Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the application of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and act just like human beings. The term has been frequently applied when developing systems to do with the intellectual processes characteristics of human beings such as the ability to think, speech recognition, visual perception, ability to learn from past experiences among others.
Since the development of digital computers in the early 1940s, it has been discovered that computers can actually be programmed to carry out complex tasks that can only be performed by human beings such as solving mathematical problems, playing complex games etc. However, in as much as artificial intelligence has been growing over the past few decades, scientists claim that there are no machines that can match human flexibility in carrying out day to day activities.
Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men.
-Marvin Minsky
All Things AI 