Burger King could be cooking up a flame-broiled ad war with Google. Burger King has been releasing short ads that trigger Google Home devices to describe what's in a Whopper. The fast-food restaurant chain is serving up TV commercials that cause Google's voice-activated, artificial intelligence-driven Google Home speaker to start talking about the Whopper sandwich. In the first version of the 15-second ad, which ran Wednesday on TV and is on YouTube, a man dressed as a Burger King worker asks the camera, "OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?" That question triggered Google Home speakers to read the introduction to Wikipedia's page devoted to the Whopper.

TGI Friday's may have a reputation as a casual restaurant and watering hole, but its messaging to customers was hardly conversational. The well-known chain sent out regular blasts through traditional broad-reach media and, more recently, social media, yet it increasingly wanted to re-create the banter that happens organically when regulars belly up to the bar. In lieu of hiring a battalion of customer service "bar keeps," TGI Fridays recruited an enterprise conversation platform infused with a shot of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize its messaging and overall customer experience. Now, patrons can chat up the AI for happy hour suggestions and appetizer specials, engage in small talk using emojis, make reservations, and order takeout via social media channels and through Amazon Alexa. "We thought about how technology could help us create that one-on-one personalized messaging outside of the bar without having to hire 1,000 people to respond to individual guests," says Sherif Mityas, vice president of strategy and brand initiatives, as well as acting CIO, at TGI Fridays.

Real quick, here's a list of ingredients you're unlikely to find in your next Burger King Whopper: Yet for a while Wednesday, those are precisely the ingredients -- according to Business Insider and The Verge, at least -- that the fast-food chain's new commercial accidentally directed viewers to check out. The pitchman in Burger King's brief advertisement played off that brevity by noting he just didn't have enough time to list all "the fresh ingredients in the Whopper sandwich" -- so instead, he simply pulled the camera near and closed with a question addressed to the viewers' home devices: "OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?" The idea was that if the search company's smart speaker (and possibly future sentient overlord) Google Home happened to be listening nearby, it would then answer the question with a makeshift promo for the burger -- an explanation of Burger King's signature item. And there is video proof the stunt indeed worked like a charm ... You see, two problems cropped up pretty quickly.

Amazon's Alexa has become the flag-bearer for AI assistants. Not only does she possess an exhaustive list of useful skills, but she's also started finding new homes in everything from phones to cars, watches, little robots and even refrigerators. There's a reason Amazon's Echo and Echo Dot speakers are particularly suited for ordering Alexa around at home, though. They both feature a fancy far-field, seven-microphone setup and audio processing smarts that help Alexa understand your muffled commands shouted from the downstairs bathroom. Today, Amazon's announced it's releasing this mixture of hardware and software in a new development kit, so other companies can build Alexa prisons that recognize you want to add mixed spices to your shopping list, and not listen to a Spice Girls mix (liar).

Although artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for decades, of late a new wave of ".ai" is sweeping the technology world. This time around, it has manifested in the form of bots. Tech giants of Silicon Valley have ventured into this space, either by building bots themselves -- such as Cortana, Siri, or Alexa -- and/or by coming up with bot-building platforms like Wit.ai or API.ai. Other smaller companies and startups were also quick to jump on this bandwagon, resulting in an overflowing "bot landscape" in the otherwise human-dominated world. On Facebook Messenger alone there have been approximately 35,000 bots built in last six months -- news bots, weather bots, and scheduling bots, to name just a few.

We might not always be aware of it, but Artificial Intelligence is now an established component of our daily experience as consumers. Whether it's choosing a movie based on unique recommendations from Netflix, asking Alexa to share the local weather, or interacting with online customer support via bots, AI is behind the scenes delivering highly personalized, smart interactions. Retailers and brands, acutely aware of the unparallelled opportunity before them, are now fully embracing AI to create these same experiences. When a shopper visits an AI-powered ecommerce site, like one of the hundreds powered by Salesforce Einstein, the very fabric of the site is unique to them. From rich product imagery on the homepage to product assortments in search results, the future of AI brings personalized shopping experiences to a whole new level.

It was the iconic party game of the 90s where spinning a bottle would decide your romantic fate. Now, Spin the Bottle has been given a modern update, in the form of a new dating app. The app reimagines the online dating experience, with a virtual bottle that players can spin to decide who they video-chat in the hopes of finding a date. Players can spin a virtual bottle, and when it stops, they'll enter into a 30 second video date where they can chat up their potential match. If the two like each other, they can give their date a'kiss' and see if they return the affection.

One of the most promising and closely followed areas of fintech in recent months has been the application of artificial intelligence to deliver personalized financial services. Such solutions, often referred to as ChatBots or robo advisors, offer a rare opportunity to transcend hyperbole and truly transform the provision of financial services. Consider retirement planning and investment advice, areas to which such solutions are frequently connected. It's no secret that a disturbing percentage of Americans have insufficient savings to cover their post-earning years. This is likely the No. 1 area where financial institutions could step up to improve their customers' financial lives.

Fast-food chain Burger King said on Wednesday it will start televising a commercial for its signature Whopper sandwich that is designed to activate Google voice-controlled devices, raising questions about whether marketing tactics have become too invasive. The 15-second ad starts with a Burger King employee holding up the sandwich saying, "You're watching a 15-second Burger King ad, which is unfortunately not enough time to explain all the fresh ingredients in the Whopper sandwich. But I've got an idea. OK, Google, what is the Whopper burger?" If a viewer has the Google Home assistant or an Android phone with voice search enabled within listening range of the TV, that last phrase - "Hello Google, what is the Whopper burger?" - is intended to trigger the device to search for Whopper on Google and read out the finding from Wikipedia.

Burger King's latest advert for its Whopper has backfired after the iconic burger's Wikipedia page was manipulated to claim that the product contains "cyanide" and is "the worst hamburger product" the fast food chain has ever made. On Wednesday, Burger King released a 15-second advert in the US which claimed there was not enough time to explain "all the fresh ingredient in its Whopper sandwich". Instead, an a Burger King staff member asks Google to do the explaining for him, using the voice prompt: "OK Google, what is the Whopper Burger?" after which the ad ends. But the marketing stunt backfired after somebody altered the first line of the Wikipedia entry to say that the burger contains "cyanide" and is "cancer-causing". The entry also reportedly described the Whooper as "the worst hamburger product" sold by Burger King.