Fast-food restaurants are working to provide experiences through mobile and digital channels to meet customer preferences and differentiate themselves from competitors in the crowded fast-food ecosystem. Domino's has long-term ambitions of being a leader in the fast-food chain world by weaving emerging tech into its daily operations, and the introduction of Dom to automate phone orders is another step toward that goal. A key promise of AI is to boost the accuracy of food ordering, especially as human employees juggle several tasks or face an onslaught of calls, by freeing employees to focus on making pizzas and other aspects of the business. Considering that pizza orders are highly customizable, the chances of errors multiply. By potentially cutting down on errors through the use of technology, restaurants like Domino's could improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs and make their employees more efficient on the job.

Conversica, the leader in conversational AI for business, today announced that its AI-based sales assistant technology is now deeply integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and is available from the Microsoft AppSource online marketplace. The Conversica AI Sales assistant integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 enables Microsoft customers to easily leverage Conversica's state-of-the-art conversational AI technology to automatically follow up with leads in their CRM and marketing automation systems. Conversica assistants, powered by advanced natural language processing and machine learning technology, carry on natural, two-way conversations with leads to engage and qualify them for sales. This automated lead follow-up ensures that 100 percent of marketing's leads are contacted 100 percent of the time and results in more meetings and, thus, more opportunities for sales. "Microsoft Dynamics 365 customers are some of the most sophisticated marketing and sales teams; however, they can still struggle with ensuring all the leads generated by marketing are qualified and handed off to sales at the right time," commented Victor Belfor, Senior Vice President of Business Development of Conversica.

It's important not to overstate the security risks of the Amazon Echo and other so-called smart speakers. They're useful, fun, and generally have well thought-out privacy protections. Then again, putting a mic in your home naturally invites questions over whether it can be used for eavesdropping--which is why researchers at the security firm Checkmarx started fiddling with Alexa, to see if they could turn it into a spy device. They did, with no intensive meddling required. The attack, which Amazon has since fixed, follows the intended flow of using and programming an Echo.

Amazon has unveiled the Echo Dot Kids Edition with a custom version of Alexa that will read to kids, play music, answer questions and do other chores. It uses a new flavor of its FreeTime app called FreeTime for Alexa that includes parent controls and family-friendly features that run on any Echo device. It will give kids a different experience than adults; for instance, when they say "please," it will reply "thanks for asking so nicely" to reinforce their politeness. FreeTime for Alexa (available in free or subscription versions) will also answer questions differently. The regular version will merely reply "eight" if you ask how many planets are in the solar system, but the kids version will name each planet and explain why Pluto is no longer in the club.

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Echo Dot Kids Edition comes in blue, red and green. Politeness counts, at least when your child asks Alexa a question on an Amazon Echo speaker. Soon, when your youngster asks Alexa to solve a math problem by exhibiting good manners--"Alexa, please tell me what 5 plus 7 is"--the voice inside the Echo will not only supply the right answer, but will then add positive reinforcement: "By the way, thanks for asking so nicely." This new "magic word" feature, as Amazon calls it, starts to roll out via a software upgrade for the Echo, Echo Plus and Echo Dot smart speakers on May 9, as part of a set of free parental controls called FreeTime for Alexa.

Amazon has confirmed the existence of a new product called "Fire TV Cube." It's being speculated that the upcoming device will be a new high-end Fire TV set-top box that comes with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. Amazon has set up a new teaser page that asks visitors "what is Fire TV Cube?" The webpage says that details about the device will become available soon and visitors will be able to sign up to receive an update on the upcoming product. Amazon's new teaser page was first discovered by AFTVNews, which appears to have already leaked the device way back in September.

If you're still wondering what is conversational commerce? It's a way of shopping or making any purchase online within a messaging or chat channel, like Facebook Messenger or Telegram by interacting with a brand's chatbot. We open a messaging channel to interact with a brand, a chatbot welcomes us, asks how it can help, and we're ultimately presented with just-the-right product or service we need. A virtual department store with a virtual salesperson, or a virtual assistant helping us place food or taxi orders: sounds like a refreshing at-home shopping and customer experience, yes? That's because it's meant to.

Microsoft is working on multiple chat bots it's counting on to make employees more productive. The company announced two years ago its Calendar.help The company also is working on another conversational bot, named "SwitchBot," that's designed to improve workers' focus. Information about SwitchBot was made public in the form of a research paper published on April 21 for the 2018 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. SwitchBot is a Skype bot that aims to help workers detach and then reengage at the start and end of their workdays.

Healthcare is one of the most important areas of concern for humanity. As with many aspects of modern labor, doctors' abilities can be replaced by smarter, faster machines. Advanced AI is being developed to help with diagnosis, reaching conclusions faster than trained doctors. Machines are helping patients move, meaning even physical therapists might not be necessary. Now, there might be machine learning that can replace empathy – what many might consider a purely human response.

There has been a fair amount of hype surrounding conversational interfaces and conversational UI lately -- and for good reason. Interfaces allow users to interact with machines using natural language processing either by talking or writing, akin to human-to-human conversations. With every passing day, we get closer to bridging the gap of natural communication between man and machine. The process of filling out a form or sharing your information on most websites has become less tedious and more informal due to the wide adaptation of conversational UI. However, prior to the steady adaptation of conversational UI, we had to trudge through a barrage of web forms in order to access content or seek out information.