Companies and researchers unveiled potential use cases of machine learning and its benefits were discussed and debated at length. Nevertheless, as organisations were opened to the realm of possibilities capable with machine learning solutions, hesitation grew and few made the leap towards a data-driven journey. But as the necessity of machine learning becomes more evident, 2017 will see trepidation and hesitation replaced by yearning ambition. More than providing a competitive advantage, enterprises will come to see the technology as an essential part of their "survival kit" in an ever competitive market. The rise and growth of IoT throughout 2016 has provided fertile ground for organisations wanting to adopt machine learning solutions.

Now is the time of the year when every marketer should well reflect on the achievements of 2016 and holistically examine what the New Year is going to mean for marketing, branding, and business. With this article I proceed with a good tradition by following-up on my previous and related articles for 2016, 2015, and 2014. As we all know, paying attention to what's on the horizon does offer valuable insights. Knowing the below-listed 16 marketing trends which I consider as highly relevant for 2017, should help you to build, expand, and keep strong brands. Although this should have been ingrained in every marketer s DNA for years, however, with all the data, tech, and buzzwords flying around, one of the biggest marketing challenges of 2017 will be to stay calm, focused, and to be obsessed with the only one that matters: Your customer! How to identify her, to reach her, to engage her, to make her purchase, to have her stay loyal, to make her to recommend you, and to have her even re-purchase more of your products in the future? There is a certain risk that (marketing) managers – more than ever – get confused and fall into the trap of mixing up data-driven insights with a real customer-centric business philosophy. Therefore successful companies and brands don t worship the data gods for the sake of it; instead they have a comprehensive and deeply rooted digital transformation strategy in place which is flanked by a crystal clear marketing action plan. Enhanced and lived by every employee of the organization and not only by a chief digital officer who very often is floating around the company in search for a home base.

After the close of last year's holiday shopping season, sales of dollhouses mysteriously surged on Amazon.com. After a local news report about a six-year old who ordered a dollhouse using her parents' Amazon Echo, the anchorman said ""I love that little girl saying'Alexa ordered me a dollhouse.'" And mistakenly, Echo speakers that heard the news started making orders themselves. Enabled on every Amazon Alexa app by default, voice purchasing mines your previous Amazon purchases and other products available through the Amazon Prime subscription shopping service to let you easily order items without having to browse the company's website. So the best way to ensure something like this doesn't happen to you is to disable or restrict the feature.

Forbes Shutterstock Image READ MORE 6. "There an estimated 3,000 AI startups worldwide, and many of them are building on NVIDIA's platform. They're using NVIDIA's GPUs to put AI into apps for trading stocks, shopping online and navigating drones." Read more … Aaron Tilley Writer 7. The retail sector is now best positioned to leverage AI and Deep Learning, as these new technologies are developing… 8. READ MORE AI software such as Computer Vision is being developed by startups to help retail consumers find the perfect and individualized fit. THIRD LOVE A app that enables women to find the right fitting bra from home using a mobile device and deep learning. VOLUMENTAL Offers computer vision applications for sizing shoes and eyewear to create a individualized retail experience for customers.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already transformed a wide range of industries. From healthcare and media to finance and retail, tedious, manual tasks have been replaced with automation, operational processes have been updated via machine learning and future trends are being accurately and continually predicted thanks to AI-powered technologies. Research firm Markets and Markets estimates the AI market will grow from $420 million in 2014 to $5.05 billion by 2020 due to the rising adoption of machine learning and natural language processing technologies in the healthcare, media, finance and retail industries. And with increasing consumer enthusiasm for the Internet of Things, the market stands to expand even further. In fact, Gartner estimates that 6 billion connected devices will be actively requesting support from AI platforms by 2018.

Virtual assistants and chatbots are here to make our lives easier. Retailers ranging from Nordstrom to DSW and Sephora offer chatbots to find presents for your friends and family through Facebook Messenger. Whole Foods' bot makes it easy to find a recipe for any occasion and dietary preference. Or if your hands are full, Alexa can do the same thing through voice commands. At their core, however, bots are simply applications that perform a designated task.

Amazon.com said today it would create more than 100,000 full-time jobs in the US over the next 18 months. Seattle-based Amazon said it plans to increase its full-time US-based workforce to more than 280,000 by the middle of 2018 from 180,000 in 2016. "These jobs are not just in our Seattle headquarters or in Silicon Valley - they're in our customer service network, fulfillment centers and other facilities in local communities throughout the country," CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. Amazon had about 230,800 full-time and part-time employees as of December 31, 2015. The move comes with Amazon expanding from its origins as an online retailer to a diversified tech company offering streaming video and music, cloud computing, and home automation through its artificial intelligence program Alexa.

Amazon.com hires a lot of people. But the expansion of its army of orange-wheeled robots is more than keeping pace. The world's largest e-commerce retailer said it has 45,000 robots in some 20 fulfillment centers. That's a bigger headcount than that of the armed forces of the Netherlands, a NATO member, according to World Bank data. It's also a cool 50 percent increase from last year's holiday season, when the company had some 30,000 robots working alongside 230,000 humans.

Ford cars will soon offer Alexa, but also competitive agents. Amazon's Alexa voice agent has been the biggest surprise hit for the mammoth online retailer since it moved into the cloud storage business with Amazon Web Services. Alexa showed up at CES 2017 in full force. As Larry Dignan notes, the agent picked up friends in high places, including Ford, Whirlpool, Dish Network, Huawei, Hyundai, Mattel, Lenovo, LG, Samsung and ADT. That shouldn't be a surprise to those who noted the rise of Alexa at CES 2016.

It already seems an age since Christmas and the speculation about who might'win'. And this year was no less hard fought than usual. But there was a distinct theme of getting back to what matters running through many of the big ads of the season. It was perhaps this renewed focus on the humanity of the festive period as opposed to the commerciality that swung it for Sainsbury's in the end (we'll conveniently forget that we are still talking about a supermarket winning Christmas). As we look back at a very challenging 2016, and set out our ambitions for a better, happier, less odd 2017, people are focusing more on how they can grow, rather than how they can gain.