Although artificial intelligence systems may be able to beat humans at board games, we still have the upper hand when it comes to complicated manual tasks. But now, scientists have created robots that can do something even most humans struggle with: Assemble an IKEA chair. Putting together a chair requires a combination of complex movements that, in turn, depends on such skills as vision, limb coordination, and the ability to control force. Until now, that was too much to ask of even a sophisticated robot. But researchers have finally broken the dexterity barrier by combining commercially available hardware, including 3D cameras and force sensors, to build two chair-building bots.

The robot described above, if properly equipped, could tackle other industrial tasks, such as drilling, glue dispensing and inspection, Suarez-Ruiz said. The research team is now trying to make the robot capable of bonding glass and drilling holes through metal -- skills that could be useful in the automotive and aircraft industries.

From machine learning applications in retail, to intelligent systems in e-commerce, artificial intelligence (AI) is completely changing the digital landscape. Digital advertising is becoming smarter with improved targeting, the digital shopping experience is getting revitalized with tailored recommendations and streamlined transaction, and AI is the catalyst in the middle leading the charge. On the business side, AI drives revenue growth by allowing us to engage existing customers in more meaningful ways. Through this, targeting and segmenting is also streamlined, something that benefits consumers as well because they see more of what they want, rather than what the retailer wants. The point being that AI is improving the digital shopping experience for all. Let's take a look at a couple of examples of AI in retail stores, and AI use cases in retail as well to illustrate this change in detail.

The stressful task of assembling flat-pack furniture looks set to become a thing of the past following the unveiling this week of a robot that can do it for you. Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore, have created an android featuring a 3D camera and "industrial robot arms" with grippers that is capable of assembling furniture without human help, The Guardian reports. Tasked with constructing Ikea's £18 Stefan chair, two robots working together successfully assembled the chair in just nine minutes - faster than it would take most humans, the newspaper says. However, the scientists had previous spent around 11 minutes programming the robots to perform the assembly process. The team hope that, by integrating more artificial intelligence (AI) into the robots, they will one day be able to teach themselves how to build pieces of furniture by studying the instruction manual, looking at a picture of the finished item, or through verbal commands, the newspaper reports. Although robots have been used in car assembly lines for decades, more intricate tasks - such as building Ikea furniture - poses a far great challenge for droids, reports the Daily Mail.

Ms. Chan pointed to Amazon.com Inc.'s new "Go" convenience store in Seattle as an example. Shoppers at the store are tracked by an array of sensors, and the store uses computer vision and machine-learning algorithms to charge shoppers, follow them through the store and learn about their buying habits. Ms. Chan expects stores to more deeply integrate artificial intelligence into the shopping experience. For example, she said, stores in the future will allow shoppers to scan food for nutrition and other information, then suggest other items to round out a meal and guide shoppers through the store--all while gathering and storing information about shoppers' buying habits.

McKinsey Global Institute's latest research on artificial intelligence focuses on how AI will affect business, analyzing 400 use cases -- from airlines avoiding flight cancellations to online retailers recommending items -- across 19 industries. In aggregate, McKinsey projects that AI could eventually drive between $3.5 trillion and $5.8 trillion of annual economic value in those industries -- a wide range, and with no timeline on that forecast. In general, AI -- once it is further integrated into business -- has the potential to drive growth. In 69 percent of the use cases McKinsey studied, "deep neural networks can be used to improve performance beyond that provided by other analytic techniques," according to the report. In the 19 industries McKinsey focused on for the report, it estimated the impact of AI somewhere between 1 percent and 12 percent of annual revenue.

COMPUTERS have already proved better than people at playing chess and diagnosing diseases. But now a group of artificial-intelligence researchers in Singapore have managed to teach industrial robots to assemble an IKEA chair--for the first time uniting the worlds of Allen keys and Alan Turing. Now that machines have mastered one of the most baffling ways of spending a Saturday afternoon, can it be long before AIs rise up and enslave human beings in the silicon mines? The research also holds a serious message. It highlights a deep truth about the limitations of automation.

Retailers, struggling to connect with their customers, have been trialling new technologies to blend in-store and digital experiences. Interactive kiosks, mobile-friendly websites and transactional apps have become the norm. But shoppers are looking for deeper connections. If mobile is the glue connecting digital and physical retail, then location and voice technology are the bedrock of meaningful shopping experiences of the future. Historically, the first three rules of retail were always – "location, location, location".

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Robots in Singapore have completed a task many humans dread - assembling flat-packed IKEA furniture. Sifting through pages of instructions and a jumble of screws and bolts to build the low-cost Swedish furniture may soon be a thing of the past given advances in technology, say researchers at the city-state's Nanyang Technological University.