However, modern customers (Millennials and Generation Z) are not so easy to surprise. So, it is not enough for retailers to keep up with settled trends -- they have to be few steps ahead to hold all the aces. Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes a life jacket in this case. How can retail benefit from Artificial Intelligence solutions? Much as television in its time or Internet accordingly, Artificial Intelligence is here yet to make a revolution in common things.

Roughly 25 million voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home are expected to sell in the US in 2017 and researchers are noticing that infants who grow up around these devices are having developmental challenges. For example, kids who grow up with voice assistants tend to have less regard for people's feelings because they're used to interacting vocally with an object without emotions. They also tend to place less value on developing vocabulary because it's more efficient for them to retrieve information from Google Home or Alexa with simple commands. Links mentioned in the video: • Apis Cor's 3D printed building video • Jeff Kolesky's technical job search data analysis

You're forgiven if you didn't. Turing Robotic Industries unveiled the ambitious phone to much fanfare, only to delay it multiple times and even switch operating systems. That isn't stopping the company from producing a follow-up, though -- it's teaming up with TCL to make its next upscale phone, the Appassionato. The Android device is still made from Turing's signature extra-strong Liquidmorphium alloy (complete with a ceramic-like carbon coating), but it now includes a hybrid concierge and voice assistant service named, naturally, Sir Alan. Details of how it works aren't clear, but it'll let you get "lifestyle and business recommendations" from both AI and human helpers.

Voice-powered digital assistants such as Google Home and Amazon's Echo have been largely a novelty for consumers since Apple's Siri introduced the technology to the masses in 2011. The devices can have a conversation by understanding context and relationships, and many use them for daily activities such as sending text messages and checking appointments.

Burger King released a new ad on Wednesday that intentionally sets off Google Home assistants. The man in the commercial is holding a the fast food chain's signature Whopper while explaining that 15 seconds just isn't enough time to describe the sandwich. He then says "But I've got an idea," and when the camera gets closer he declares, "Ok Google, what is the Whopper Burger?" Cue Google Home assistants everywhere spewing information about Whoppers. The ad is an innovative way to make a lasting impression on possible customers, even if it does have the potential to annoy them. Burger King was likely inspired by all the times commercials and TV shows have accidentally set off home assistants.

Smart personal assistants are the new weapon of choice of tech giants, but, idyllic as they may sound, they are currently a misnomer. These artificially intelligent assistants might be good at analyzing speech patterns, spoken commands, and connecting to Internet services, but they aren't yet that capable yet when it comes to accurately predicting what we really want, let alone anticipating what we need. But most importantly, these AI lacks a critical element that would make these personal assistants truly relatable, but is also the most difficult human trait to reproduce: emotion. Artificial intelligence has mostly concerned itself with things like machine learning, language processing, and similar "hard" aspects of knowledge formation, and rightly so. These functions and features of human intelligence are more easily quantifiable than emotions.

Advertisers figured out how to manipulate your voice-activated assistants. Burger King just showed us in 15 seconds how voice-activated speakers can be used for ill. In a new ad, an actor dressed like a Burger King employee holds up a Whopper and explains that he can't sum up the sandwich in such a short amount of time. We've teamed up with Product Hunt to offer you the chance to win an all expense paid trip to TNW Conference 2017! The actor beckons the camera closer and says, "Okay Google, what is the Whopper burger?" If you have a Google Home or Android device anywhere near a TV or computer while that ad is playing aloud, it will start reading the Wikipedia entry for the Whopper to you.

The big knock against Google Home when it launched was simply that it didn't do as much as Amazon's Echo. But Google has been busy adding more features to Home and generally trying to make the speaker even smarter. Today's addition is one for travelers -- you can now ask Google Home to give you info on flight pricing, and it'll start tracking that travel route for you so you can try and get the best deal. You can now ask Google Home to give you pricing for flights to and from any cities you want, and it'll respond telling you what the prices look like for two weeks out. It'll then ask if you have specific dates in mind.

The Consumer Intelligence Research, which has kept track of Amazon Echo's sales, reported in January that an estimated 8.2 million Americans own one of Amazon's devices. The market researcher, alas, does not keep track of Google's numbers. A Google spokesperson declined to comment to The Huffington Post on their Google Home sales numbers.

Burger King has released a new TV advert designed to make viewers' Google Home voice assistants advertise the company's burgers. The device, which only launched in the UK last week, listens to and quickly processes spoken commands, before firing the answers back at you. It's activated by the phrase, "Okay Google", which the fast food company has decided to hijack. In the ad, a person tells the camera that 15 seconds isn't enough time to "explain all the fresh ingredients in the Whopper sandwich". The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.