If we talk about the recent past, machine learning was only used by a few who understood the algorithms and had access to very huge amount of data on which to employ it. But with the evolution of big data technology becoming a commodity and algorithms easier to use, machine learning has moved out of the hands of the few to the hands of the citizen developers and regular users. Four key steps taken in 2015 for the development of the machine learning are:-

# learning became easier to use.

# Everyone and their brother released a machine learning library or toolkit. 

#Big data to feed machine learning also became cheaper and easier.

#The label “machine learning” was applied to way too many items.

Read more at: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3017250/application-development/4-great-leaps-machine-learning-made-in-2015.html