Susan Etlinger has one of the greatest jobs in the world. As Industry Analyst for Altimeter Group, she is already one of the leading authorities on how businesses are leveraging social media. But her job gives her the opportunity to have deep conversations with some of the most influential people in our space doing whatever is "next" in social media.

That's one of the reasons I am so excited to speak with her on stage at Salesforce Connections 2016 in Atlanta next week (May 10-12). Jay Baer and I will be interviewing Susan live, but will also be recording the discussion for our SocialPros.com podcast.

I had a chance to ask Susan about what she has planned for our session: Social Has Broken Out Of the Silo: How Brands Adapt in this Changing Landscape.

ADAM: What will you be speaking about at Connections in Atlanta?

SUSAN: I'll be sharing some research I've been doing about data-driven businesses: how are they using data differently and in innovative ways. What are the use cases for "big" data? What emerging tech trends should we be watching out for--things like artificial intelligence, computer vision, and virtual reality. How do they affect us now and how will they in the future? And my favorite part: what characterizes the organizations that are most successful?

ADAM: What do you believe is the greatest concern of marketers and social media practitioners as it relates to privacy and security in 2016?

SUSAN: Consumers are uneasy with the amount of data being collected from them. It's impossible to keep up with it, and the implications can sometimes be scary or even dangerous. So there is a trust issue with companies that do use data to personalize products and services.

On the one hand, you want to serve the customer in a relevant way. On the other, you don't want to run afoul of any privacy or security laws. You want your customers to trust you…so are you doing things without even realizing it that might erode trust? Privacy professionals deal with these issues every day. For marketers and social media folks, it's more a sense of uneasiness.

ADAM: What about the consumer? How is "Big Data" changing?

SUSAN: The types of data keep expanding. There was a study at University of Bangor last year that said the fastest-growing language in the UK is emoji! With 360-degree video, virtual and augmented reality have the potential to tell organizations even more about what we like, do, want. But the biggest change in terms of data is actually the idea that artificial intelligence uses data to predict what we are likely to like, do, want and act accordingly. So that data isn't just passive; it's actively being used on our behalf.

We already see this in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which use AI to predict what posts are likely to be most interesting to us. But now Facebook has introduced chatbots, which are basically an AI that can interact with us in Messenger to perform transactions, give us information, etc. It's the same idea as Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa, just now available to be used by brands. It has huge implications-for innovation, scaling businesses, improving customer experience-but that all depends on how well it's executed. It can also fail if the AI isn't good enough or doesn't learn the right things.

ADAM: Are the social media properties themselves addressing the privacy aspects directly enough? How is the balance of responsibility between the platforms, marketers and consumers themselves?

SUSAN: Oh it's so complicated. There is very little that is legally mandated. If you share on Twitter, it's public content by default. That's roughly the same with Instagram. With Facebook it's different because you can define the privacy settings by group or post. So then you have to think about other factors too, like whether there is mutual benefit in the use of the data, and whether the outcome could inadvertently harm someone. These principles were developed by the Information Accountability Foundation, and I wrote about them in my report The Trust Imperative. The IAF report is really important reading for people who think about the impact of data use on the customer experience. I really hope that means everyone, but of course I am an idealist!

ADAM: Anything I didn't ask about that you would like to share?

SUSAN: I'm really, really interested in how we make sense of images (specifically photos, video, 360-degree video) in this new age. You could think of this as "visual listening", though the capability for computers to "see" images and interpret them is more commonly called "computer vision". My next report is on this topic. I expect this to be a major addition to the marketer's toolkit, and a major new source of insight.

But I need to underscore that this is still a very new science. If you look at where the big companies are investing, you'll see a trend: Google, Facebook and Microsoft are all heavily invested here, and all are using artificial intelligence to enable these systems to learn. It's not just data anymore. We tend to think that AI is something futuristic, but it's all around us now.

I hope that you will join us at Salesforce Connections 2016 in Atlanta May 10-12 and join Susan, Jay and me on Tuesday at 3:00 ET for Social Has Broken Out Of the Silo: How Brands Adapt in this Changing Landscape.