Jeff Heepke knows where to plant corn on his 4,500-acre farm in Illinois because of artificial intelligence (AI). He uses a smartphone app called Climate Basic, which divides Heepke's farmland (and, in fact, the entire continental U.S.) into plots that are 10 meters square. The app draws on local temperature and erosion records, expected precipitation, soil quality, and other agricultural data to determine how to maximize yields for each plot. If a rainy cold front is expected to pass by, Heepke knows which areas to avoid watering or irrigating that afternoon. As the U.S. Department of Agriculture noted, this use of artificial intelligence across the industry has produced the largest crops in the country's history. Climate Corporation, the Silicon Valley–based developer of Climate Basic, also offers a more advanced AI app that operates autonomously. If a storm hits a region, or a drought occurs, it adjusts local yield numbers downward. Farmers who have bought insurance to supplement their government coverage get a check; no questions asked, no paper filing necessary.

Earlier today, Amazon made its long-rumored screen-based Echo device official. The Echo Show is basically a cuboid Echo with a touchscreen and camera attached to it. It supports all of the far-field voice commands as the original, so you can use it to play music, control smart home gadgets, add items to a shopping list, check the weather, and do thousands of other things. The new screen provides a way for the Show to display its answers in addition to speaking them aloud. It will display cards for the weather, products to buy on Amazon, videos on YouTube, and whatever else developers think of.

How's it gone so far? Microsoft's big annual conference kicks off today, and we've sniffed out what you can expect. We also get the full reveal of Amazon's Echo-with-a-screen. It's not pretty, but it does sound pretty smart. What to expect at Microsoft's Build 2017 conference While it's a mobile computing world, Microsoft has no shortage of projects we need to be updated on.

Microsoft has made big changes to how it operate under Nadella. SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft Build 2017 kicks off Wednesday morning in Seattle, a homecoming for the tech giant after years of holding its annual developers conference here in San Francisco. Some 5,500 developers have heeded the Redmond, Wash., company's call, helping Build sell out in a day. As Facebook, Apple and Google do with their big developer confabs, Microsoft will use the event to evangelize about its strategy while urging software pros to spend time developing much-needed apps for Microsoft's ecosystem. Chat-bots were the big story out of Build 2016 -- CEO Satya Nadella pronounced the artificial-intelligence helpers "the new apps" -- but famously fizzled out of the gate when, days before the conference, hackers turned Microsoft's Tay bot into an epithet-spewing racist.

Last summer, Adobe researchers surveyed over 2,000 office employees and nine thought leaders on the evolving definition of work. Through this exercise, researches uncovered several interesting insights about the future of work, including the most effective "carrots" used to motivate employees. "Employers may be focusing too much on ping pong tables and free dry cleaning instead of technology that helps their employees feel valued and encouraged," says Jeff Vijungco, vice president of global talent at Adobe. To help them find fulfillment, "employers need to pay attention to productivity more than perks," he adds. Workspaces that encourage subconscious thought, smart coffee machines and conference rooms that remember what you like, virtual assistants that delight, flexible attendance policies, and performance-based rewards were at the top of the list, according to the study.

Samsung subsidiary Harman Kardon quietly announced its Amazon Echo competitor, called Invoke Monday. The speaker, powered by Microsoft's voice assistant Cortana, is expected to have features such as integration with Microsoft productivity tools, such as MS-Word and artificial intelligence (AI) more focused on human-machine interactions. "We are excited to partner with Harman Kardon to create a speaker that combines premium audio and stylish design with the intelligence of Cortana. This is our next step in bringing Cortana to even more devices to help users be more productive wherever they are," Jordi Ribas, corporate vice president, AI Products at Microsoft, said in the press release. The Invoke speaker looks similar to Amazon Echo and Google Home -- it has a cylindrical design and a top with LED lighting, which glows when the speaker is listening to the user's voice commands.

You can credit IBM's Watson for creating a platform for artificial intelligence integration into a multitude of business and customer-facing applications. You can thank Facebook for all the buzz about chatbots and the gold rush of developers and venture capital creating an onslaught of bot companies. However, the truth is we are only just starting to realise the potential of artificial intelligence and one of the most promising applications for AI to make a more than welcome impact is in customer experience. It can be debated that for all of the good technology has offered businesses over the last several decades, it has also comprised key elements of the customer experience. Call centres, websites, email, apps, et al, have allowed companies to scale and automate customer engagement while also introducing process efficiencies and cost management systems.

The Google Home smart speaker has finally made it to the UK, bringing the company's always-listening voice assistant into direct competition with the incumbent Amazon Echo and its own assistant, Alexa. But is Google's best worth buying? Artificially intelligent voice assistants are the new battleground between the big US tech companies and while Google is no stranger with voice search and Google Now being available on Android smartphones for years, it was beaten into US and then UK households by Amazon and its hit Echo speaker. Google Home is a wifi-connected, voice-controlled smart speaker capable of playing music, answering questions and controlling other devices about the home. Inside awaits Assistant – Google's virtual assistant – the same Google Assistant present in many Android smartphones, including the Google Pixel, Samsung Galaxy S8 and others.

Remember when word got out for Microsoft's Home Hub, a Windows 10 update that would effectively turn your PC into a souped-up Amazon Echo with shared info, across-the-room voice control and home automation? You now have an idea as to what it'll look like in practice. The Verge has obtained leaked conceptual images showing just what Home Hub will do. Sure enough, the welcome screen now has an always-available view of the family's calendar, notes and other collective knowledge. If your child has ballet practice, everyone will know.

Microsoft and Harman Kardon, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, are set to release a smart speaker this fall that plays music, manages calendars, checks traffic and more – and it is powered by Cortana. Called Invoke, the device uses Cortana's natural language recognition and deep integration, combined with Microsoft's suite of knowledge and productivity tools in a bid to take on Amazon's Alexa. 'We're excited to work with Microsoft to develop a premium speaker that will deliver an exceptional experience to every customer using 360-degree Harman Kardon sound and the intelligence of Cortana,' said Michael Mauser, President, Lifestyle Audio Division at Harman. 'Voice-enabled technology is the future; by teaming up with Microsoft, we're delivering on our promise of elevating a connected life through smart technology, superior sound and the stunning design that is Harman Kardon's hallmark.' Users will have a choice between Pearl Silver and Graphite, however the device will only be available in the US sometime this fall.