Amazon debuted the Dash Wand today, a $20 device with a magnet on the back that can stick to your refrigerator. For all purchases made today, the Amazon Dash Wand comes with a $20 gift certificate, making it effectively free for Prime members who spend more than $35. The Dash Wand is the latest Alexa-enabled device to come to market, following the Echo Show and Echo Look, devices that brought a visual interface and computer vision to the Alexa experience. The Dash Wand fits in your palm and is the size of a small remote control. The device can scan bar codes to add items to your Amazon shopping list, but press the button on top and you can speak to Alexa for all the things Alexa does, from controlling voice apps to calling your mom or ordering a pizza.

Though Facebook is rarely mentioned alongside Apple, Microsoft and Amazon in discussions about conversational AI, the company has published a hoard of papers that underscore a deep interest in dialog systems. As has become clear with Siri, Cortana and Alexa, dialog is hard -- it requires more than just good speech recognition to deliver a killer experience to users. From the sidelines Facebook has been tinkering with big challenges like natural language understanding and text generation. And today the Facebook AI Research team added to its portfolio with a paper bringing negotiation into the conversation (all puns intended). Facebook's team smashed game theory together with deep learning to equip machines to negotiate with humans.

Artificial Intelligence – or AI, as it's commonly referred to – is booming in business circles. Today, more and more companies are using technology to perform tasks that until now have required human intelligence to complete – things like making loan decisions or rating the quality of raw cucumbers. Advanced computer systems now have the ability to perform a variety of human tasks. And it's becoming increasingly cost-effective for businesses to utilize these technologies. Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa, visual perception, Facebook face-recognizing software, or decision making, instant credit decisions or Netflix recommendations – these are just a few examples of the many ways AI is changing the way people work.

Robin Bylenga, 52, the founder and owner of Pedal Chic in Greenville, S.C., is the epitome of a smart, successful female entrepreneur. Before opening her women's cycling and athletic boutique in 2010, she worked for a bike shop to understand prospective customers. She invested $500 for a tiny inventory of women's biking apparel that she spun into $1,500 in sales at an area bike race. Bylenga also asked the Clemson Regional Small Business Development Center for advice, connected with a retired retail exec through the U.S. Small Business Administration's SCORE program and tapped her own network to find mentors. "I've had to push through at every stage, and there have been setbacks, but the demand is there and growing," says Bylenga, whose shop is profitable today.

The artificial intelligence market is still in its relatively early stages, but a player in the market has received a large amount of funding. Element AI, an AI company based in Montreal, announced Wednesday it had received $102 million in Series A funding. Element AI operates both as an incubator for AI development and as a consulting firm-like organization for companies that want to integrate AI applications into their day-to-day operations. The company, which was co-founded by noted machine learning researcher Yoshua Bengio, received its large funding round from firms and sources including Intel Capital and NVIDIA. The company, which was originally founded in October, plans to use the round to bolster its staff, internal development and potentially to invest in projects it helps to incubate.

Bob Friday is co-founder and CTO of Mist Systems. Artificial intelligence (AI) is taking the world by storm, with innovative use cases being applied across all industry segments. We are decades away from replacing a doctor with an AI robot, as seen in the movies, but AI is helping experts across all industries diagnose and solve problems faster, enabling consumers like myself to do amazing things, like find songs with a voice command. Most people focus on the results of AI. For those of us who like to look under the hood, there are four foundational elements to understand: categorization, classification, machine learning, and collaborative filtering.

Facebook's chatbots are learning the art of the deal, bartering and deceiving their way to better terms in negotiations with humans and other bots. Artificial intelligences that can negotiate effectively would make useful virtual assistants, says Mike Lewis at Facebook's research lab. Bots could be left to arrange appointments for people, sorting out calendar clashes by themselves. Or they could negotiate with several agents at once to book a holiday or make a purchase on your behalf. Most existing bots – such as Apple's Siri or those built into chat apps like Facebook Messenger – may be able to get you a taxi or order a pizza but they can't engage in complex negotiations, says Lewis. If we want bots to help us with more complex tasks they need to become dealmakers, especially if the task involves cooperation or compromise, like negotiating the purchase or sale of a property, for example.

If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. Our picks and opinions are independent from USATODAY's newsroom and any business incentives. If you've ever watched a futuristic sci-fi movie and thought to yourself, "Man, I wish that technology was real," you would probably love having smart home tech in your own house. The Amazon Echo is a great place to start if you want to future-ify your home--especially because it responds if you call it "Computer." All this week, you can take advantage of a Father's Day sales and get the Echo for $139.99 marked down from $179.99 (22% savings).

Starbucks has said the use of digital assistants helps it provide more personalized customer experiences. There's even more to AI's impact: While the Starbucks example (along with other uses for chatbots and digital assistants) focuses on external efforts -- benefitting customers, in this case -- chatbots can be immensely helpful in internal efforts such as: Implementing AI can improve workflow and facilitate communication among team members. Chatbots and digital assistants offer ways to improve productivity and customer service, but they can't replace your human employees. In the end, chatbots and digital assistants don't benefit just the customer -- a business's internal processes have just as much to gain from their advantages.

Grabbing that morning Starbucks fix got a little easier this year, thanks to artificial intelligence. Starbucks launched a new feature in January that allows customers who own iPhones or Amazon Echos to order their coffee through voice-activated assistants. Depending which device they use, customers can also ask check their Starbucks account balances, inquire about seasonal specials and find out which baked treats are available at their local stores. Starbucks has said the use of digital assistants helps it provide more personalized customer experiences. These assistants are also more cost-effective (than the humans who normally would put in customer orders).