The New Investor Rush to AI

In the Financial Times (May require registration)    A look at investment in AI style systems today. Excellent comparative numbers. Emphasizing the largest investments.  I was involved with the last wave, in the late 1980s which featured companies like Intellicorp and Teknowledge.  My enterprise took a substantial equity position in the latter, with the expectation that it would flourish as an expert system tool provider throughout multiple industries, as well a extending and augmenting the efficient use of expertise within the enterprise.  

Although there were considerable internal successes,  it was more difficult to find the right balance of complexity and focus.  Simpler systems could be replaced by spreadsheets, more difficult ones were hard to construct and ultimately maintain.  It was also hard to interconnect multiple AI tasks to form coherent jobs. Some few systems were utilized for decades and saved the enterprise millions. Much to learn from those experiences.  Will the new wave extend its reach beyond its grasp?  Talk to me.