Apple and Amazon are fierce competitors, especially now that the iPhone maker has released its own home speaker. However, the companies seem to have been putting their differences aside lately. This year, Amazon and Apple introduced changes that goes beyond their rivalry, with the most recent move announced this week at the Worldwide Developers Conference. The Apple logo is displayed at a store in the central business district of Sydney, April 6, 2017. Apple announced the Amazon video app will finally come to the Apple TV worldwide this year.

If you think you're seeing more on the topic of artificial intelligence in marketing lately, there's a reason--you are. In fact, a new study by Weber Shandwick finds that the majority of CMOs in five global markets believe artificial intelligence (AI) will surpass social media's influence in the industry. According to the 150 senior executives surveyed, 55% believe that AI will transform the marketing and communications world even more than social media, and 68% say that their brand is currently selling, using, or planning for business in the era of AI. When we think about artificial intelligence, we think about Siri, Arnold Swarzeneeger's character in The Terminator, or IBM's Watson, which recently defeated the two greatest Jeopardy champions and "stole" the $1 million prize. But AI is being used for practical ways that, as marketers, affect us all.

It is midnight on January 18, 2017, and the Outbrain Click Prediction machine learning competition has just finished. It has been three and a half months of working late. As I scroll through the leaderboard page, I found my name in the 19th position, which was the top 2% from nearly 1,000 competitors. Not bad for the first Kaggle competition I had decided to put a real effort in! One of the reasons why I managed to score well was the fact that Google Cloud Platform (GCP) made my life easier and I could focus on the data.

Teaching a computer to "think" the way the human brain does means feeding it huge amounts of real-world data so that it can learn, analyze, predict, and solve problems. But in this brave new world of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, there are no ethical guidelines, no regulations, and no parameters to govern how this data is collected and used. Artificial intelligence is a computer science branch that aims to develop computers that can learn and solve problems, much as a human brain does. When BM's AI supercomputer Watson is enlisted to help doctors tailor therapy to breast cancer patients, it needs to consume high volumes of medical data before it can provide better insights into personalized treatment options and their outcomes. Every time you pick a Netflix movie or ask your digital voice assistant to call a friend, you are dealing with AI.

Father's Day is just around the corner (June 18, in case you forgot), and this year consumers could change things up by getting dads tech gifts. Instead of ties and home tools, consumers can look to Father's Day deals from Amazon and Best Buy for new ideas for the weekend holiday. Amazon is selling the JBL Flip 4 Waterproof Portable Bluetooth Speaker for $99.95, down from $110.95. The gadget can wirelessly connect up two devices, which means people can take turns playing music. Most importantly, the speaker is waterproof, which is convenient for summer days at the beach.

The last decade was dedicated to building a'mobile-first' world where smartphones took control over the advancements in technology and lifestyle. Lately there has been a dramatic change in the course of action. The big shots of technology have set their sail to build an'AI First' world to unlock capabilities that were unthinkable a few years ago and build a future twice as good. Google Assistant, Amazon Echo, Facebook Spaces and Tesla's self-driving cars stands testimony to this technology shake-up. This technology'Renovation' has already begun and will be in its full swing in the next 3-4 years.

USA Today reporter Rachel Sandler asked people in San Francisco if apps are as popular as Apple says. Do people even care about apps anymore? Let's step back in time for a moment and imagine going back to using foldable maps or Web printouts for directions, hailing cabs (or even taking a bus!), and no social tools to share those daily self-portraits. Shazam is the most recent. Apple kicked off its big Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose this week with a humorous video showing what that app-less world might be like.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer in the future. It's happening all around us, and actually has been for more years than most of us even know. For the past two years, I've been writing about IBM's Watson, Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and other AI systems. I've reported on the last two years of IBM's World of Watson conferences, and today I want to share with you the latest information from the Pegasystems annual users' conference, known as PegaWorld, which took place this week in Las Vegas. This year's focus was on AI, and many of the speakers shared real case studies about how AI is being used to transform the way we do business and how it impacts the customer experience (CX).

The likes of Siri, Cortana and Alexa could help transform the way people give to charity in the future, according to an influential think tank. An article published by Giving Thought, the charity think tank of the Charities Aid Foundation, explores how artificial intelligence (AI) could lead to the development of effective, low-cost philanthropy advice, drive greater amounts of giving and help people to give more effectively. The piece, written by Giving Thought Programme Leader Rhodri Davies, sets out how AI could reduce the cost of philanthropy advice, help people choose how to give, what they want to achieve and identify where need is greatest and which causes might maximise social outcomes and donor satisfaction. It concludes that while artificial intelligence presents many challenges and opportunities for philanthropy, one of the most likely impacts will be to make philanthropy advice a mass market-commodity easily available to the wider public, rather than just the preserve of wealthier philanthropists. Charities have already started to embrace artificial intelligence technology in delivering their mission. Further details of how charities are using AI are set out in this separate piece.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Fintech Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has introduced a plethora of new rules and initiatives designed to boost the state's fintech industry recently, with its latest move aimed at making life easier for firms providing digital investment advice. MAS released a consultation paper this week outlining how it plans to clarify and update regulation for this segment, which included proposals for making it easier for firms to offer digital advice to retail investors, licensing exemptions for firms offering certain digital services related to investment, and reducing the volume of information about clients firms are required to gather before they can offer advice. MAS' aims are likely two-fold.