Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to disrupt the lives of individuals, the societies we live in, and the global economy, causing both excitement and trepidation. It goes beyond doubt that AI will automate tasks that have long required human labour. In fact, AI's unprecedented speed, accuracy and cost efficiency have encouraged CFOs to consider its adoption in the Finance and Accounting functions. This is especially true considering the scarcity of trained workforce and investment constraints to handle increasing volumes of data. Essentially, the finance professional is facing a changed paradigm where he/she needs to juxtapose their valuable judgement alongside AI's predictive results in a variety of settings.

The new Amazon Echo Plus is a smart home necessity--and pre-orders include a free smart bulb right now (Photo: Reviewed.com) If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA TODAY's newsroom and any business incentives. Amazon just announced a ton of new Echo products, and they all have us very excited. One in particular jumped out as a must-buy for anyone with a smart home (or a desire to build one). The Amazon Echo Plus looks just like the original Echo, but it does a LOT more and costs a bit less.

Nuance Communications unveiled an artificial virtual assistant specifically for patients and healthcare providers on Wednesday. The company has built artificial intelligence virtual assistants for consumer and automotive brands including American Airlines, Amtrak, Audi, Barclay's, BMW, Citi, Delta, Domino's, FedEx, Ford and GM. Nuance's new Dragon Medical Virtual Assistant is designed to streamline a variety of clinical workflows for the 500,000 clinicians that already use Dragon Medical for their clinical documentation, the company said. Based on the Nuance Virtual Assistant platform, the software can enable conversational dialogues and pre-built capabilities that automate clinical workflows. The healthcare virtual assistant includes voice recognition technology designed for healthcare, voice biometrics and text-to-speech, EHR integrations and strategic health IT relationships, a prototype smart speaker customized for healthcare use-cases and a secure platform.

Last month at IFA, we heard that more Google Assistant-integrating speakers and appliances were on the way. Today, NVIDIA's Shield TV joins the list, adding the search giant's digital assistant SDK to its retinue of entertainment features. In short, instead of a paltry speaker, you'll be able to use your entire home theater setup to command your life, one'OK Google' at a time. In fact, Google says Assistant is coming to Android TV on the whole, so if you have another device running that platform, voice control is likely coming soon. The Shield TV update also adds Samsung's SmartThings integration, allowing owners to turn their set-top box into a connected device hub.

A few days ago, I finally bought a pair of AirPods. Apple's funny-looking ear-computers have been available for about a year, provided you were willing to order them online and wait six weeks for delivery. When I saw that I could snag a pair at my local Apple store, I decided to take the plunge. I worry that makes me sound like an impulsive person. At $159, AirPods are expensive.

No one can ever doubt the importance of SEO for healthy website growth. Despite being one of the most underestimated terms in marketing, over the last decade, SEO has been the cause of steady growth for many early startups that nowadays are leading actors among their industries. SEO trends are known to cause a hype among marketers who need to be constantly up to date to adapt to their clients. Are you familiar with what's hot now and what strategies you should be planning for in 2018? Even when marketing managers can say that 2016 was all about keywords, alt tags and so on, 2017 is proving to be geared toward intent rather than keywords themselves.

Google is expected to announce some new devices next week on Oct. 4, including a smaller Google Home Mini. However, it looks like Google is also working on a different type of Google Home speaker that will apparently offer a high-end audio experience. Google is said to be developing a "premium" Google Home smart speaker. This version of the device will apparently be equipped with a set of stereo speakers and has the tentative name of Google Home "Max," according to 9To5Google. The idea behind the Google Home Max is that it will be the company's way of competing with the likes of the Sonos Play:3, which is able to deliver stereo sound with deeper bass for an immersive listening experience.

Thanks to a surprise event at Amazon's Seattle HQ yesterday, we got to see a whole host of new Alexa-powered devices. We played with the redesigned Echo, the all-new Echo Plus with smart hub, the cute Echo Spot and an overhauled Fire TV, giving consumers even more reason to buy into Amazon's ecosystem. While most of the event was dedicated to brand new Echos, the company also found time to update customers outside of the US on the status of the Echo Show. The good news is that the video-capable device is now available to pre-order in the UK and Germany for £199.99 and €219.99 respectively. The Echo Show is the first Echo with a touchscreen, and will deliver rotating views of your calendar appointments, to-do items, weather and a bunch of trending news stories.

So, now the difficult part is behind and I can show you seven machine learning application examples that use ML in a right way. Netflix is one of the most obvious examples of Machine Learning in mobile apps. Today, everyone knows what it is. The reason is, it just knows what you want to watch, before you want to watch it! First, you may think, 'Magic?' Well, not exactly, but a few decades ago it could have been considered magic!

So you've decided to bring Alexa into your life. Now comes the hard part: Which Amazon Echo is right for you? We'll go over all the models, including the brand-new second-generation Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Spot that Amazon just announced. Amazon pioneered the concept of a smart speaker, an audio device with a voice-activated digital assistant that can do everything from play music (from Amazon Music or Spotify, Pandora, and certain other services if you're a subscriber), to recite the day's news, deliver weather and traffic updates, and--perhaps most importantly--control virtually every element of your smart home. More recently, Amazon made it possible to make outgoing calls from an Echo to any phone number in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.