The insurance industry – one of the least digitalized – is not surprisingly one of the most ineffective segments of the financial services industry. Internal business processes are often duplicated, bureaucratized, and time-consuming. As the ubiquity of machine learning and artificial intelligence systems increases, they have the potential to automate operations in insurance companies thereby cutting costs and increasing productivity. However, organizations have plenty of reasons to resist the AI expansion; the fear of unemployment and the lack of trust in cognitive systems are among them. But these are hardly justified concerns.

I can't profess to fully understand all of the complexities of localizing services for various languages, nuances, accents and dialects where voice recognition is concerned. However, with Amazon's Alexa ambitions ramping up after its hardware event Thursday, it's worth questioning why the voice assistant's language support is so abysmal. Almost four years after launching, Alexa supports English, French, German and Japanese, with Italian and Spanish on the way. Compare that with Siri, which, within a year of launch, supported all of the above languages, along with Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese -- and some languages were tuned for local differences by that point, too. Apple's voice assistant is now available in 21 languages.

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To use the title of Brad Stone's seminal book about the nation's largest online retailer, Amazon is so much "The Everything Store" that it can be a little hard to remember when it was just a bookstore. But Jeff Bezos' ambitions are actually the grandest in the land, and the dozen-plus Alexa devices the company announced today show the next step. Throughout tech history, incumbents have needed to beware of leapfroggers. Apple never needed to defend a dumb-phone business, so it could upend smartphones. T-Mobile had no landline thinking, so it could become the UnCarrier.

The Alexa-powered Amazon microwave you didn't ask for is here. The company's big hardware splurge encompasses your car, your kitchen and even your walls. There's upgraded Echo devices, too, if that's what you were looking for. Meanwhile, Apple's iOS 12 is an update worth your time, and life insurance companies are very interested in your step count. The company announced not one, not two, but seven new Echo products at an event in Seattle.

Microsoft and Amazon said that voice and video calls via the service will come to Alexa devices (including Microsoft's Xbox One) with calls that you can start and control just by voice. Last year the two companies announced plans to make Alexa and Cortana work together and it's taken a while to arrive, but now it's here. Amazon's push to make people buy more things via its assistant could provide a boost to Microsoft's aspirations of product integration in a way that didn't happen after the launch of the Xbox One and Kinect, which already featured voice control for Skype before Cortana and Alexa were on the scene.

Amazon took a major shot at smart speaker rival Sonos, unveiling all the elements for a complete Alexa-enabled sound system including a slew of new Echo devices for the home and vehicles, along with updates to its Alexa artificial intelligence (AI) assistant. At an event in the US, the company announced audio equipment including the $130 Echo Sub (pictured), a 6-inch subwoofer which can be paired with other Amazon Echo devices to improve sound. It also unveiled Alexa-enabled amplifiers, the $200 Echo Link and $300 Echo Link Amp, to fine tune and boost sound quality in existing stereo equipment; as well as the $35 Echo Input, a plug-in device with four-microphones which adds Alexa to existing speakers. The company also rolled out revamped versions of its staple Echo smart home hub series, including: Echo Show ($230), redesigned with a larger 10-inch display, upgraded speaker system and integration with new content players including Hulu; Echo Plus ($150), featuring a new fabric exterior, a built-in Zigbee hub to connect compatible IoT devices, upgraded speakers and a temperature sensor; and Echo Dot ($50), also with an updated mesh fabric and better speakers. Amazon's effort to bring Alexa to as many devices as possible included the debut of the Echo Wall Clock ($30) to provide a visual display for timers, alarms and reminders; and the company's first smart plug ($25), which is essentially an Alexa-enabled timer.

Inc. said Thursday it will sell its Echo Show display-speaker hybrid in Japan starting in December, with the aim of further cementing its position in the world of voice-controlled devices. The world's largest online retailer said it will now begin taking preorders for the smart speaker, which has a 10-inch HD display, prior to the start of shipping on Dec. 12. It will carry a price tag of ¥27,980. The Echo Show, an internet-connected device that is compatible with Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant, enables users to play music and stream videos.

Unless your customers trust you -- and trust your use of technologies -- your business may soon be on the losing side of the customer experience battle. How do you win wallet share and loyalty today? It starts with staying a step ahead of customers' expectations. Beyond getting personalized marketing messages, customers are looking for touchpoints that reflect their previous interactions. They want an easy checkout experience and seamless transitions between purchase channels -- service that's not only fast but proactive.

Amazon announced more than a dozen new hardware products today, along with several software updates, all aimed at bringing its voice assistant Alexa to more devices in your home--and even to your car. Some of the products were updates to existing Echo devices; others were brand new, like a new Echo Sub speaker, or a Fire TV device that acts as a DVR for local TV broadcasts. And, as rumored, there was a new home appliance in the mix too: An Amazon Basics microwave that works with Alexa and will sell for the low price of $60. There were few dramatic flourishes at the media event in Seattle, Washington as senior vice president of devices and services Dave Limp rattled off the new products. The event was held on the top floor of Amazon's Spheres, a biodome located directly next to the company's corporate offices.