DURBAN - I was happily experimenting with the speech mode and Personal Assistants (PA) with my devices, when my wife, much to the mirth of my children, exclaimed "Your father is still trying to make friends with his computers. After his 30 years with computers they still haven't found each other!"

Artificial intelligence assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant have been a major topic of discussion over the past few months. From the release of the Google Home smart speaker to huge sales of Amazon Echo devices over Christmas, there's been a buzz in the air for months -- and that buzz is still building in 2018. Rumor has it Apple will release the HomePod smart speaker soon. This has prompted a flurry of speculation about how it's too little, too late for the company to jump into the AI-enabled smart speaker sector. Meanwhile, experts point to these assistants as the next big boom in consumer tech and AI.

More and more details about Apple's highly anticipated HomePod smart speaker have been popping up lately. The latest of which comes from early testers of the device who, thankfully, shared some screenshots of the device's customizable settings online. On Monday, Apple Insider spotted several screenshots showing what appears to be the different settings users can adjust when they use the HomePod speaker. The settings can be configured through the iOS Home app, and users need to head to this app if they want to apply changes to how the smart speaker works. According to Apple Insider, the leak that was first shared by French website iGeneration gives a detailed look at the HomePod settings. The screenshots reveal that users are given the option to disable the "Hey Siri" voice command and the manual way to summon the digital assistant.

Netflix's long list of suggested movies and TV shows is a fantastic example of a personalized user experience. In fact, about 70 percent of everything users watch is a personalized recommendation, according to the company. Getting to that point hasn't been easy, and improving on its recommendation system is an ongoing process. Netflix has spent well over a decade developing and refining its recommendations. In 2006, it launched the Netflix Prize to search for machine learning experts who could improve its previous algorithm.

This post comes from the perspective of Montserrat Corominas and Dave Darsch. These terms have become buzzwords, thrown around to describe every new app or digital offering. Some key digitization landmarks might seem like little more than fun gimmicks - like Pokémon Go, or kitsch Snapchat/Instagram masks. But these examples, and many more, show that we are actually in a phenomenally exciting moment for virtual transformation: and it's here to stay. Digitization is shifting the vast majority of our everyday processes into the virtual arena.

And the venerable Time magazine asked the seminal question in our minds, "Are Computers Already Smarter than Humans"? AI outperformed professional players, most notably in beating a Chinese master at "Go". Real time speech translation is becoming more powerful every day and in next five years, my Spanish would be as good as my Japanese, thanks to the AI and machine learning. These are just a few of the milestones AI reached in 2017. As artificial intelligence continues to disrupt multiple industries -- I think 2018 is going to be transformative.

This year's CES was a great show for robots. "From the latest in self-driving vehicles, smart cities, AI, sports tech, robotics, health and fitness tech and more, the innovation at CES 2018 will further global business and spur new jobs and new markets around the world," said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA. Voice control of almost everything from robots to refrigerators was de rigueur. The growing amount of artificial intelligence software and the race between Amazon, Google and their Chinese counterparts Alibaba and Baidu to be the go-to service for integration was on full display. Signs advertised that products worked with Google Assistant or Amazon's Alexa or both, or with Duer-OS (Baidu's conversational operating system) but, by the sheer number of products that worked with the Alexa voice assistant, Amazon appeared to dominate.

Silicon Valley tech giants and startups alike have for years been trying to drum up excitement around Internet-connected home appliances. But despite the push from companies like Samsung, Google and Apple, consumer adoption has been slow. Only 7% of households in the Americas were estimated to have connected home tech by the end of 2017, according to research from IHS Markit. Shoppers have had good reasons to avoid smart home gadgets. They're usually more expensive than their "dumb" counterparts, they can be complicated to set up and use, and the true utility they offer can be unclear.

It's difficult to remember now, but there was a moment in early 2016 when many in the tech industry believed chatbots--automated text-based virtual assistants--would be the next big platform. Messaging app Kik staked its company's future on bots and "chatvertising." Startup studio Betaworks launched an accelerator program called Botcamp. And at its 2016 F8 conference, Facebook pitched bots to developers as the best way to connect with 900 million Messenger users. Few expected that voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant would thrive and text-based chatbots would become a punchline.

Qualcomm is about to go in big with the burgeoning smart home scene. As well as its'Smart Audio Platform' CES announcement, which will help to push smart voice assistant technology into an even wider array of speakers, it's also looking to become a smart home hub gatekeeper in its own right. The Home Hub platform from Qualcomm will allow manufacturers to easily integrate the Google Assistant inside any smart device of their choosing. While one new Qualcomm system-on-a-chip focusses on appliances such as ovens and fridges, the second chipset is centered around the new wave of Google Assistant-powered devices that also feature a screen. As well as speakers like the Lenovo Smart Display pictured above, these will also include anything with a display, from thermostats to security systems.