With its paid Premium streaming service, YouTube has a steep climb to even compete against entrenched services like Netflix. First it has to get our attention, so for one of its most-anticipated series, Impulse, it came up with an interesting promotion. Google Assistant owners can access the first episode by saying "talk to Impulse." The AI device will give a brief sum-up of the show and ask for a password (it's "Henry" and a few variants). Once you do that, you'll get a link to the first unlisted episode on YouTube.

Microsoft is acquiring conversational AI startup Semantic Machines in an effort to make bots and intelligent assistants like Cortana sound and respond more like humans. Founded in 2014, Semantic Machines uses machine learning to make bots respond in a more natural way to queries. Semantic Machines is led by UC Berkeley professor Dan Klein and former Apple chief speech scientist Larry Gillick. Both are considered pioneers in conversational AI. Microsoft's acquisition will boost the company's Cortana digital assistant, as well as the company's Azure Bot Service that's used by 300,000 developers.

Since losing his vision at age 13, Erik Weihenmayer has summited Mount Everest, white-water rafted and climbed frozen waterfalls. But making soup in his kitchen presented a unique challenge. On a frozen waterfall he could tap his ax against the ice to get a feel for its density, but in the kitchen, he had no way to differentiate between cans of tomato and chicken noodle. Mr. Weihenmayer, 49 years old, found a solution in Microsoft Corp.'s Seeing AI, a free app for the visually impaired. Among other things, the app can recognize faces, identify money, read handwriting and scan bar codes to differentiate between cans of soup.

LONDON, UK – Conversational AI allows you to reignite the customer experience with increased engagement, personalised customer service and improved customer satisfaction. Your customers can simply ask for what they want as if they were talking to a live assistant--and receive the right response, every time. Providing 24/7 customer support simply on your own terms is no longer enough. Your customers want an experience that's fast and convenient. They want to message you a question while waiting in line for coffee or use their voice to make an online purchase while driving to work. They want to be understood using their own words, not your jargon.

This year's Google I/O revealed that the tech company is nearing the completion of an artficially intelligent secretary that can book appointments without you having to lift a finger. But the science fiction dream of a robotic housekeeper, like Rosie from The Jetsons, remains elusive. That has a lot to do with the fact that in many respects A.I. remains incredibly dumb when asked to operate in the real world. Sure, it can ridiculously complex calculations at blazing fast speeds -- a narrow application -- but when confronted with mundane tasks like making your bed, A.I. perpetually comes up short. This is exactly why a group of computer scientists led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is teaching machines to complete household tasks using a The Sims-inspired "VirtualHome" simulator.

An Amazon Echo sits on a table in New York. An IHS survey estimates that there are 20 billion connected devices globally as of this year. Will 2018 be "The Year of IoT"? Not exactly, but the future looks promising and 2018 will show a promising trajectory. Despite the huge gains in connectivity, the truth is 2018 will be more of a steady (rather than explosive) growth period for the IoT, full of fits and spasms, and everything that goes along with them.

Until recently, Korean company Samsung was said to behind its competitors in terms of researching and developing artificial intelligence (AI) technology, but the company's recent strategy suggests that it's committed to closing the gap and even competing for the top spot. Since 70 percent of the world's data is produced and stored on Samsung's products, the company is the leading provider of data storage products in the world. By revenue, Samsung is the largest consumer electronics company in the world--yes, it has even overtaken Apple and sells 500 million connected devices a year. From industry events to setting goals with AI at the forefront to updating products to use artificial intelligence, Samsung seems to have gone full throttle in preparing for the 4th industrial revolution. Samsung started 2018 with intention to be an artificial intelligence leader by organizing the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit and brought together 300 university students, technical experts and leading academics to explore ways to accelerate AI research and to develop the best commercial applications of AI.

French startup Snips has been working on voice assistant technology that respects your privacy. And the company is going to use its own voice assistant for a set of consumer devices. As part of this consumer push, the company is also announcing an initial coin offering. Yes, it sounds a bit like Snips is playing a game of buzzword bingo. Anyone can currently download the open source Snips SDK and play with it with a Raspberry Pi, a microphone and a speaker.

The possibilities clog our news feeds, create interesting conversations, and give tech leaders inspiration to explore solutions. What will this mean for us as humans? Could this impact all of society? With all the questions being asked, only one thing is absolutely clear. We're about to enter one of the biggest transformations our society has witnessed in the last century - if not millennium.

Apple has released the first major update for its HomePod smart speaker - and has its sights firmly set on Amazon and Google. The new iOS 11.4 update released today adds multi room capabilities to the Siri smart speaker, allowing users to play music in other rooms, in in every room at once. It comes as Apple is believed to be putting the finishing update to a major update to its Siri AI software. The free update also adds new features such as the ability to store iMessages in the cloud. The new iOS 11.4 update released today adds multi room capabilities to the Siri smart speaker, allowing users to play music in other rooms, in in every room at once.