If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA TODAY's newsroom and any business incentives. Why not start them off on their own smart home routines, if you're into that sort of thing. Connected devices like smart light bulbs and smart speakers can be of immense help when life becomes too overwhelming around the house. For instance, if you need quick homework help, you can defer to a smart speaker with Alexa or the Google Assistant to help fill in the blanks.

Premium customers in the UK can use the command "Alexa, play Flow" to play a never ending stream of individually customized music. All Deezer users can take advantage of voice commands to search for and play albums, artists and songs. Deezer on Alexa also supports play, pause, song skipping and volume control. In order to stay competitive, Deezer needs to be available on as many devices as possible, and it's certainly doing that. In the last year, the service has come to the Roku, Google Home and more.

Voice-based commerce is shaping up to be the next major disruptive force in retail -- and Amazon is poised to grab most of this wallet share. Voice shopping is expected to jump to $40 billion in 2022, up from $2 billion today, according to data from OC&C Strategy Consultants. The voice segment will be driven by a surge in the number of homes using smart speakers, which is on pace to hit 55% in 2020, from 13% today. And Amazon is positioned to dominate the new channel with the largest market share -- currently more than twice that of its nearest competitor. For example, Amazon's Echo device has 10% penetration of homes in the United States, followed by Google's Home (4%), and Microsoft's Cortana (2%).

Nearly three weeks after the Parkland high school shooting that killed 17, another American business has distanced itself from guns. Bumble, the dating app where only women are allowed to initiate contact in heterosexual matches, announced Monday it would systematically delete photos on users' profiles that feature guns, with the exception of military or law enforcement members in uniform. We were founded with safety, respect and kindness in mind. As mass shootings continue to devastate communities across the country, it's time to state unequivocally that gun violence is not in line with our values, nor do these weapons belong on Bumble. "As mass shootings continue to devastate communities across the country, it's time to state unequivocally that gun violence is not in line with our values, nor do these weapons belong on Bumble," the company said in a statement on its website.

Apple may have gotten a head start on virtual assistants when Siri arrived on the iPhone 4s back in 2011. But rivals Amazon and Google have a big lead when it comes to smart assistants for your home, thanks to their Amazon Echo and Google Home devices. Not to be left out, Apple is entering the voice-activated home assistant arena with the HomePod, a Siri-enabled smart speaker that's available now for $349. Apple is hoping to make the HomePod stand out by positioning it as high-end audio gear with artificial intelligence, rather than a simple home assistant. The HomePod largely succeeds in that regard, but it's not without a few drawbacks.

Loneliness and isolation have long been the forbearers and sidekicks of mental illness. When social media became a fixture in everyday life, many hoped it would remedy both issues and create a more connected and healthier human existence. But the opposite has proved true. Researchers are looking at artificial intelligence (AI) as a possible way to reverse the trends of isolation and loneliness, and thus improve mental health. Where AI can't improve a feeling of connection for social media users, it might still make things better by predicting an individual's need for intervention, and even summoning assistance from friends, family, and mental health professionals when needed.

In mid-2016 Forrester listed the five emerging technologies that will have the largest impact on the business world in the next five years: the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, augmented reality, intelligent agents and hybrid wireless networks. Today, thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI), we are able to understand consumer behavior, interpret their needs and make decisions in real time. Its application is already unstoppable in the world of Marketing. The advantages are clear and it is up to you to decide how and where to implement it in each organisation. Smart Insights classify AI techniques throughout the customer lifecycle that can be implemented by companies of any size – they are not only within the exclusive reach of technological giants- and that contribute to the customer's conversion funnel.

After smartphones, the next big thing arguably is artificial intelligence enabled voice-activated virtual assistants. Although the smartphone will not become obsolete any time soon, interaction with multiple devices would be a reality as a result of virtual assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri. Among the big tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft that are contributing to making the virtual assistant platforms more tech-savvy, Samsung's newly announced Bixby is a cut above the rest as cutting-edge and state-of-the-art AI technology is its backbone. Bixby 2.0 is integrated with Viv which for the uninitiated is developed by the tech gurus who were the masterminds of Siri. In 2010 Siri was sold to Apple and the developers ultimately quit Apple and formed a new company of their own which is widely known as Viv Labs.

Apple planted its HomePod smart speaker deep inside a walled garden: You must have an Apple-branded mobile device just to set it up, and you can pretty much use it only with Apple's own services if you want voice control for music. The company then adds insult to injury by leaving its older iPhones, iPads, and iPods outside that garden wall. Unless you're an ardent Apple fan who upgrades to new iOS devices with relative frequency, you won't even be able to set up a HomePod. If you own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod model that Apple essentially rendered obsolete last fall when it established the hardware requirements for iOS 11, you're out of luck. You can stream music from various devices to a HomePod using AirPlay, but not until you've set up the speaker using an iOS device running iOS 11 or higher.

We worried that Apple's HomePod could fall behind because Siri isn't quite as capable as competing virtual assistants. As the just-debuted HomePod advertisement helpfully illustrates, the $349 speaker can do so much more than that. As near as we can tell, each purchase will include built-in apartment expansion, Spike Jonze visuals and dance-offs with FKA Twigs set to a brand-new Apple Music-exclusive Anderson .Paak song (Til It's Over). Or maybe it will just sound that way?