Two-year-old DemandJump Inc. is one of the area's hottest startups--and it had a 2016 that many startups would kill for. Last year, the Indianapolis-based company won two TechPoint Mira awards (often called the Oscars of Indiana tech), was a finalist for the prestigious Red Herring Top 100 Global award, added former Wal-Mart marketing chief Julie Lyle to its team, and secured an investment from Boston-based venture capital heavyweight Bob Davoli. The 17-person company, which targets marketers with its artificial intelligence software, has not raised a ton of money--about $2.6 million so far. But it's approaching $1 million in annualized revenue with a product that's been on the market only nine months. And the company has caught the attention of research firms Forrester and Intelligentsia.

In early February, Target stunned its employees when it announced it was shutting down it's store of the future, before it was even opened. With Amazon's December announcement of Amazon Go, new technology for their mini-grocery stores will require substantially less employees to run and automate check-out. Grab and go shopping really is the advent of the Internet of things in retail with a few twists. We can think of it as mobile-centric Just Walk Out Technology, as Amazon has branded it. So what makes it possible?

In my last retail review, I explored how my learnings at NRF 2017 changed my view ofthe so-called omni-channel (Omni-channel may be science fiction, but a single source of truth matters). That leaves open the impact of predictive, "AI", and personalization tech on retail. CEO and Founder Alan O'Herlihy gave me a fast-paced rundown of how his company has become entrenched in five of the ten largest global retailers. How did they pull it off? Get ready for this one: instead of pursing the singularity, they focused their deep learning tech on a real world pain point: lost sales at the point of sale.

What will shopping be like in 10 years? No one knows all the details (that's exciting!), but one thing is for sure: it will be very different than it is today. History is clear about that. In the mid-19th century, most people in the US were shopping at small markets. They would tell the manager what they wanted, and then wait for the item to be retrieved from the back or from the supplier.

Amazon is bringing Alexa to the iPhone today right inside of the company's main app. While this isn't the first time Alexa has been on a smartphone -- third parties have made it happen already -- this is the first time it's coming directly from Amazon. And it could be a huge help to anyone who's filling their home with Alexa-enabled devices. Inside of the Amazon App for iOS, there will be a microphone icon near the top of the screen that you can press to call up Alexa. You'll be able to ask the assistant almost anything you'd normally be able to ask through a device like the Echo.

Amazon's virtual assistant just got a much wider audience. The company announced it's integrating Alexa into its main shopping app on iPhone, starting today with a full rollout expected by next week. The assistant can do more than just provide a voice interface to Amazon's retail store, however – it can also control your smart home, play your music or Kindle books, answer questions, check the news and weather, and take advantage of Alexa's extensions, known as Skills. Basically, it's a mobile version of Alexa that you can use even without Amazon hardware, like an Echo speaker or Fire TV. It may seem a bit odd to think of using a virtual assistant via a shopping app rather than, say, the existing Alexa mobile app.

Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing Co. is betting that speed, both in supplying its stores with the latest fashion and getting custom-made products to shoppers, will allow it to overtake apparel powerhouse Zara. Fast Retailing plans to shorten the time it takes from design to delivery to about 13 days, roughly the same as Zara, owned by the world's biggest clothes retailer Inditex SA, Uniqlo's billionaire owner Tadashi Yanai said in an interview at the company's new design and delivery center that opened Thursday in an industrial area of Tokyo. The new complex will also help Uniqlo expand direct-to-consumer, custom-clothing sales and improve the efficiency of its same-day delivery in the Tokyo area, he said. "We need to be fast," he said. "We need to deliver products customers want quickly."

Two weeks ago, I compiled a list of the 5 jobs robots will take first. Last week, I compiled a list of the 5 jobs robots will take last. Both previous essays are about robots replacing human workers who do cognitive nonrepetitive work (such as middle managers, salespersons, tax accountants, and report writers) that most people do not believe robots will be able to do any time soon. For those essays, I defined robots as technologies, such as machine learning algorithms running on purpose-built computer platforms, that have been trained to perform tasks that currently require humans to perform. For this writing, let's expand the definition of robot to any autonomous system designed to do work that used to require humans to perform.

Amazon is taking Alexa to iOS in their latest app update. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Amazon is taking Alexa to iOS in their latest app update.

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 20: People visit the new Google pop-up shop in the SoHo neighborhood on October 20, 2016 in New York City. The shop lets people try out new Google products such as the Pixel phone, Google Home, and Daydream VR. The products will be available for purchase offsite at Verizon and Best Buy retail stores. Imagine the scene, you're relaxing at home about to head out for the day so you ask Google "what's the weather like" or "what meetings do I have" and what you get back is a spoken-word advert hastily stuck in the middle of your itinerary. New Beauty & the Beast promo is one way Google could monetize Home.