Someday soon we'll sit Amazon's Echo and Google Home side by side on the kitchen counter and do the Pepsi Challenge to see which smart speaker is smarter and most helpful. We'll ask each of their voice-powered assistant services a series of questions. Give them a series of tasks to do. They'll read recipes, give traffic reports, talk about the weather, answer trivia questions. Or at least that's my best guess after seeing Home's unveiling at Google's I/O conference keynote on Tuesday.

In my article Voice and Mobile Search-the way forward, I have discussed that search is constantly evolving, as technology improves the lives of people and consumer behavior shifts. Search is getting more into local mode. Local consumers are now using mobile technology more that has affected how marketers engage with and convert the local shoppers who are always curious about deals and discounts. This means search must be an integral part of a strong marketing strategy in a smarter way which can't be a one-size-fits all approach and need to be planned meticulously to understand the consumer activities. Data available from social media channels is a great example of the way in which new digital technologies provide business with a more comprehensive understanding of the consumer.

Pepper, the robot that has been trained to "perceive" human emotion, is opening up its platform to Android developers. Maker SoftBank is hoping that it will spur new apps and new capabilities for the humanoid robot which has sold well but still has no clear defined purpose. Ten thousand of the robots have been sold but developers have been slow to make apps for its closed Naoqi operating system. Android will run on a tablet strapped to the robot's chest. Neither Google nor SoftBank has disclosed what sort of business deal they have struck and it is unclear if the robot will take advantage of new features such as the recently announced artificial intelligence Google Assistant. But it will almost certainly offer Google some degree of control over the robot as well as a cut of revenues.

In order to outperform more traditional machine learning methods, deep neural nets require large amounts of data and expertise with highly-parallel and high-performance graphics processing unit (GPU) computing. Insilico Medicine is working on over a dozen different applications of deep learning methods to regenerative medicine, embryonic development, cross-species comparison and drug discovery and repurposing providing contract research services and developing a range of molecules for cancer, metabolic and CNS pathologies. We want to minimize animal testing and simulate many biological processes in silico", said Putin, deep learning lead at Insilico Medicine, Inc. To develop a data set of blood biochemistry and cell count samples Insilico Medicine collaborated with the largest independent laboratory test service provider in Eastern Europe, Invitro Laboratories. Using this data set Insilco Medicine scientists then trained 40 different deep neural networks (DNNs) of different depth with a single neuron output predicting chronological age and optimized using different optimizers and started organizing these DNNs into an ensemble.

Neuroscientists at DeepMind, a Google-owned AI lab in London, have teamed up with academics at Oxford University and UCL to try and determine how the human brain navigates an underground train network. The group -- whose work was published in the journal Neuron this week -- asked humans to plan a journey in a virtual subway network. Participants were tasked with getting from A to B while MRI scans of their brain were taken. These scans showed which parts of the brain are involved in planning and making decisions. The group, which included Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, concluded that the brain splits the task of completing a journey into different jobs, with different parts of the brain handling different elements of the task.

Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons pumped an undisclosed amount in Bangalore-based artificial intelligence startup niki.ai. Along with Mr. Tata, Existing investor, Ronnie Screwvala's Unilazer Ventures also participated in this funding round. Unilazer had invested in the chat App back on October 2015 and had made a commitment of a follow-on investment round of up to Rs 5 crore. "Chatbots have now picked up globally and Niki has been at the forefront of this innovation, building the technology for over a year now. We continue to support the team as we believe in their vision to simplify transactions for consumers," said Screwvala.

"It is exciting to see the power of deep learning applied to potential aging biomarkers. The availability of such markers is an essential prerequisite for any future clinical trials to try to ameliorate the effects of human aging", said Charles Cantor, PhD, CSO of Agena, Inc, former director of the Human Genome Project (DOE). The availability of big data coupled with advances in highly-parallel high-performance computing led to a renaissance in artificial neural networks resulting in trained algorithms surpassing human performance in image and voice recognition, autonomous driving and many other tasks. However, the adoption of deep learning in biomedicine and especially in the pharmaceutical industry has been reasonably slow. In order to outperform more traditional machine learning methods, deep neural nets require large amounts of data and expertise with highly-parallel and high-performance graphics processing unit (GPU) computing.

Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata and Unilazer Ventures founder Ronnie Screwvala has invested an undisclosed amount in artificial intelligence-powered chat app Niki.ai. The company said it would use the funds to strengthen its technology and increase the base of partner businesses. Sachin Jaiswal, chief executive officer of Niki.ai, said, "It's a proud moment for the company to have an investment from Tata and for Unilazer to do a follow-on round. With the continued support from our investors, we now want to expand aggressively across categories." Niki uses the method of natural language processing, which enables machines to understand human language inputs, and machine learning, wherein the machine self-learns with increasing data to converse with the customers over a chat interface and helps them to place various orders.

Our goal has always been to help publishers and advertisers thrive and create sustainable businesses. For many years Google has used optimization and machine learning techniques to improve the performance of our ads products, and now we're happy to share that we've been extending those techniques to DoubleClick Ad Exchange customers. Today we are introducing Optimized Private Auctions and optimized pricing in the Open Auction to help our publisher partners grow their revenue and give programmatic buyers greater access to premium inventory. Private Auctions were developed to help publishers negotiate higher prices by creating special segments of inventory for preferred buyers. As deal volume has grown, we discovered an additional opportunity for publishers to make even more money with Private Auctions.

THE REWARD - Invitation to join other winning startups in the Webhelp "Customer Experience" Lab at Viva technology Paris 2016 (June 30 to July 2016) - Opportunity to work with Webhelp's Global R&THE REWARD - Invitation to join other winning startups in the Webhelp "Customer Experience" Lab at Viva technology Paris 2016 (June 30 to July 2016) - Opportunity to work with Webhelp's Global R&D Team in our development Lab to further develop and test your product - Invitation to an exclusive event with Webhelp's Founders, Olivier Duha and Frederic Jousset and representatives from our major investors KKR to discuss their startup experiences and advice - Opportunity to make joint proposals for your product alongside Webhelp to organisations selected from our client-base of over 300 leading business THE CHALLENGE It is clear that A.I., Digital Assistants, Virtual Agents, Messaging Bots etc are going to transform how customers and organisations interact with each other. How can organisations adopt these technologies cost-effectively to provide outstanding customer experiences and increase customer value? Dave Pattman, Director Global R&D at Webhelp says "Automation and Robotics are already starting to manage interactions between customers and organisations. Understanding how and when to blend machine and human agents to optimise experience and value will become increasingly important" Webhelp is interested in hearing from startups working in fields such as artificial intelligence, biometrics, machine learning and messaging Bots If you think your startup meets these criteria, apply now to be selected in the Webhelp lab! Being in the "Customer experience" lab means: - Being at the heart of Viva Technology Paris with a dedicated 4m² stand in "Customer experience" lab of Webhelp - Engaging partnerships opportunity reviews, increasing potential business or even considering all kinds of commercial and financial opportunities thanks to becoming close to the right people at the right place - Meeting the most influential investors and thinkers About Webhelp. Webhelp is a Global Customer Experience provider.