AI took center stage in recently-announced updates to the Alexa virtual voice assistant, and in the charges this week from the European Commission that Amazon is breaking EU competition rules. During Amazon's Alexa Live event held in July, the company announced a major update to Alexa's developer toolkit that brings AI improvements. Since launching in 2014, Amazon's voice assistant has shipped hundreds of millions of units, which are targeted by a sizable developer community offering voice apps, called Skills, that extend the Alexa default feature set. Just as the Android and iOS large selections of third party applications differentiate those operating systems, so Skill plays an important role in Amazon's growth strategy for Alexa, according to a recent account in siliconAngle. Amazon added deep learning models for natural language understanding that the company said will enable Skills to recognize users' voice commands with 15% higher accuracy on average.

The end of voice commerce at Albert Heijn: the supermarket chain has discontinued its app for Google Assistant. The test was unsuccessful and will not be continued. However, Belgian competitor Colruyt will continue with the speech technology. Dutch shoppers can no longer dictate their shopping list for Albert Heijn on their smartphone. The Dutch retailer is pulling the plug on its mobile app for Google Assistant, the search engine's voice assistant.

Frustration boiled over on social media after massive traffic to Walmart.com prevented would-be PlayStation 5 shoppers from scoring the hot holiday gift. After the new Sony video game console went on sale Thursday, Walmart told USA TODAY that some shoppers might have experienced "intermittent slowness for a few minutes." But Walmart offered some hope to PS5 fans. "We quickly caught up with the volume and are currently restocking the item for additional release of inventory throughout the day," Walmart said in a statement to USA TODAY. Sony's new console is selling for $499.99 and will only be sold online. Walmart said in a tweet on Nov. 5 that it would sell the consoles four times on Nov. 12 –noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET – for PS5 fans who missed out on preorders.

"I think we are going to see an acceleration of the deployment of automation in the next three to five years. And so that's going to take a big bite out of those manual tasks. But I suspect in 10 years, there's still going to be a sizable portion of activities that are human led," says Mr Matthews.

We're excited to announce that you can now measure the accuracy of your forecasting model to optimize the trade-offs between under-forecasting and over-forecasting costs, giving you flexibility in experimentation. Costs associated with under-forecasting and over-forecasting differ. Generally, over-forecasting leads to high inventory carrying costs and waste, whereas under-forecasting leads to stock-outs, unmet demand, and missed revenue opportunities. Amazon Forecast allows you to optimize these costs for your business objective by providing an average forecast as well as a distribution of forecasts that captures variability of demand from a minimum to maximum value. With this launch, Forecast now provides accuracy metrics for multiple distribution points when training a model, allowing you to quickly optimize for under-forecasting and over-forecasting without the need to manually calculate metrics.

Shop major deals during Best Buy's Black Friday 2020 sale. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. With an entire team dedicated to nonstop deals coverage, Reviewed knows a thing or two about sales--and which ones are worth shopping. Take Best Buy's Treat Yourself Sale, for instance. This pre-holiday savings extravaganza, which encompasses Black Friday 2020-level price drops on everything from TVs to top-rated headphones, is definitely one you won't want to miss.

Applitools, provider of a next generation test automation platform powered by Visual AI and Ultrafast Test Cloud, announced the Applitools Holiday Shopping Hackathon. The holiday themed contest provides developers, quality assurance (QA) professionals, and test automation engineers with a fun, real-world scenario that shows how next generation test automation cloud and Visual AI can help online retailers deliver perfect apps to make the most of the holiday sales season. Each participant competes to win prizes as they spend roughly two hours to test the functional and visual quality of the "Applifashion" retail app and make sure it is impeccable ahead of the busy online holiday shopping season. Holiday e-commerce sales totaled $167.8 billion in 2019 according to the National Retail Federation. This year, 96% of retailers expect online holiday sales to increase.*

Best Buy's latest sale tries to inject some variety into the many early Black Friday deals we've been seeing since the end of last month. The company appears to be celebrating Single's Day with its one-day-only "treat yourself" sale, which discounts a number of video games, smart home devices, wearables and more. Whether you decide to pick something up for yourself or someone on your list, there are a handful of decent tech deals in this sale -- and Amazon's matching a couple of them. We gathered them all here so you don't have to search for them. The Sonos Five, which was previously called the Sonos Play:5, is $100 off at Best Buy, bringing it down to $399.

If you recently purchased a Ring Video Doorbell, take note. About 350,000 of the smart video doorbells are being recalled for potential fire and burn risks. The recall is for the second generation of the smart doorbell cameras, which is model number 5UM5E5, according to a recall notice posted Tuesday on the Consumer Product Safety Commission website. "The video doorbell's battery can overheat when the incorrect screws are used for installation, posing fire and burn hazards," the notice says. The affected doorbells were sold at electronics and home goods stores nationwide and online at Amazon.com and Ring.com between June and October 2020 for approximately $100.

Retail executives should prioritize technology investments to support unified retail commerce in today's unpredictable business environment. Now more than ever, I've found that retailers want to systematically analyze store conditions and improve the execution of activities like inventory management and out-of-stock replenishment, price changes and picking of online orders. As managing director of the Americas at a company that offers automated shelf-monitoring solutions, I expect the adoption of real-time store Internet of Things (IoT) systems that "digitize the shelf" by employing autonomous robots and shelf cameras to detect products to peak. But to build a business case with attractive ROI, retail decision-makers will need to understand the impact of these in-store automation solutions on operational practices; measure the potential gains on store sales, staff productivity and customer experience; and ensure they choose the right solution for their store's needs. Covid-19 has exacerbated the inventory distortion in stores worldwide, and IHL Group (via Retail Dive) estimates that retailers are missing out on $1 trillion in sales due to out-of-stocks.