It's Friday afternoon and, while leaving office, you receive a weather alert on your mobile from your favorite retailer -- a thunderstorm will be in your area in about three hours. Your daughter's birthday is tomorrow and you need to buy few items on your way home. Lucky for you, the retailer has a cognitive agent in its app so you can check to see if you can order your daughter's gift online using the app. You ask the cognitive agent "What I should buy for a 5-year-old girl's birthday?" The agent gives you various options as well as new fashion trends in girls' clothing and provides the popularity of these products.

They say "seek and you shall find," but sometimes, a search doesn't always come up as fruitful as all parties had hoped. This can especially be the case in eCommerce. "Site search has been an unsolved problem in eCommerce, with online retailers losing significant revenue every day because they are not able to connect shoppers to the products they are most likely to buy," said Pavan Vilas Sondur, CEO and cofounder of Unbxd, a cloud-based eCommerce product discovery solution that helps marketers deliver a personalized and tailored shopping experience to their customers. "Unbxd uses advanced artificial intelligence, Big Data and predictive analytics to help eCommerce companies improve their site search." The mission of the business is to help empower retailers to build engagement with their customers through a search that understands natural language, is personalized for each shopper and is continually learning and adapting to the latest consumer trends.

It's almost Christmas and you still haven't gotten gifts for everyone. In a world that's increasingly wired and well connected, a great tech gift might be the perfect fix for your Christmas gift woes. Here are some items you can get in stores this week at the last second, all of which will be sure to please this Christmas. The Google Home could be a perfect product for any techie. It's essentially like living in a long-imagined future where you speak commands -- such as "Play a favorite song" or ask a random question -- and the little, oblong speaker calmly answers.

Where appropriate, we brought back trends from previous reports, once they had hit tipping point or promised new value.We looked ahead to predict which consumer segments will be most affected by the trend, how it will evolve, and identified brands that are leading the way. They are the early adopters of new technology. Millennials – those born after 1982 – are adept at making the most of technology to create a world of difference for themselves. Technology has given them the freedom to redefine the way they work, play, shop and to take control of their daily activities. Their dependence on their smartphones and other new technologies sets their expectations for how they want to engage with brands. Generation Z – defined loosely as those born after the late 1990s – are the first true digital native generation, and are the native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the internet.

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Carrefour, the French supermarket giant whose name translates to "intersection," is building a new service capability to support its broad omnichannel strategy. The company is rolling out modern apps, such as one that makes it easier for consumers to shop using mobile devices and pick up their groceries without having to leave their cars--or their homes, for that matter. It's also adding modern capabilities that help customer service agents provide more efficient assistance, whether consumers are reaching out via email, web chat, or phone. These types of capabilities are growing in importance. Some 54% of consumers expect "promotions and offerings that are more relevant to me," and 25% are looking for a "more personalized experience," according to a survey by consulting firm Morar, conducted on behalf of Oracle.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing everything from marketing to healthcare. And this holiday season is the beginning of the future for how marketers will leverage AI to better understand, connect with, and create superior experiences for consumers. To better appreciate the impact that AI is having on retailers, I connected with IBM's first CMO, Michelle Peluso. Peluso has a strong background in retail, having served at the CEO of Gilt as well as the Global Consumer Chief Marketing and Internet Officer at Citigroup. Peluso provides her thoughts below on how Watson's AI capability is changing the way retailers impact the consumer shopping experience.

This will reduce attrition, hiring costs and the effort.

Mark Zuckerberg on Monday introduced the world to "Jarvis", an artificial intelligence system the Facebook chief created in his spare time, which can choose and play music, turn on lights, and recognize visitors, deciding whether to open the front door. Jarvis, named after the virtual assistant in the Iron Man movies, could be a step toward a new product, Zuckerberg wrote, although he cautioned that the system he had created in 100 hours over the last year was customized for his house. Zuckerberg announced results of the project, a personal challenge he set for himself this year, as digital home assistants by Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc compete for holiday sales and are expected to outsell popular emerging gadgets such as virtual reality headsets and drones. Creating Jarvis proved humanity is "both closer and farther off" from an AI breakthrough than we imagine, Zuckerberg wrote.

US drone delivery service Flirtey on Monday announced that its self-piloting flying machines have whisked flu medicine, hot food and more from 7-Eleven convenience stores to customers' homes. The Nevada-based company boasted of being the first drone service to complete regular commercial deliveries to residences in this country, having completed 77 such autonomous missions. "We have now successfully completed the first month of routine commercial drone deliveries to customer homes in partnership with 7-Eleven," Flirtey chief executive Matthew Sweeny said in a release. "This is a giant leap towards a future where everyone can experience the convenience of Flirtey's instant store-to-door drone delivery." Flirtey said it made 77 drone deliveries to homes of select customers on weekends in November, filling orders placed using a special application.