From marketing, IT, and HR to customer experience and even finance, artificial intelligence (AI) seems destined to profoundly impact all aspects of business. While there are certainly some fine examples of AI at work today today--Alexa, Nest, and Amazon.com Wants To Know," we reached out to experts and perused some of our recent AI-related content to provide a better understanding of what might await. Simon Morris, Senior Director, Campaign Marketing, Consumer And SMB, Adobe: A study late last year by Weber Shandwick revealed that 55% of CMOs across five global markets think AI will transform the marketing landscape even more than social media has, and nearly six in 10 believe that companies will need to compete in the AI space to succeed. From my personal perspective, I am incredibly excited about the possibilities AI brings, and there are two areas that particularly excite me.

Google Home owners can now use the smart speaker to issue commands to iDevices smart-home products. This brings online a number smart switches, outlets, and sockets for command and control through the Google Assistant. The company announced yesterday that you'll be able to configure this connection with the company's iDevices Connected app for iPhone and Android. To make this happen, you'll need to enable the iDevices Service inside of the Google Home app, which is also available for both mobile platforms. The iDevices app is the centerpiece of controlling the company's products.

Amazon's Alexa is miles ahead of rivals like Microsoft and Google with its "skills" -- around 10,000 mini-apps that let you use your voice to control your lights or music, order an Uber, learn first aid and more. To help close that gap, Microsoft has finally launched the Cortana Skills Kit in a public preview, allowing developers to build new skills or convert them from Alexa or Microsoft's new Bot Framework. Developers will be able to use the kit to build skills and publish them to a new Cortana channel on its Bot Framework. Right now, the skills will work on Cortana for Windows 10, Android, iOS and the recently announced Cortana-enabled Harman Kardon Invoke speaker. A key piece of Microsoft's Cortana strategy is Echo-like hardware, but it hasn't revealed its own device (yet).

HP and Intel are both working on connected-home devices that run on Microsoft's Cortana platform. Microsoft announced the devices as part of its Build 2017 conference this morning, but didn't provide details about form, function or release window. The gadgets from HP and Intel follow this week's announcement of Invoke (GIF below), the first-ever third-party Cortana device. The connected speaker comes from Harman Kardon and it can "favorite music, manage calendars and activities, set reminders, check traffic, deliver the latest news and much more." The Invoke and other Cortana-run devices will encroach on a hot IoT market currently dominated by Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Microsoft has revealed it is betting big on AI - and says half a billion devices are now running its Windows 10 software. It comes as the firm unveiled new tools intended to democratize artificial intelligence by enabling machine smarts to be built into software from smartphone games to factory floors. Improving programs with artificial intelligence that could tap into services in the internet'cloud' and even take advantage of computing power in nearby machines, was part of a vision unveiled as the US technology titan's annual Build Conference opened. Microsoft says a half billion devices are now running Windows 10, its latest operating system. That's up from 400 million disclosed last September, but far short of a goal of 1 billion by 2018. Microsoft has already acknowledged it won't hit 1 billion in time.

Two more hardware manufacturers are lining up behind Microsoft's new Cortana-powered appliances: HP and Intel, indicating that Microsoft is turning to its tried-and-true PC partners to usher Cortana into the living room. Microsoft announced support from both companies at its Build conference in Seattle on Wednesday, though what each company will eventually manufacture isn't known. According to Microsoft, the company signed a partnership with HP to build products, and with Intel to provide reference platforms for Cortana-powered devices. Though an alliance with HP is nothing to scoff at, Intel's support should make the most difference. So far, Cortana competitors like Google Home and Amazon's small ecosystem of Alexa-powered Echo devices are made just by the individual companies themselves.

Windows 10 has hit a milestone: 500 million devices have installed it, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced Wednesday in his keynote opening the company's Build 2017 developer conference. Another number, however, is more troubling: Just a fraction of those devices frequently use Cortana, Microsoft's digital spokesperson for its push into artificial intelligence. That stands in sharp contrast to what Microsoft calls the "intelligent cloud," the next phase in the evolution of the "mobile first, cloud first" mantra that Nadella has talked up since he became CEO in 2014. At Build, Microsoft executives will describe how data used to be pushed from "edge" devices like phones or tablets to a cloud server, analyzed, and then sent back to the user. Now, Microsoft's trying to build in those analysis capabilities as close to those data-generating devices as possible.

There was huge excitement a few months ago when Google announced the launch of Google Assistant. Much noise was made about its features and ability to chat and assist you with many tasks. It can bring you relevant information, send messages, book events, save reminders, change the lights and… well, the list of features goes on and on. There will undoubtedly be upgrades and improvement to its ever expanding capabilities over the coming year. OK, so now that Google has our attention, what does this and all the other AI platforms available mean to marketers?

If you're fed up of ogling profile pictures of singles only to swipe right in vain, then there's good news. A new dating app lets users find matches based on more than just looks. The app, called Loveflutter, was inspired by a MailOnline article and claims to be the first to use Twitter, letting users display their tweets on their profile. Ahead of its launch this year, it has released an online interactive tool that lets anyone input their Twitter handle to find out their personality, and get dating advice. The app lets users display their 10 most recent tweets by signing into their Twitter account or tapping'Connect with Twitter' in settings.

Microsoft said Monday that it has partnered with audio equipment maker Harman Kardon to put the tech giant's voice-activated assistant, Cortana, into a smart speaker of its very own. The Invoke, as the speaker is called, will allow its owners to use the speaker like a phone, by using Microsoft's Skype. It will also have features similar to its competitors, such as the ability to control smart appliances and tell users what the traffic conditions are like on their commutes, what the latest news is, and what their schedules look like that day. The move puts Microsoft into direct competition with Amazon's Echo and Google Home -- both smart speakers that are designed to act as a "home hub" for smart devices and digital information. Microsoft hasn't announced a smart speaker that it will make, but it appears to be partnering with firms to create gadgets dedicated to its voice assistant.