For a company set on "moving at warp speed," Cisco's most recent acquisition target, artificial intelligence startup MindMeld, fits in with the geeky futuristic theme the organization has been championing as of late. With AI making enterprise inroads at a rapid clip, across all industries and all kinds of products, Cisco sees investment in this space as an imperative for the success of its Collaboration business unit. The MindMeld acquisition aligns with Cisco's mission to get its products into more hands, faster, which is the message Jens Meggers, Cisco's SVP and GM for the Cloud Collaboration Technology Group, drove home in a recent interview about the company's future vision for collaboration. Cisco will largely leverage the technology to advance Spark, Cisco's team collaboration platform, specifically in the area of ambient listening, as UC analyst Zeus Kerravala told us in his recent No Jitter post on the acquisition. It's easy to conceptualize how AI in the workplace can make workers smarter and more efficient, as Kerravala wrote, calling out an example where a user could ask Spark to summarize Spark messages and identify items that require immediate attention.

LG has had a busy week at CES already, and the show hasn't even started yet. Over the past seven days, the firm has announced new wireless headphones, a levitating speaker and today it unveiled its latest smart home products including a household robot that is a cute rival to Amazon Echo and Google Home. Called Hub Robot, the household robot is a cross between Bicentennial Man (in function, rather than looks), and looks like it comes straight out of a Pixar film. It connects to other smart appliances in the home and uses Amazon Alexa's voice recognition technology to carry out tasks. LG's examples include turning on the air conditioner or changing a dryer cycle.

At Amazon's prototype grocery store, Amazon Go, customers can walk in, pick up what they want and walk out, without ever waiting in a checkout line or pulling out a wallet. Amazon will automatically charge their account and send them a receipt. Amazon Prime customers can place an order from their phone and get same-day delivery. These are the kinds of no-hassle experiences that consumers have come to expect -- and artificial intelligence (AI) is powering many of them. Amazon Go, for instance, uses computer vision, fusion sensors and deep learning to track when items are removed from or put back on shelves.

With more than 40% market share in mobile games, billion monthly active users and 2.6 billion unique devices, Unity plays a profoundly important role in the booming gaming and VR markets. Introducing machine learning and AI into game development will curb one of the greatest expenses in time and money that go into content creation, but will also change the role of programmers. With immense access to data and computing power, developers will use historical data to model extensive virtual realities of games, taking programming out of the equation. I spoke with Dr Danny Lange, VP of AI and machine learning at Unity about this, the present and future of game development, machine learning, and how developers and startups can get most out of it. Dr Danny Lange is VP of AI and machine learning at Unity Technologies.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have become the newest trend in business intelligence. Companies are rushing to secure resources to incorporate these new technologies into their business model. For the first time in decades, businesses have the opportunity to open up a new channel for business intelligence delivery to support informed business decision making with fast turnaround. In response to this trend in business intelligence, the labor market has started to demand more Data Scientists and Data Architects while demand for other careers decrease. What are these new technologies and how can they revolutionize the way companies do business?

A recent acceleration of innovation in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made it a hot topic in boardrooms, government, and the media. But it is still early, and everyone seems to have a different view of what AI is. I have investigated the space over the last few years as a technologist and active investor. What is remarkable now is that things that haven't worked for decades in the space are starting to work; and we are going beyond just tools and embedded functions. We are starting to redefine how software and systems are built, what can be programmed, and how users interact.

With more than 40% market share in mobile games, billion monthly active users and 2.6 billion unique devices, Unity plays a profoundly important role in the booming gaming and VR markets. Introducing machine learning and AI into game development will curb one of the greatest expenses in time and money that go into content creation, but will also change the role of programmers. With immense access to data and computing power, developers will use historical data to model extensive virtual realities of games, taking programming out of the equation. I spoke with Dr. Danny Lange, VP of AI and machine learning at Unity about this, the present and future of game development, machine learning, and how developers and startups can get most out of it. Dr. Danny Lange is VP of AI and machine learning at Unity Technologies.

Think about the time it takes to see a doctor: Find a doctor, schedule an appointment, drive to the office, inevitably linger in the waiting room and then, finally, see the doctor. Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered wellness tools are reducing the steps required to receive a diagnosis. A wellness tool that uses image recognition and deep learning could enable you to self-diagnose a skin complaint. Leading technology and service providers (TSPs) are planning strategies based on an AI-enabled future. Apple, Dell, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Samsung are some of the companies that have acquired AI startups and are developing new platforms for AI progress.

Mark Gurman, who seems to have quite a few reliable contacts around the Valley, reports in Bloomberg that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is working on a hardware acceleration chip for artificial intelligence (AI) processing. The chip is known internally as the Apple Neural Engine. The chip could be incorporated into Apple mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad either as a discrete chip or integrated with Apple's custom systems on chip (SOCs). Although Gurman only cites anonymous sources familiar with the matter, I consider the report very credible. Apple has for some time been seeking ways to build more AI functionality into the individual mobile device.

Digital business platform provider Magnolia formed a partnership with IBM in 2015 to integrate with its IBM Marketing Cloud. With the integration, Magnolia users could incorporate the email marketing, lead management and mobile engagement solutions the platform provided into their daily workflows. When Armonk, NY-based IBM folded its Marketing Cloud under the broader umbrella of Watson Marketing in March, the capabilities expanded, which meant good news for Magnolia users. By installing the Magnolia Silverpop Module, Magnolia customers with a Watson Marketing account can plug their Magnolia instances into IBM Watson, bringing further capabilities for personalized content delivery based on scoring models derived from visitor behavior. IBM Watson can, "analyze and interpret all of your data, including unstructured text, images, audio and video [with the aim of] providing personalized recommendations by understanding a user's personality, tone and emotion."