Today, we can pull out our smart phones and use various apps to enhance our everyday lives. Digital assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri are able to complete a number of helpful tasks in- and outside the home. Powered by complex coding and algorithms, these technologies are affecting how we interact with things around us, and even each other. But tech experts are warning that while AI has some positive impacts, these new advances could harm our environment. "Like any new innovation, we need to consider and manage potential new risks," Jahda Swanborough, a global environmental leadership fellow and lead at the World Economic Forum, told DW.

As usual, Amazon Prime Day deals were best when it came to buying Amazon's own products. LOS ANGELES -- The "deals" for Amazon Prime Day are everything we expected. Great, generous discounts on Amazon's own products, close-outs on Amazon and other brands' products that didn't do well, and so-so deals on a lot else. The surprise: It wasn't possible to see some of these purported deals early on. We didn't foresee Amazon not being able to handle the traffic to shop, and having much of the website down for over three hours Monday.

Amazon is every online retailer's forbidding nightmare. Last year, it dominated 44 percent of the US eCommerce market and about 4 percent of all domestic retail sales. One Click Retail, an eCommerce analysis provider, explains its dominance with the fact that millennials, Amazon's core demographic, are getting older and starting to spend more. Moreover, advanced marketing capabilities for sellers, developments in Alexa, and pioneering in applications of the hottest technologies make it impossibly hard for smaller competitors to actually… well, compete. Amazon is not only a simple and familiar platform selling everything you can think of -- it's also one of the most innovative players on the market.

In honor of Amazon Prime Day, let's take a look at the inner workings of this company that is pushing the bounds of innovation, not only with Amazon prime, but the many other cutting edge management strategies. The company that sets the tone for so many aspects of customer experience is breaking down internal barriers and showing how other companies can do the same. Amazon, a leader in customer experience innovation, has taken things to the next level by re-organizing the company around its AI and machine learning efforts. Amazon's approach to AI is called a flywheel. In engineering terms, a flywheel is a deceptively simple tool designed to efficiently store rotational energy.

The tech giants are racing to get digital assistants into our homes - the Amazon Echo Dot currently has a 40% discount during Amazon Prime Day - but debate rages over whether they are suitable for children. There have certainly been teething problems. Toy giant Mattel abandoned its "AI babysitter", Aristotle, last year following privacy concerns. And music streaming service Spotify is currently testing a way of filtering out songs with explicit lyrics following complaints from parents that family-friendly versions of tracks did not play by default when requested on smart speakers. Amazon Echo meanwhile added a feature to encourage children to be more polite to it following concerns that the abrupt way in which people talk to it was teaching children to be rude.

Roku is launching its own pair of wireless speakers for the living room. They're aimed at casual TV and movie watchers who want better audio, without the headache of having to install a complicated home audio system. However, you'll have to own a Roku TV in order for the wireless speakers to work. Roku is launching its own pair of wireless speakers for the living room. However, you'll have to own a Roku TV in order for the wireless speakers to work Roku on Monday launched its first pair wireless speakers.

Remember the movie "The Imitation Game"? The tragic story of a brilliant man who decrypted secret German Enigma messages, indirectly shortened World War II, saved millions of lives, and was later charged for homosexuality, forced to undergo chemical treatment, and ended his life shortly after? The real Alan Turing accomplished many more brilliant miracles than this. He also published papers on theories of artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, the title "The Imitation Game" had little to do with the movie. It was a game he mentioned in one of his papers where humans will one day engineer a machine to imitate humans so well that a human on the other side of the room will be fooled he was communicating with another human. Turing was a pioneer in the field of computer science. Only after his death would he be known as the father of AI.

In 2016, Justin Bieber topped the music charts, the country searched frantically for a presidential candidate's lost emails, and mobile browsing tipped the scales on desktop traffic for the time. The ensuing focus on the mobile experience steamrolled most other areas of development, leading top companies to allocate the majority of their budgets to meet the needs of connected users on-the-go. You may no longer be a Belieber, but you are likely still tapped into staying mobile and connected with ease. Enter the bots and the AI revolution. From intelligent solutions like Google Home and Alexa, to the pop-culture rise of HBO's Westworld as a must-watch show, AI is taking center stage around the world.

The article was written by Amber Zhou, a Financial Analyst at I Know First. Artificial Intelligence (AI), was once the domain of fanciful science fiction books and films. But now the drive to eliminate human fallibility makes the technology stormily take the world across all industries, from self-driving cars to virtual assistants like Siri. Companies are significantly benefited from the cost saving from a variety of automated processes. Now programmers and data scientists are setting their sights on financial services.

Brands not taking the opportunity to get on the front foot of voice-based interaction and experiment with devices such as Amazon Alexa risk missing the boat on the next wave of customer engagement. That's the view of Auto & General director of digital and marketing, Jonathan Kerr, who spoke to CMO following the launch of Budget Direct's first Amazon Alexa skill in Australia. The new Budget Direct Alexa Skills has debuted with 40 different information-based and commonly asked queries, from learning more about insurance definitions, to frequently asked questions about motor and home insurance as well as how to get a quote or make a claim. Each of these questions can be asked and answered in an average of five or six ways, Kerr said, and stem from common questions being asked of the insurer's contact centre team and online. Given the brand's tongue-in-cheek content approach, there's also a fun question in the mix: 'Alexa, ask if Budget Direct knows how to party'. In response, customers will hear the sound of a party horn and response reflecting the brand's award winning track record with Money Magazine.