Salesforce.com Inc. CRM 2.82 % 's annual Dreamforce customer conference, set to blanket downtown San Francisco next week, will be an unusual blend of business, technology, entertainment, philanthropy and personal empowerment. The conference, which is the world's largest tech get-together sponsored by a single company, will be an expression of the business-software provider's socially conscious corporate culture and the idiosyncratic character of its Chief Executive Marc Benioff. The event, which is expected to draw 170,000 attendees--17% more than last year--comes as Salesforce, whose public profile to date has been confined largely to salespeople and marketers, is stepping onto a larger stage. The company on Thursday vowed to block Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.57 Meanwhile, Salesforce is considering a bid for the consumer-focused messaging service Twitter.

KLM is piloting DigitalGenius' artificial intelligence (AI) system to help staff respond to the significant number of questions that it receives on social media. When an agent needs to answer an incoming question, he or she gets a proposed answer through AI, which is trained on more than 60,000 KLM questions and answers. The agent then decides whether that is the right answer, can adjust it if necessary and can then send it across the appropriate social network. The AI system learns based on the responses from the agents, meaning it should generate more accurate proposed answers in the future. KLM says it receives around 100,000 mentions each week on social media and has a team of 235 social media service agents.

During a special Made By Google event on Tuesday, Google announced a pair of new phones, an upgraded Chromecast, and its always-on personal assistant Google Home. Google also revealed its own wireless network product, Google Wifi. Here's how it works: Users place a series of small, white devices around the home. Each device broadcasts a wireless network, while simultaneously interacting and communicating with one another to maximize network speed and coverage. Google developed a feature called Network Assist that will monitor you as you move around with a device, such as a phone or tablet, and ensure your device has a strong and reliable connection at all times.

This article is based on an episode of the B2B Market Research Podcast. The audio version is available here. Historically, human brilliance, practice, and skill have been essential to specialized professions. Artificial intelligence is about to change all that. Luckily, The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts gives hope for staying relevant after the AI revolution.

As Hurricane Matthew churns from Haiti toward Cuba and the Bahamas, millions along the Southeast U.S. coast are preparing for the storm. As of midday Tuesday, the entire East Coast from Miami to Boston was within the National Hurricane Center's (NHC) "cone of uncertainty" storm track forecast. With supermarket shelves already going bare in Florida, many are basing crucial storm decisions, such as whether to stay near the shore or head inland, in large part on forecast graphics like the cone of uncertainty map. Forecasters at the NHC produce this map multiple times each day based on new information from computer models, weather observations and other sources. But published, peer-reviewed research, along with an informal poll of Mashable newsroom colleagues, indicates that it's unlikely do itmost people truly understand what the cone of uncertainty graphic actually shows.

Artificial intelligence has captured the rhythm of science fiction. For example, the script of a new science fiction short is the creation of a bot. Although the software provides the order of the word choices, the source material is human. It works by algorithm and it derives its poetic power from the words of human feeling. The results are surprisingly good and even funny, in spite of its mechanized origins.

Salesforce.com Inc. CRM 0.61 % said it would embed artificial intelligence technology into its software for salespeople, making it the latest in a gaggle of companies racing to enhance workplace tools with human-like abilities. The company will demonstrate the new software at its annual user conference next month in San Francisco. Called Einstein, the new offering is a set of online AI services designed to automate tasks, predict behavior and spotlight relevant information. Einstein is the latest in a long line of AI products branded with human-sounding names including Alexa from Amazon.com Inc., Cortana from Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.57 IBM -1.06 % IBM and Microsoft, in particular, have spearheaded a push to offer AI services aimed at corporate users.

The shift in the startup world from apps to A.I. is, in essence, moving from making tools to making people. An app enabled a user to perform a function; at its heart it is DIY. Therefore, apps can be judged by their utility. Does the app help the user solve their problem? If so, then it is a good app.

Confused about what artificial intelligence is? You're in good company. When Stanford University released its first report for the One Hundred Year Study, a long-term look into the future of artificial intelligence, the panel acknowledged: "there is no clear definition of AI (it isn't any one thing)." And while this ambiguity will make it hard to regulate, the authors contend, those same vagaries might also help the field grow. "The lack of a precise, universally accepted definition of AI," they wrote, "probably has helped the field to grow, blossom, and advance at an ever-accelerating pace." Of course, a definition would be helpful.

Google launched an aggressive challenge to Apple and Samsung on Tuesday, introducing its own new line of smartphones called Pixel, which are designed to showcase a digital helper the company calls "Google Assistant." The new phones represent a big new push by Google to sell its own consumer devices, instead of largely just supplying software for other manufacturers. At a starting price of 649, the new phones are aimed at the same markets as Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy flagship phones. Google executives touted features such as a powerful camera and long-lasting battery during a product event Tuesday, where they said the phones will be sold in two screen sizes -- 5 inches and 5.5 inches -- and three colors: black, silver and blue. But they're clearly hoping that the new Pixel phones will be distinguished by their use of Google's software.