In August 2015, a number of carefully selected Facebook users in the Bay Area discovered a new feature on Facebook Messenger. Known as M, the service was designed to rival Google Now and Apple's Siri. A personal assistant that would answer questions in a natural way, make restaurant reservations and help with Uber bookings, M was meant to be a step forward in natural language understanding, the virtual assistant that – unlike Siri – wasn't a dismal experience. Fast forward a couple of years, and the general purpose personal assistant has been demoted within Facebook's product offering. Poor M. The hope was that it would tell users jokes and act as a guide, life coach and optimisation tool.

IBM was one of the first to bring voice search assistants into the travel experience with the launch of their Watson-enabled robot concierge, "Connie" in Hilton Hotels in 2016, but leaps in technology will see more and more travel apps and hardware integrating voice and natural language search into their user interfaces in 2018, sparked by the mainstream success of the Amazon Alexa. Consumers will be able to talk to their digital assistant, whether through their smartphone, Alexa or other device to check flight details, search for a hotel or book tickets immediately. The difference in adoption of voice search across different parts of the world is significant. Travelport's recent Digital Traveller research showed that while just 33% of consumers in the UK had used voice Search, 72% in China had. But in the US, the number of smartphone owners using voice assistants has doubled to more 60% in just 2 years.

Unless you've been living under a rock, probably been reading and seeing a lot about artificial intelligence. And even if that's the case, AI has probably invaded your consciousness in one form or another. People have a lot of different conceptions of AI. For some, it means the end of the world is nigh: The robot revolution will be rising and annihilating humanity any day now. While it's impossible to rule anything out, artificial intelligence is really meant to help us make systems more efficient.

Nearly every booth / product we saw had voice as a feature for control. This is a big difference compared to last year, when voice and voice assistants were still being touted as an innovative and differentiating feature. While voice control is still very much in the early adopter phase for practical mass-market adoption, it was near ubiquitous at CES. Speaking of voice assistants, the big battle at CES 2018 seemed to be between Google's Assistant and Amazon's Alexa, and both companies took different marketing approaches at the trade show. Google opted for the brute force in-your-face spend a ton of money approach. Everywhere you looked, from the billboards on the hotels on the Strip to even the Las Vegas Monorail, Google showed up there.

Nearly every booth / product we saw had voice as a feature for control. This is a big difference compared to last year, when voice and voice assistants were still being touted as an innovative and differentiating feature. While voice control is still very much in the early adopter phase for practical mass-market adoption, it was near ubiquitous at CES. Speaking of voice assistants, the big battle at CES 2018 seemed to be between Google's Assistant and Amazon's Alexa, and both companies took different marketing approaches at the trade show. Google opted for the brute force in-your-face spend a ton of money approach. Everywhere you looked, from the billboards on the hotels on the Strip to even the Las Vegas Monorail, Google showed up there.

Nearly every booth / product we saw had voice as a feature for control. This is a big difference compared to last year, when voice and voice assistants were still being touted as an innovative and differentiating feature. While voice control is still very much in the early adopter phase for practical mass-market adoption, it was near ubiquitous at CES. Speaking of voice assistants, the big battle at CES 2018 seemed to be between Google's Assistant and Amazon's Alexa, and both companies took different marketing approaches at the trade show. Google opted for the brute force in-your-face spend a ton of money approach. Everywhere you looked, from the billboards on the hotels on the Strip to even the Las Vegas Monorail, Google showed up there.

After 51 years, CES in Las Vegas still manages to pack some surprises. No, I'm not talking about the rain that caused crazy floods or the two-hour blackout in Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. I'm talking about 65-inch rollable OLED displays, robotic dogs, and $4,000 treadmills that deliver live workout classes on HD screens. There were plenty of less surprising, though no less welcome, innovations on display as well. I wasn't at all surprised to see voice assistance play a bigger role than ever this year, for instance.

This article originally appeared in Motley Fool. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already impacting our lives in many ways. From intelligent video curation on Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) YouTube and Google web search to Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) Siri personal assistant, AI is already making our lives easier. AI can also help corporations and customers fight against rapidly evolving cyberthreats. For instance, FireEye's (NASDAQ:FEYE) Helix cybersecurity platform is able to automate threat detection and prevention with the help of this emerging technology.

In August 2015, a number of carefully selected Facebook users in the Bay Area discovered a new feature on Facebook Messenger. Known as M, the service was designed to rival Google Now and Apple's Siri. A personal assistant that would answer questions in a natural way, make restaurant reservations and help with Uber bookings, M was meant to be a step forward in natural language understanding, the virtual assistant that – unlike Siri – wasn't a dismal experience. Fast forward a couple of years, and the general purpose personal assistant has been demoted within Facebook's product offering. Poor M. The hope was that it would tell users jokes and act as a guide, life coach and optimisation tool.

Local arts group Therefore already incorporates elements of theater, performance art and music into their work. Now creative director Dean Terry is adding artificial intelligence to the mix. For their latest show, the group will have scripted live interactions with home assistants such as Amazon's Alexa.