Black Friday may be over, but these deals are still available. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. Black Friday may have come to an end, but that doesn't mean that the thousands of fantastic deals have gone away. Luckily, there's a little thing called Cyber Weekend, in which retailers continue to slash their prices leading up to Cyber Monday. If you missed out on Black Friday shopping yesterday, don't fret, because there's still plenty of sales, savings, and discounts.

For more than 4,000 years, the advertising industry has been defined by new technologies that allow companies, governments and individuals to attract and retain the interest of their target audiences. In Egypt, papyrus was used to deliver some of the world's first commercial advertising in poster form. The first ever advertising "jingle" or sonic logo was the result of ladies of the night in 750 BC Greece hammering nails into their shoes to produce a distinctive tone to attract clients. The advent of the printing press, radio, television, and now the internet and social media have all radically changed the way in which products are sold. In the mid-1990s, as companies and organisations began recognising the internet's potential as a marketing tool, huge amounts of time and money were poured into establishing online footprints.

Technology has played a key role in retail for decades, from early innovations like barcode scanning and digital point of sale devices, to the global frontier of modern logistics. Through it all, however, the fundamentals remain the same: retailers generate huge quantities of data, face unpredictable environments, and need to continually adapt to the ever-evolving needs of the customer. Throw in the chaos of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and you've got one of the most complex enterprise challenges in the world. It's also a challenge tailor-made for AI: a technology that thrives on big data, adapts to change fluidly, and can deliver personalized experiences at scale. With the holiday rush upon us, let's take a look at how two Cloud AI customers--3PM for online shoppers and Tulip for in-store--are helping make retail more efficient, more personal, and more trustworthy.

The creators of Cards Against Humanity are back for their annual Black Friday stunt, and this one is delightfully dystopian. Starting at 11AM ET today and lasting for the next 16 hours, the human writers on the CAH team are facing off against an artificial intelligence to see who can create the most popular new pack of cards, based on how many people pay for more $5 packs. You can upvote or downvote your favorite cards for each side on CAH's website before buying, and you can also watch the humans struggle to come up with new iterations in real time over live stream. On the line are $5,000 bonuses for every employee if team human comes up victorious, or heartless termination in the event the AI takes the top spot. We don't think CAH actually plans to fire their writers if they lose, but it is a clever stunt nonetheless to drum up the human vs. machine narrative at a time when automation may pose a very real threat to millions of jobs in the coming decade, writing included.

Roombas come in a variety of models ideally suited to your needs. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. If you're one of the many Americans who spends roughly six hours a week cleaning your home, it's high time you get yourself a robot vacuum to do the work for you. Black Friday is one of the best times to save big on the handy floor cleaner, like our favorite robot vacuum, the iRobot Roomba i7 . Retailers like Amazon and Walmart are offering savings of up to $251 on select robot vacuum models from brands like iRobot, Bissell, Shark, and more.

Amazon's Smart Plug is on sale for $5 on Black Friday (Photo: Amazon) Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. Amazon's Black Friday deals are in full swing, and Reviewed has coverage of all the best deals on everything from TVs, headphones, smart speakers, to clothing, mattresses, and more. One of the best secrets of Black Friday is Amazon's voice-exclusive deals. If you have an Alexa-enabled device that supports voice shopping (like an Echo speaker), you can just ask Alexa for the current deals. The best deal, by far, is the Amazon smart plug for just $5. Normally $24.99, through Alexa you can get it for $20 off.

The Ninja Foodi 4-in-1 Indoor Grill is just one of the season's top gifts that you can get on major sale at Walmart right now. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. The wait is over: Black Friday deals are finally here. If you're looking to snag a great price on some of the season's top products like Apple AirPods, an iRobot Roomba vacuum, or an Instant Pot, Walmart has you covered. The store is known for its low prices, but they're rolling back even more discounts to help you save big on Black Friday.

Bagging discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday has become a yearly ritual for many of us. The roots go back to the early 20th century – a folk belief is that it is the day retailers go "into the black" after running at a loss for the year. In reality the term was first connected with the day after Thanksgiving as a comment on the nightmarish congestion generated by the crowds in Philadelphia. In the 1980s sports games gave way to shopping as the public's favourite post-Thanksgiving pastime. Cyber Monday arose in the mid-noughties when marketers realized that workers returning to the office following Thanksgiving breaks were making use of high-speed internet connections to shop online bargains.

Statista reports that this year, the value of the global e-commerce sector will peak at R52 trillion and will make up 13.7% of all retail sales with two billion digital buyers. The consumer market is becoming increasingly digital and more people are choosing to buy online. The growth of the e-commerce market has opened up the space for an infusion of innovation and cutting-edge technology to improve customer experience (CX). One such technology is artificial intelligence (AI). It seems that the world is discovering new applications for AI every day.

Artificial intelligence is touching almost every industry in the ongoing era of digital transformation. But what does it mean? Put simply, AI and machine learning -- a closely related idea -- are computer programs that emulate and learn human behavior to then make autonomous decisions. AI can be especially transformative in retail, helping almost every aspect of a retailer's business -- from utilizing data to drive sales, to automating the supply chain, or to hyper-personalize the customer experience. While AI can sound like some far-off idea, it's closer than you may think.