The rapid growth and impact of machine learning in 2017 will be significant, with companies using real-time technologies to power applications, driven by emerging data sources and trends such as energy companies' use of predictive analytics in wind farms and oil fields. The podcast discussion highlights the importance of building a real-time data pipeline, considering deployment considerations, and managing teams specializing in machine learning, while also exploring the overlap between machine learning and data science fields. A new book, "The Path to Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning", provides a playbook for building applications that take advantage of predictive analytics and machine learning, offering insights into the latest step in real-time analytics journey.