Amazon's Alexa platform continues to be the go-to voice assistant not just for the home, but also vehicles. But it looks like the online-retailer's helper in a cylinder was just given its greatest feature ever: The wake word "computer." That's right, you can now pretend you're in the Star Trek universe. The new wake word joins, "Amazon," "Alexa" and "Echo" as things you can yell at the Alexa platform in order to get it to listen to you. Just don't expect the device to help you locate dilithium crystals to get your starship to travel faster than light.

Many retailers are scared of machine learning. This doesn't come from an unreasonable place. Marketers are afraid to trust technology to assist in making crucial marketing decisions as well. But while machine learning is certainly a game-changer, it doesn't fundamentally alter how businesses communicate with customers. It only better informs marketing decisions to empower smarter and more effective efforts.

This book is not an introductory text. Anyone interested in a particular topic should consult the preface of the text to find out what it is about. The negative reviewers were not fair to the authors on that score. Had they read the preface they would have found out (1) how the authors define data mining, (2) that they see it as a subject with an important mix of statistical methodology and computer science and (3) that it is intended as an advanced undergraduate or first year graduate text on the topic. They also provide a very well organized structure for the text that is well described in the preface.

From creating personalized shopping experiences to offering virtual buying assistants -- AI is improving the online shopping experience for consumers and retailers. Shoppers will be able to easily find the best price for an item and communicate with chatbots for quick customer service. For retailers, they'll be able to better analyze consumer data to predict future buying patterns, create autonomous replenishing systems and also save money and time on customer service by utilizing chatbots. Related: Has Artificial Intelligence Arrived At The Sales Function Yet? A number of companies already employ AI in their ecommerce processes today.

In 1994, Amazon set out to change the world. Its initial public offering three years later valued the company at just $461 million. Is it possible, though, that the company is just getting started? He believes the Seattle retailer is on the verge of explosive growth as it transforms its fast-growing Prime subscription service into the perfect, frictionless omni-channel retail experience. As investors realize the potential scale, Galloway posits Amazon shareholders will be rewarded with the first $1 trillion market valuation.

Wondering when your order from GameStop will be delivered? Simply open Facebook Messenger and ask. Looking for tips on how to pair that new jacket you're eagerly awaiting with jewellery? This is the new retail reality thanks to the emergence of chatbots. Consumers appreciate the level of personalization and convenience that chatbots deliver effortlessly -- and through the channels where they already spend time.

Marketers are the store managers of the online retail world: it's up to them to ensure that visitors are having a good time and finding what they need. The challenge is insight: online store managers find it much harder to see what's really going on in the shop, compared to their real world counterparts. It's not immediately obvious why a particular product isn't selling online, or how customers are getting lost or sidetracked on their way to the checkout. That's why, over the past few years, companies in a variety of sectors have focused their attention on enhancing their user experience (UX). Often seen as a qualitative measure of how users'feel' while on websites, UX has historically been difficult to measure.

Join Entrepreneur's The Goal Standard Challenge and make 2017 yours. From creating personalized shopping experiences to offering virtual buying assistants -- AI is improving the online shopping experience for consumers and retailers. Shoppers will be able to easily find the best price for an item and communicate with chatbots for quick customer service. For retailers, they'll be able to better analyze consumer data to predict future buying patterns, create autonomous replenishing systems and also save money and time on customer service by utilizing chatbots. Related: Has Artificial Intelligence Arrived At The Sales Function Yet?

NEW YORK - As soon as you approach Pepper, a 4-foot-tall robot, she starts sizing you up. Thanks to facial recognition capabilities, Pepper can determine your gender and age bracket. And as you begin asking her questions, she can draw from a vast volume of cloud-based information to give what she thinks are relevant answers. If you smile, she can tell the conversation is going well and that you're finding her answers helpful. If you don't, she might ask you if she's misunderstanding your requests.

As we blast into 2017, marketers are wondering: what innovative technological developments will this year bring? How will these changes affect my strategy? What are my competitors doing, and more importantly, what are my customers expecting? These big, important questions require extensive research, if not a sixth sense for weeding out what's merely a fad, and what's as equally as groundbreaking as, say, the internet. To save you time, we've done the work for you.