If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA TODAY's newsroom and any business incentives. Valentine's Day is only two days away. You could go off and overspend on getting a last-minute flower delivery, or you could get your significant other a gift that's guaranteed to show up on time and doesn't come with added delivery fees. Everyone knows Amazon offers free 2-day shipping on virtually everything for Prime members, but they're not the only retailer that can get your gift to your loved one on time.

During a time when major retailers and malls are permanently closing their doors, and experiential popups by e-commerce brands are reigning supreme, there are far less traditional opportunities for startup brands to get noticed. Currently, the market is swinging in favor of those who have the highest digital marketing budgets (especially when it comes to paid acquisition on social media), so to launch a consumer brand is infinitely more difficult than it was even a year ago. The other day, Fast Company reported that 170 H&M stores will be closing their doors in 2018, bringing the conversation about the stability of fast-fashion to the forefront of brands everywhere. While H&M, Zara, TopShop and Forever 21 are the top of the fast fashion empires, current consumer sentiment, especially among their target demographic, is that socially conscious/zero waste brands are more favorable - even if they cost more. On the other end of the spectrum, large e-commerce companies like Warby Parker, Glossier, Allbirds, and even media organizations like Refinery29 are taking their online presences and growing them using offline experiences.

Inc (AMZN.O) is cutting hundreds of jobs in its consumer business in Seattle, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday, as the company shifts resources into fast-growing areas like its work on voice assistant Alexa. The job cuts, rare for the world's largest online retailer, are in the low hundreds, the person said on condition of anonymity. Amazon determined through planning for 2018 that certain mature areas of its business no longer required as much staff for the results it was seeking, the person said. It was unclear which specific teams inside Amazon were affected. Amazon's consumer organization includes its retail and marketplace businesses, as well as programs like food delivery service Amazon Restaurants.

For more than 250 years the fundamental drivers of economic growth have been technological innovations. The most important of these are what economists call general-purpose technologies -- a category that includes the steam engine, electricity, and the internal combustion engine. The internal combustion engine, for example, gave rise to cars, trucks, airplanes, chain saws, and lawnmowers, along with big-box retailers, shopping centers, cross-docking warehouses, new supply chains, and, when you think about it, suburbs. Companies as diverse as Walmart, UPS, and Uber found ways to leverage the technology to create profitable new business models. The most important general-purpose technology of our era is artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning (ML) -- that is, the machine's ability to keep improving its performance without humans having to explain exactly how to accomplish all the tasks it's given. Within just the past few years machine learning has become far more effective and widely available. We can now build systems that learn how to perform tasks on their own. Why is this such a big deal? First, we humans know more than we can tell: We can't explain exactly how we're able to do a lot of things -- from recognizing a face to making a smart move in the ancient Asian strategy game of Go. Prior to ML, this inability to articulate our own knowledge meant that we couldn't automate many tasks. Second, ML systems are often excellent learners.

IBM Watson, AlphaGo, Amazon Alexa – Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all around us, and holds the promise of connecting us and simplifying our lives like never before. Are they just as impressive and effective? Geoff Hueter, chief technology officer at Certona, explores how AI has the potential to transform retail as we know it, helping brands to overcome the obstacles presented by an ever-demanding, always-on, unforgiving and brand promiscuous shopper. In 2014, a film called Ex Machina brought the concept of AI to the masses. The premise of the film, in a nutshell, sees a budding programmer win a competition with an interesting prize: to test the human qualities of a robot who is just a little bit too self-aware and cunning.

CarStory uses big data to help match car buyers with potential vehicles in their area. Data is the lifeblood of AI. In the last two years alone, approximately 90% of the world's data was created. In combination with processing power, data has allowed for companies to make greater advancements in the automotive retail industry now more than any other time in history. The big question to ask is: how will AI impact automotive retail in 2018?

Big Data enabled AI will begin to change the game for online marketing and website presence – and amazing tools are being launched now to democratize access. While it is easy to get blasé about the impact of cheaper data in general, consider this: In 2017, online shopping finally came online en masse in India thanks to technological advances in the domestic telecommunications network and a drop in the price of data transmission. This means that India last year began to see a world that western audiences, in particular, have now grown blasé too. Except that there are 700 million Indians. That means a country several times the size of the United States is able to go shopping online for the first time. And boy, has that made a difference.

Most retailers of today are completely exchangeable from a customers' point of view. Products and prices are the same and thus no means for differentiation any more. To survive, retailers must continuously deliver a value beyond their core offerings. We advise retailers to focus on CRM to master that challenge, where we understand CRM as a holistic approach that puts customers at the heart of business. The fundament of that approach is to build and foster long-term relationship with key customers and customer segments.

Thanks to social media, consumers are more engaged than ever and have access to information almost at the same level as an industry insider. Senior merchants at retailers and brands have a very difficult time presenting consumers with a point of view because they already have it. Just look at the fragmentation of trends – the chief merchant of a $4 billion apparel brand recently told me "the new trend is that there is no trend." As a result, consumers want what they value, and they are doing the investigation and curation themselves. And, what they see on the runway now, they want now – not months down the road.

Your users have questions and you have answers, but you need a better way for your users to ask their questions and get the right answers. They often call your help desk, or post to your support forum, but over time this adds stress and cost to your organization. Could a chat bot add value for your customers? Interestingly, a recent poll shows that 44% of people would rather talk to a chat bot than to a human! In this post we provide a sample solution, called QnABot (pronounced "Q and A Bot").