More devices are in the hands of shoppers. Even Apple has one coming out this year. But the key is personalizing the order so if a consumer shouts out "detergent," the voice assistant will know the exact brand that the shopper wants. Target says that it will give customers the option to link their accounts with Google Express for more personalized shopping. In fact, Walmart, which went live with voice shopping last week, is integrating its easy reorder feature -- which has data on both store and online purchases -- into Google Express.

Today, AWS and Microsoft announced Gluon, a new open source deep learning interface which allows developers to more easily and quickly build machine learning models, without compromising performance. Gluon provides a clear, concise API for defining machine learning models using a collection of pre-built, optimized neural network components. Developers who are new to machine learning will find this interface more familiar to traditional code, since machine learning models can be defined and manipulated just like any other data structure. More seasoned data scientists and researchers will value the ability to build prototypes quickly and utilize dynamic neural network graphs for entirely new model architectures, all without sacrificing training speed. Gluon is available in Apache MXNet today, a forthcoming Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit release, and in more frameworks over time.

From categorization to standardization, artificial intelligence promises to upend retail's present and future, starting with big data. There's something the apparel retail industry doesn't want to talk about. Consumers are spending less on clothing. It doesn't take an analyst to spot that this is problematic for retailers. To make matters worse, rent prices are rising, product cycles are getting shorter and fast-fashion retailers -- with their low prices and enviably speedy reactions -- are eating up market share.

Many years ago (don't ask me how I know this!) the hamburger chain Burger King began branding themselves with this slogan: "Have it your way!" It was pure marketing genius! The idea that you could order something, in this case a hamburger, at a fast food dispensary that would be tailor-made to your specific personal tastes was revolutionary – it set them apart from their competitors. Something similar happened when Amazon.com, one of the first major online stores in the Internet era, began suggesting books (and other products) to their customers that were an amazingly good match to each individual's personal tastes. Of course, Amazon accommodated its customers with this value-added service by invoking a scientific procedure, data science applied to customer data, not by asking customers directly (as did Burger King).

Echo devices keep getting better, getting multi-room audio, access to Google calendars, and intercom features. Now, though, Amazon just matched one of Google Home's killer features: the ability to recognize multiple voices. In a video on the retailer's help site, you can see how to set up and use Voice Profiles. Alexa can now recognize voices in order to route Messages, Calls, allow access to shopping without a confirmation code, play Flash briefings and access an Amazon Music Unlimited Family plan based on the person speaking. To set up your own voice profile, you'll need to go through the Amazon app.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is investing US$15 billion to establish overseas research hubs to work on artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing and fintech, according to a report by BNN. The Alibaba'Damo' academy will comprise of eight research bases in China, Israel, the United States, Russia and Singapore, for which the company will hire 100 researchers. "The Alibaba DAMO Academy will be at the forefront of developing next-generation technology that will spur the growth of Alibaba and our partners," Jeff Zhang, chief technology officer of Alibaba, said. The company and its affiliates have experienced a rapid expansion in the past year, putting it in direct competition with heavyweight e-tailer Amazon.com, as well as global payments, cloud and logistics companies. Since 2016, Alibaba has invested approximately US$2 billion to acquire a majority stake in Singapore-based retailer Lazada.com,

For example, the online retailer matches online and offline CRM signals to build up a customer persona, then uses life stage analysis to tie the data sets together to power product recommendations and on-site search recommendations. Find the rest of this session, and more, at our 2017 OMMA@Advertising Week Agenda Page.

"This book appears in the Information Science and Statistics Series commissioned by the publishers.

Customers with questions about their online orders this holiday shopping season may think they're asking a seasonal worker for help, but artificial intelligence (AI) is likely giving them the information they need. Technology of all kinds is being used on the back end of retail, to organize inventory and manage other operational functions. Whether it's chatting with a bot or with Alexa, AI is also increasingly becoming a part of the consumer-facing shopping process in ways that, at least for now, are about improving customer service. According to the latest Accenture data, a majority of consumers are already using or would like to use a number of technologies that are powered by AI when shopping, including chatbots ("automated intelligent customer assistance," 65%), virtually trying on clothing (65%), and voice commerce systems like Google Home GOOG, 0.19% (68%) and Amazon Alexa (71%). Personalization, ease and convenience are key to better customer service in retail, whether that's through supply chain management and making sure items are in stock and can be sent to customers in a timely fashion, or through services designed to cater to the preferences of the individual shopper.

Google, the core unit of Alphabet Inc., is betting the upgraded devices will help it crack the competitive market for consumer-tech devices and catch up to juggernauts Apple Inc., AAPL -0.06% Samsung Electronics Co. and Amazon.com Google's new home speakers range in price from $50 to $400, challenging Apple at the top of the market and Amazon at the bottom. Throughout the event, Google touted the devices' smarts as a main selling point, versus their hardware upgrades. "To be honest, it's going to be tougher and tougher for people to develop new exciting products each year because that is no longer the timetable for big leaps forward in hardware alone. And that is why we're taking a very different approach," Google hardware chief Rick Osterloh said at the event.