The list of products, services, and apps that Alexa can communicate with gets larger every day. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. The list of products, services, and apps that Alexa can communicate with gets larger every day.

The following post highlights how Venture Scanner categorizes the Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup landscape, and presents our Innovation Quadrant showing how those categories compare to one another. The data for this post is through April 2017. The above sector map organizes the sector into 13 categories and shows a sampling of companies in each category. Our Innovation Quadrant provides a snapshot of the average funding and average age for the different AI categories and how they compare with one another. Heavyweights: These categories are comprised of companies that have reached maturity with significant financing.

Despite what the average consumer may realize, AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is already a core part of their daily lives. In our modern lives, no one goes untouched by the power of Artificial Intelligence. Be it Siri or Alexa's conversational helping hands or Netflix's hyper-sensitive recommendation engine, there are few places in our digital lives that aren't enhanced by machine learning and algorithms. In the business world - especially in the marketing and advertising spheres - for any organization seeking to gain a foothold or maintain a lead, tapping into the power of AI is beyond the point of theory. Whether you're on board or not, here's a rundown of the 3 major ways AI is changing the face of marketing -- not only supplanting the traditions in who is looking at this data, but how we make key decisions, from content and creative to customer support to measuring and acting on data -- and ultimately, how you as a marketer can benefit.

Amazon still hasn't said when it plans to ship its new Echo Look camera, but it appears that will be happening very soon. The company has started rolling out companion iOS and Android apps for the device, which costs $200 and is only available via invite to Prime customers -- at least for the time being. To refresh your mind, Echo Look is an Alexa-powered camera for people who want to take pictures or videos of their daily outfits, enhanced by an artificial intelligence algorithm that'll learn your habits and make clothes recommendations based on that. The iOS and Android apps are going to bring all of that together, putting your very own lookbook in your pocket. Naturally, you'll be able to share your pictures with friends, family or other loved ones -- if you're into that sort of thing.

Amazon's Alexa has made it onto a lot of platforms in the past year and its latest jump will make it easier to find your favorite movies or TV shows. Satellite TV provider Dish announced Monday its digital video recorders can now be paired with Amazon's Alexa in the home. The feature, which is available on Dish's Hopper or Wally DVR models, allows users to give voice commands to Alexa from the Echo, Echo Dot and Amazon Tap to control their TVs. Functions can be used across Dish's live, recorded and on-demand titles and also work with Netflix's catalog. Through Alexa, users can control the playback of a show with functions like time skipping, rewinding, pausing and restarting programs.

Google I/O 2017 culminated Friday, but tech circuits are still abuzz about the many announcements that came out of the conference. Several new products, features within products and initiatives were announced at Google I/O and should be prominent throughout the rest of 2017. As with many Google conferences, the tech giant announced the latest figures of its continued growth, which include over 2 billion active users on Android and over 1 billion monthly users on each of its major platforms, including Google Search, Android, Play Store, Gmail, Chrome, YouTube and Google Maps. Here's a rundown of the other announcements and details shared during Google I/O 2017. Google Lens is essentially a search engine, which uses images and videos instead of words.

Echo Dot is a hands-free, voice-controlled device with a small built-in speaker--it can also connect to your speakers or headphones over Bluetooth or through a 3.5 mm audio cable to deliver stereo sound to the speakers you choose. Dot connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, make calls, send and receive messages, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more--instantly. Echo Dot can hear you from across the room, even while music is playing. When you want to use Echo Dot, just say the wake word "Alexa" and Dot responds instantly. If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, Alexa responds intelligently from the Echo you're closest to with ESP (Echo Spatial Perception).

Dish is getting serious about voice control. The company just announced that you can now use Amazon Echo's Alexa to control any generation of a Hopper DVR or a Wally satellite receiver. That's great news for Dish subscribers who missed out on the company's homegrown voice control remote released last July because they lacked a Hopper 3 DVR. We first heard about Dish's plans for Alexa during CES in January. Amazon's Echo is versatile and powerful; it's a terrific value all around.

A shot of Amazon's automated store Amazon Go Right from Google's predictive search, Apple's Siri to Facebook's automatic friend tagging and Uber using artificial intelligence (AI) applications, AI is making big noise and has got attention of the world in a massive way. While AI is increasingly everywhere what you probably don't hear much about is AI in retail. While it may not sound as sexy as AI applications empowering recommendation engines for Google and Netflix, AI in retail will affect how we all shop, be it online or offline. AI and deep learning uses software programs to perform complex tasks without active participation or insight from humans making the task at hand a hundred times easier and faster to complete. Armed with the ability to research a retail brand online, customers are today more knowledgeable than ever before.

If you're a Dish subscriber, it just got ridiculously easy to control your TV. The satellite provider has introduced an Alexa skill that lets control any Hopper DVR or Wally using an Amazon Echo. You can ask the set-top box to tune into a specific channel, search for shows (including on Netflix) or directly control playback without touching a thing -- you just need your voice. You can't record shows, alas, but this could be worthwhile if you want to change channels from the kitchen. The Amazon tie-ins aren't done, either.