Artificial intelligence has historically over-promised and under-delivered. That routine leads to spurts of what those in the field call “hype”—outsized excitement about the potential of a core technology—followed after a few years and several million (or billion) dollars by crashing disappointment. In the end, we still don’t have the flying cars or realistic robot dogs we were promised.

But DeepMind’s AlphaGo, a star pupil in a time we’ll likely look back on as a golden age of AI research, has made a habit of blowing away experts’ notions of what’s possible. When DeepMind announced that the AI system could play Go on a professional level, masters of the game said it was too complex for any machine. They were wrong.

Now AlphaGo Zero, the AI’s latest iteration, is being set to tasks outside of the 19×19 Go board, according to DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis.

General Motors says its most recent test vehicle meets some of the requirements for total autonomy.

Daimler is creating a driverless snowplow for use in places like airports and is already testing a design in Germany.

After more than a year of testing on crowded San Francisco streets, Cruise thinks it’s ready to operate the first robotic car fleet in Manhattan. GM also appears to be ramping up competition with Waymo for leadership in the technology.

The vehicles, set to begin testing in 2020, will use deep learning to learn motorists’ preferences, emotions, and habits.

The BMW i8 is already one of the most futuristic-looking cars on the road, but it’s about to get more innovative inside, too. BMW has just announced a brand-new tech collaboration with IBM, which will see the tech giant’s Watson AI tested in four of BMW’s hybrid sports cars. The project will see BMW engineers and IBM researchers work together in Germany, as both IBM and BMW have research facilities in Munich.

The project aims to make driving assistance and information more personalised and intuitive – and Watson looks to be the perfect candidate for the job. IBM’s powerful AI should make the car’s existing systems much easier to use, and BMW has already given a few examples of how it could work. The i8’s manual will be by Watson, so drivers will be able to enquire about vehicle information in natural language, rather than select phrases. In the same way, BMW and IBM want the Watson-fitted i8 to provide updates on everything from fuel levels to traffic updates in a simple, easy way.

However, Watson’s machine learning will have another benefit, too: personalisation. By gradually learning the routes, language and needs of a driver, Watson will be able to deliver the right amount of information almost before it’s needed.