The speaker orders Google Assistant to book him a hair-cutting appointment. Google Assistant places a call to a nearby salon. The reception picks the call. Google Assistant talked its way out with the receptionist and in a very human manner asked it to book an appointment, which she obediently did. All this happened during Google's annual keynote event I/O 2018 in the front of thousands of people.

The Internet changes rapidly, which means marketers and business leaders must hurry to change with it. While most Internet searches were once done on laptops and desktops, people are now using their smartphones with similar devices to conduct searches for information, local businesses, products, and services. That shift was closely followed by another somewhat more distinctive shift called artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted voice search. In the past, a smartphone user would need to type a question or phrase into Google or another search engine to get a set of results to sift through. Now, AIs like Siri and Alexa – which reside in smart speakers and on smartphones, tablets, and laptops – have changed the way users are searching for the information, products, and services they need.

When Amazon announced the Echo Show, it had a simple premise: The device would be an Amazon Echo with a screen. Now, the Show seems to be among the first in a new category of connected home devices called smart displays. The latest to debut is Lenovo's Smart Display, a Google Assistant–imbued countertop gadget with an 8- or 10-inch display and a proportionally large front-facing speaker grille. The device, like the Echo Show, is designed to give users news and information as quickly as they can speak a query out loud. Unlike a traditional smart speaker, which can only read back stats or information via audio, a smart display can also pull up text, imagery, and video to answer your questions.

Artificial intelligence is proving integral to the digital products of tomorrow, and nowhere is that more true than in the marketing space. A new wave of startups are leveraging AI in their marketing platforms, and industry heavyweights are beginning to take notice as well. Companies like Amazon and Apple are even leveraging artificial intelligence to conduct voice-based marketing through devices like their Alexa and Siri platforms, respectively. This is only one use case of AI, but it's illustrative of how the technology can help shape consumers' buying behavior and help them make better purchase decisions. A year or two ago, artificial intelligence was seen as a novelty by marketers, and not many were integrating the technology into their own applications.

IF you ask people whether they think artificial intelligence (AI) will have an impact on their daily lives, many won't admit to having playbacks of science fiction films in their minds. While pop culture might have influenced how we imagine futuristic technologies might look like, what most of us don't realise is that technologies like AI are already here and look set to stay. According to Seagate Technology's latest survey of IT professionals across the Asia-Pacific, AI adoption in Singapore is already so robust that at least six in 10 organisations have already implemented AI in one form or another within areas such as information technology (60 per cent), supply chain and logistics (48 per cent), customer support (49 per cent) as well as research and development (41 per cent). And organisations are hungry for more - nine in 10 have said they are planning to implement AI in the next 12 months. Data is the most fundamental building block that drives AI technology, enabling the likes of Siri, Cortana and Alexa to exist.

It's not a mystery why artificial intelligence (AI) is a hot topic in nearly every corporation today. Businesses have started to explore its benefits in a wide range of areas -- from smarter industrial logistics and supply chain management to improved cybersecurity to predicting what consumers want and offering it to them at the right time. While AI is most often associated with these kinds of applications -- and, of course, with familiar consumer uses like Amazon Alexa's smart personal assistant or Uber charging you for a ride based on predictive pricing models -- another increasingly fertile area for AI is the information technology (IT) systems that companies depend on to run their businesses. Every day, IT departments face an excruciatingly challenging mission: Provide speed, security and reliability in an increasingly demanding and unforgiving mobile app-driven world -- and do so with ever-fewer resources. It's a really tough job to begin with and, on top of it, IT organizations are now encountering a tidal wave of data from all the interconnected smart devices that make up today's enterprise.

Smart speakers are taking over British homes. A recent UK Gov survey found the number had doubled in three months, with around 10% of Brits owning one – and that 75% of these were Amazon Echo devices. The overwhelming majority are used for basic tasks like playing music and answering general knowledge questions – but with the right tips, tricks, skills and accessories you can get the Echo's digital assistant Alexa to do just about anything… Privacy please You can always mute the mics on an Echo device to stop it listening, but if you're concerned you've been over-sharing, deleting your recordings and query history is the next step. Doing so is easy: you can select individual recordings in the Alexa app, or take the nuclear option and delete your daily, weekly, monthly or entire history through the Alexa privacy settings on the Amazon website. If you have multiple Alexa devices you can use them as an intercom in your home.

The arrival of Artificial Intelligence into the hotel Industry has transformed the way guests communicate with hotels before, during and after their stay. This is a trend prevailing over the industry and it is not stopping anytime soon. Due to the evolution of technology, Artificial Intelligence has the capacity to store a large number of data and information in their memory banks, which can be pulled out anytime. This is very helpful for companies to improve their guest experience and satisfaction as it will be giving their clients what they actually want. This is in addition to overall guest satisfaction in the hotel industry.

An illustration from an Amazon skill that runs an hour-long tape of people talking, to fool burglars into thinking a home is occupied. SAN FRANCISCO -- Homeowners have always come up with clever ways to scare away potential burglars. They leave the television on while they're away, install dummy cameras or plant the classic "BEWARE OF DOG" sign in the front yard, even though it's just a teacup poodle in the backyard. A new "skill" for Amazon's Echo smart speaker takes things a step further: Away Mode attempts to trick potential burglars into thinking somebody is home by playing long audio clips that sound like real -- albeit absurd -- conversations that could be happening inside. The skill, created by Hippo Insurance, a San Francisco-based home insurance company, includes about a half-dozen conversations. Users can ask Alexa to play Away Mode, and it will play recorded conversations like a couple breaking up while trying to watch TV, a frustrated mom explaining to her daughter how to assemble IKEA furniture over the phone or two average guys talking about what makes them unique because they want to start a podcast.

While nuances separate their individual capabilities, they all take roughly the same form: a human-like voice embedded into a smart speaker, mobile phone, automobile, or similar piece of hardware. Japanese messaging giant Line, however, wants to give virtual assistants a more human form. The company this week opened preorders for the latest iteration of the Gatebox virtual home robot, a holographic character that is designed to provide companionship to its owner. The Gatebox is a little table lamp-sized glass case that uses projections and sensors to create a life-like character, called Hikari Azuma, that the user can interact with. By way of a quick recap, the Gatebox was originally developed by a Japanese firm called Vinclu, which launched a limited run of 300 units in 2016, priced at the equivalent of around $2,670 each. It followed up a year later with another run of 39 units before Line acquired a majority stake in the company.