The book describes, using clear and concise language, the next generation of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which consists of swarms of hundreds of thousands of intelligent digital agents that exhibit collective intelligence greater than the sum of the intelligence of individual agents. These agents have access to domain knowledge stored in the attached ontology and do not need training to operate. Swarms of agents self-organise to adapt to environmental changes, resist hacking, and coevolve with the systems they interact with.

The author explains the basics of Swarm AI and its uses, including adaptive schedulers, pattern recognisers, semantic processors, variable geometry engineering products, and teams of space robots. They show how swarms of agents can handle operational tasks in businesses and protect nations from pandemics, financial crises, and military attacks.

The book is written for curious readers who want to understand the simple principles behind the power of the next generation of AI. It is also aimed at business executives, administrators, politicians, government leaders, regulators and policy makers, offering them insights into the new tools that will transform the organisations they lead and the world they inhabit.

George Rzevski is Professor Emeritus in the department of Complexity Science and AI at The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. He was, at various points in his career, a Visiting Professor at Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Germany; Wuhan University, China; Samara Aerospace University, Russia; Moratuwa University, Colombo, Sri Lanka; and Brunel University, West London. Until his retirement in 1999, George was Professor and Head of the Department of Design and Innovation and Director of the Centre for the Design of Intelligent Systems at the Open University. His Centre was well funded by grants from government and industry, and his department was rated 5 out of 5 in the two Research Assessment Exercises. Prof. Rzevski has published widely and delivered keynote papers at numerous international conferences. As a tribute to his successful research career, The Open University named his research laboratory the “George Rzevski Complexity Laboratory” upon his retirement. At The Open University, George pioneered undergraduate education in intelligent mechatronics, launching a course in which every student experimented at home with their own intelligent robot. He is the author of “The Future is Digital: How Complexity and Artificial Intelligence will Shape Our Lives and Work”, published by Springer (2023).