Smart cities and cars are getting even smarter as technological disruption continues to shake up the transportation industry. By 2021, more than 380 million connected cars are expected to be on the road, as automakers plan to connect the majority of the vehicles they sell, according to research from BI Intelligence. This connectivity is leading to new solutions for urban planning applications, data analysis and problem-solving.

About six years ago, Stephen Smith was stopped at a traffic light in East Liberty, driving home from Carnegie Mellon University. The robotics professor had been working over a tricky problem — how to make urban traffic flow more efficiently. Computer simulations showed his proposed system worked, but he needed a place to test it amidst aggressive drivers, slow buses and errant pedestrians.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has gradually become an integral part of modern life, from Siri and Spotify’s personalized features on our phones to automatic fraud alerts from our banks whenever a transaction appears suspicious. Defined simply, a computer with AI is able to respond to its environment by learning on its own—without humans providing specific instructions. A new report from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, outlines how AI could become more integrated into people’s lives by 2030, and recommends how best to regulate it and make sure its benefits are shared equally.