutes is achievable with AI. So is predicting seasonal fashion trends a full year before the next releases. Analyzing and extrapolating real-time data during football games to create a playbook against an upcoming competitor? Yea. AI can do all of that.

But, we suggest starting with a simple AI assistant that can help answer questions about your business accurately. Did you know that you can turn Alexa into your own, personal AI assistant?