We create over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. That includes customer data: purchases, web visits, mobile app interactions, social media posts, "liked" ads, and call center charts. No human could possibly make sense of it all. Read the digital whitepaper, "Data the natural resource: 4 new ways to engage your customers like never before".

Last fall I did some chatting on a dating app with a guy I hoped to meet. He had a job, he had an adorable pooch--and he was friends with people I knew in the flesh. So I gave him my cell number and asked him to call me about 10 pm that night. Here's what: Just after 10 he texted that he was at a restaurant around the corner – and he pulled into my driveway two minutes later. "How did you know where I live?" "That was easy – you gave me your phone number," he said nonchalantly as I told him to leave, which (fortunately) he did.

In September, Apple stunned the world when it flaunted its newfangled FaceID on its revolutionary iPhone X. But this geek tech is just the tip of the iceberg. An AI company has now upped the ante by making another version of you. California-based ObEN has created what one would call a "digital twin." The company's proprietary technology allows you to create and design a digital version of yourself by simulating your voice, face, and personality.

Predicting the future is hardly a precise science, but it's possible to identify macro trends by paying close attention to what's happening in an industry. Here's what a handful of entrepreneurs, founders and executives see coming in 2018. "It's been three years since Alexa first showed up in our living rooms. When Amazon launched the first Echo, it seemed like a curious product to many. But the sales growth of Amazon's Alexa-powered product family has been meteoric in the past year. Not to mention that Google Home joined the party, and soon to be followed by the Apple HomePod. Amazon is now licensing Alexa and new devices--including thermostats, home lighting systems, remote controls, automobiles and more--which now have the super smart assistant built in. As consumers, we're becoming increasingly more comfortable and reliant upon using voice to talk with our phones, cars and smart home accessories. While I'm not about to say that the graphical user interface of the touchscreen is dying, there's little question that in 2018 voice will become a primary interface to the digital world. And with it, professionals and firms will develop specialized expertise for voice interface design and voice app development, as the VUI coexists with the GUI." "Major retailers have long ignored the importance of their supply chain and consumers are no longer willing to accept an inefficient buying process. Fewer locations to service is the only the first step for retailers needing to gain a competitive edge. The second is better control over the supply chain and less outsourcing. Large retailers will recognize this deficiency in 2018 and bring logistics in-house as a key differentiator."

Farewell 2017, a year in which marketing technology really took off and where both consumers and marketers alike started to experience the potential of artificial intelligence in our daily personal and professional lives. Thanks to our new voice-operated companions Alexa and Siri, and advanced analytics tools based on machine learning becoming increasingly accessible, we all caught a glimpse of the exciting future driven by AI. Certainly, interest in AI among marketers this past year was the highest it has ever been. It was difficult not to stumble upon some discussion about AI and marketing in every conference, blog, trade press article or pitch. That's a very healthy interest, and we should encourage it into the new year. However, AI hasn't yet lived up to all its promises (and hype).

Farewell 2017, a year in which marketing technology really took off and where both consumers and marketers alike started to experience the potential of artificial intelligence in our daily personal and professional lives. Thanks to our new voice-operated companions Alexa and Siri, and advanced analytics tools based on machine learning becoming increasingly accessible, we all caught a glimpse of the exciting future driven by AI. Certainly, interest in AI among marketers this past year was the highest it has ever been. It was difficult not to stumble upon some discussion about AI and marketing in every conference, blog, trade press article or pitch. That's a very healthy interest, and we should encourage it into the new year.

Both of the major smart home platforms have a long-running problem with "discoverability": it's very hard to let users know what their devices can do, particularly if they're always improving thanks to rapid software updates. Amazon and Google are constantly experimenting with ways to get around this, but so far they have been timid. Amazon sends a weekly email, while Google includes some tips in its app. Expect to see them be bolder, particularly as powerful rivals such as Apple appear on the scene with worse AI but better sound. So don't be surprised if your Google Home or Amazon Echo begin to talk back, rather than simply following commands.

OkCupid is facing a lot of backlash for ditching usernames in favor of real names. As TechCrunch noted, its app's Google Play and App Store pages are flooded with one-star reviews posted over the past month, complaining about the features the service has recently changed or killed. The reviews talked about how the forced transparency of the new name requirement could compromise people's privacy and security, since the service now also matches users with others nearby based on their shared interests. Those with stalkery tendencies might take advantage of these new offerings. A lot of them also discussed concerns that Match.com is simply turning OkCupid (which it owns) into another Tinder (which it also owns).

LG is releasing a new line of premium audio devices in 2018. Ahead of the products' release, the South Korea giant has decided to introduce them via its online newsroom. Among the home speakers that LG is launching are the ThinQ Speaker and the SK10Y soundbar. LG's first premium audio device for 2018 is the ThinQ Speaker which features Google Assistant. Aside from giving users access to a digital assistant, the audio product is also built to offer high-quality sound experience.

At a high level, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that makes machines imitate intelligent human behavior, simulating (and often exceeding) human performance. AI has finally emerged as the future, after unfulfilled hype that goes back to the 1950s, due to developments such as the availability of an immense amount of data, the open-sourcing of ML algorithm development, and advances in high-density parallel processing infrastructure. In fact, IBM now believes the technology solutions market for AI amounts to a staggering $2 trillion over the next decade. Data is the new oil, and 90% of data in the world right now has been created in the last 2 years alone. The power of data has actually lagged the technical capability to monetize it efficiently and effectively, in a world where the use of data is moving from a competitive advantage to a requirement to compete.