The researcher tasked with dreaming up new capabilities for Amazon's Alexa is taking his talents to Google. Ashwin Ram, former senior manager and lead for Alexa AI at Amazon, is now technical director of AI for Google Cloud, according to a post on LinkedIn. Talent in artificial intelligence is scarce, and companies are willing to pay millions to obtain new talent. Managers like Ram, who have been working on the technology since before the deep learning boom, are even more rare. Google Cloud has been actively recruiting high-level talent as the business gains momentum, and competition with other cloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft becomes more fierce.

During a glitzy Amazon showcase along Barcelona's seafront, the company held two escape room experiences to drill home how very, very excited it is about its action series, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, coming to Prime Video later this year. Now, escape rooms are really popular. So is Amazon's Alexa assistant and all those Echo gadgets it likes to call home. The two things make the perfect storm for 2018. So we tried to solve the (not much of a) mystery.

Forget stealing your job… in the future, a robot may well steal your heart. Technology is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to the impact it is having on all aspects of modern life, including relationships. Long gone are the days of finding love in the traditional sense, with people opting to use apps like Tinder or websites like match.com, No more is the spontaneity of meeting someone over coffee or through friends something that rouses excitement of the unknown, where you have to invest time in finding out what someone is really like. Thanks to social media, you can find out more about your potential partner, their history and more before even meeting them!

The battle to place a microphone in every home has intensified. Samsung today confirmed that its long-rumored Bixby smart speaker will be out sometime in the second half of this year. The'premium' speaker is set to take on Apple's £319 ($349) HomePod - although the company has yet to reveal its exact features. Samsung is releasing a'premium' Bixby smart speaker that will listen to your every word as soon as this autumn. Details about how the speaker might look have not been announced.

The idea of an artificial mind that can think by itself has always loomed large in the human imagination – the ancient Greeks told myths of mechanical men. As an academic discipline, the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been studied since the 1950s, after computer scientist Alan Turing first asked, "can machines do what we, as thinking entities, do?" But in 2018, AI is firmly out of the realms of science fiction or academic theory. Last week UK prime minister Theresa May stood up in her keynote address to the World Economic Forum and announced her ambition to establish the UK as a "world leader" in AI, alongside plans for its ethical oversight. These days, voice assistants like Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana are in every smart device and computer, and smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home are selling in their tens of millions.

The team at Soul Machines, said CEO Greg Cross, have launched an AI avatar named Cora, which will interact with customers at NatWest Bank. Today, they are about banking functions - tomorrow, the virtual digital assistants could be helping with all the jobs you don't want to do.

Artificial intelligence is breaking out of science fiction and sprinting into reality. A robot can now identify a human from a photo of their face, trounce a Poker player and in theory, pilot a plane. Business applications for AI are growing, from Apple's Siri personal assistant to Amazon's delivery drones, and business schools want to ensure that their graduates have the skills to meet the future needs of industry. A wide range of master's degrees and electives within established courses that focus on AI are on offer. "Digital and AI are rapidly changing the way we live and work in significant ways," says Francisco Veloso, dean of London's Imperial College Business School. As businesses transform to keep up with the pace of technological change, he adds, "schools will need to do more to provide students with the tools they need to undertake careers or start businesses in areas such as blockchain, [and] fintech".

The first interactor--a muscular man in his fifties with a shaved head and a black V-neck sweater--walks into a conference room and sits in a low-slung blue armchair before a phalanx of video cameras and studio lights. The rest of the room is totally dark. He gazes at a black, hockey- puck-shaped object--an Amazon Echo--on a small table in front of him. "Alexa," he says, "let's chat." "Good morning, my friend," a female voice replies with synthetic agreeability, a purplish ring of light pulsing atop the Echo.

Back in December, it was reported that Samsung's Bixby smart speaker would arrive sometime in the first half of 2018. However, Samsung's mobile division president DJ Koh has confirmed that will no longer be the case. Speaking with The Wall Street Journal, Koh confirmed that the voice-activated Bixby smart speaker will be released sometime during the second half of 2018. Koh didn't give out any more details about the upcoming smart speaker, but he did say that Samsung is aiming to release a premium device. "When I introduce the first model, I don't want to give the impression that Samsung delivered another affordable mass model," Koh said.

The most significant innovation in AI these recent years, smart chatbots, personal assistants, are only a glimpse of what the future holds. Technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple are at the forefront of personalized interactive products where intelligent human-computer interactions (IHCI) technology will continue to play a central role in automated messaging, task assistance and the Internet of Things. As the market matures, chatbots are becoming more and more specialized according to their specialized intended purposes, such as customer service, entertainment, personal assistance, or education. Launched in July 2015, AliMe is an IHCI-based shopping guide and assistant for e-commerce that overhauls traditional services, and improves the online user experience. During 2017's Double 11 shopping festival, AliMe successfully responded to 9.04 million queries, and accounted for 95% of the customer services rendered by Alibaba's e-commerce platforms.