The most disruptive force in the consumer products (CP) industry today is the consumer. In the old days, many consumers would accept poor buying experiences – mostly because they had nowhere else to go. But today, CP companies can no longer depend on captive consumers who are reliably channeled to a few retail outlets in the physical world, where the bulk of control exists on the supply side of the equation. In a digital economy, consumers can buy anywhere – in an instant. This change has led to an emphasis on outcomes. Because when consumers can go anywhere, they need a reason to choose you.

Amazon.com is due to unveil a new Echo speaker with a screen that will incorporate video calling capabilities, according to people familiar with the matter, keeping the online retailer one step ahead of tech rivals in seeking to control smart homes. The new device, which is expected to be announced as early as Tuesday, will also allow users to make internet-based telephone calls, according to these people, setting the speaker up to be core to a home's communications. Equipped with a 7-inch touch screen, the device will be able to visually summon answers to verbal questions, providing information like e-commerce search results in a more digestible fashion. The new Echo, which has been in beta testing with employees for a few months, could start shipping to consumers as early as next month. The new device is expected to be priced at more than $200.

That was the message from Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos who was speaking this week during a'Fireside Chat', at the Internet Association's annual gala in Washington, where he also described the world as entering a'golden age' of technology for solving problems. Bezos, who was answering questions from Internet Association President & CEO Michael Beckerman on stage, described AI as an "enabling layer" that will "improve every business." He also discussed Amazon in the early days of the internet, addressing success and failure in business, and his hopes for the future of humanity.Amazon's feelings towards AI and machine learning have never been in doubt. Amazon, described by the Association as a'pioneer' in AI, has made its feelings clear around the use of breakthrough technologies and machine learning, both from an operational and product point of view for more than a decade. Internally Amazon is said to have more than 45,000 robots in use across its global warehouses, operated various ways to fulfil orders and is already testing drones in the UK for future deliveries.It was also one of the first, if not the first, retailer to use AI and machine learning to provide predictive analytics on every individual customer, enabling its platform to predict what else the customer might want to buy – thus boosting sales.

Chatbots are effective engagement tools, and if implemented properly, they can build your sales pipeline and monetize your social media accounts. Chattypeople, a leading bot-building platform, allows you to build a complex chatbot in a matter of minutes. That being said, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to chatbots, so you have to build a chatbot based on your company's specific needs. With Chattypeople, you can build a complex bot that can carry out multiple tasks. Some companies can benefit from using chatbots as a customer care tool, whereas businesses that offer online purchases can use chatbots as a direct sales channels.

Earlier this year, engineers at Wal-Mart Stores who track rivals' prices online got a rude surprise: the technology they were using to check Amazon.com Inc's data was no small matter. Like most big retailers, Wal-Mart relies on computer programs that scan prices on competitors' websites so it can adjust its listings accordingly. Amazon's mastery of the complex, behind-the-scenes technologies that power modern e-commerce allows it to see what its rivals are doing, but increasingly to keep them in the dark. In the world of e-commerce, retailers update prices with ease, sometimes multiple times a day, helped by algorithms that consider inventory levels, sales forecasts and rivals' pricing data.

Two separate research studies, funded by Apptus and carried out by IMRG and Hive, have found that fashion retailers are planning significant investment in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next two years, as they seek to deliver the'real time relevant' customer experiences that are vital to improving sales performance. The study carried out by Hive found that, though retailers plan to invest in AI in a number of areas – online merchandising and personalisation are clear priorities. Asked to identify the areas of their businesses that will benefit the most from automation in the coming 3-5 years, scoring each out of 10, they awarded personalisation a score of 7.9 and online merchandising: 7.8. By contrast customer service scored five out of ten. Why AI? Fashion retailers' race to adopt AI is driven by a growing realisation that the current, manual approach to online merchandising and product exposure is delivering diminishing returns. Conversion rates are in decline, as is customer loyalty, while basket abandonment is on the rise.

Ikea recently launched a survey to gauge how consumers feel about artificial intelligence, and what they are looking for in AI and virtual assistant capabilities, a move which may be a precursor to the retailer launching its own such solution. The survey, called "Do You Speak Human?," was created by Ikea's Space10 innovation and design lab and asks questions such as whether consumers want your AI to be human-like, if it should be male, female or gender-neutral, and even if it should be religious, among other questions. An Ikea official stressed that the retailer remains at an information-gathering stage, New Atlas reports. The company recognizes that AI presents a "tremendous opportunity," but for now it is simply curious how people feel about AI. Consumers can see how their answers stack up to others immediately after taking the survey and have the option to submit an e-mail address to be kept in the loop as the survey progresses.

Digital video consumption has surged, igniting new monetization opportunities for these modern distribution outlets and content makers, a point I explored in a previous essay. The challenge I didn't touch on, however, is how to optimize these monetization events in the most efficient manner. Machine learning is at the root of the answer. Machine learning is when computers learn and analyze new data without being programmed. It's when software can recognize patterns and draw conclusions.

Will physical shops cease to exist? Have we reached the end of online shopping in its current form? Are new technologies such as robots, drones, virtual and augmented reality taking over the shopping experience? These are some of the many questions that gathered retailers at the 2017 RetailDetail Congress in Schelle (Belgium), the pinnacle of the retail industry calendar. This event definitely resulted in food for thought on what to consider as a retailer in the very near future.

GPU instances naturally pair with deep learning as neural network algorithms can take advantage of their massive parallel processing power. AWS provides GPU instance families, such as g2 and p2, which allow customers to run scalable GPU workloads. You can leverage such scalability efficiently with AWS Batch. AWS Batch manages the underlying compute resources on-your behalf, allowing you to focus on modeling tasks without the overhead of resource management. Compute environments (that is, clusters) in AWS Batch are pools of instances in your account, which AWS Batch dynamically scales up and down, provisioning and terminating instances with respect to the numbers of jobs.