The idea of thinking machines may evoke thoughts of a Terminator-esque era, but the fact is that artificial intelligence, to an extent, is already a part of our lives and its presence is only set to grow. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that deals with making computers simulate human intelligence. However technical and geeky that may sound, AI is a far less mundane technology than you might believe. Right from medical diagnoses to driverless cars, AI has fundamentally improved the way people consume a product, which is why marketers bet on it big time. A 2016 survey by Demandbase pointed out that over 80 percent of marketing executives believed that AI would revolutionise marketing by 2020.

Tech giants are in a race to see who can build the most powerful voice-activated assistant, but there's a side effect that we haven't considered: Kids who grow up asking Amazon's Alexa questions or summoning Siri might lose some social skills. What if artificial intelligence changes the way we talk? Experts in robotics, machine learning, and AI descended on Austin for South by Southwest this week, and the biggest questions were lifted straight from the film Her. Is it changing the way we interact with each other? Will kids think they can order around their friends the same way they tell Alexa to tell them a joke?

Google Assistant, Google's own AI digital assistant, is now rolling out to several smartphones running Android Marshmallow and Nougat. However, it looks like the company's digital assistant won't be making its way to tablets. Earlier this month, Google Assistant started rolling out to older, non-Pixel smartphones. The company also made it clear on its blog that the service will be available on "Android phones" and "smartphones running Android 7.0 Nougat and Android 6.0 Marshmallow." Android Police has now reached out to Google regarding the availability of Assistant on tablets, and this was the company's response: "The Assistant will be available on Android Marshmallow and Nougat phones with Google Play Services, this does not include tablets."

The LG G6 hasn't yet hit the shelves, but carriers have started making efforts to entice customers. T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint and US Cellular are all offering a free Google Home speaker (priced at $129) on the purchase of the device. The offer ends April 30 or until supplies last, whichever comes first. In addition to the Google Home speaker, carriers are also offering other freebies with the device. T-Mobile is offering the G6 for a EMI of $26 a month for 24 months along with a $26 down payment, which makes the total cost of the handset $650.

The second man to set foot on the moon thinks colonizing Mars is humanity's destiny. Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 astronaut, may now be 87, but he's keeping his mind focused on the next space frontier. For decades now, he's thought about how to get astronauts to Mars, becoming more vocal about his plans in recent years. He's also a fan of virtual reality as a medium to communicate his vision: He partnered with NASA to build a Mars Hololens experience last year, and now he's hosting a 10-minute VR experience that walks you through his vision of how to get to Mars. Now it's up to CongressTrump's budget proposal means big cuts for NASA, climate change programs The president's proposed 2018 budget has been revealed.

Amazon's virtual assistant just got a much wider audience. The company announced it's integrating Alexa into its main shopping app on iPhone, starting today with a full rollout expected by next week. The assistant can do more than just provide a voice interface to Amazon's retail store, however – it can also control your smart home, play your music or Kindle books, answer questions, check the news and weather, and take advantage of Alexa's extensions, known as Skills. Basically, it's a mobile version of Alexa that you can use even without Amazon hardware, like an Echo speaker or Fire TV. It may seem a bit odd to think of using a virtual assistant via a shopping app rather than, say, the existing Alexa mobile app.

The sheer scale of SXSW can be overwhelming for those looking for guidance on the next big thing. I went to Austin with one mission in mind: to zero in on conversational interfaces. It follows promising work by early adopters such as Activision, Burberry, and H&M, which proved the early promise of the humble chatbot. Meanwhile, voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant are shaping the connected home, providing us with fluid, intuitive access to services and products. But there's more still to come as the field develops.

The next assistant in many offices could be named Alexa or Cortana. In 2016, Silicon Valley obsessed over how text-based bots in apps like Slack could make employees more efficient, turning complicated tasks or forms into conversational texts. Now, following the success of Amazon Inc.'s Alexa and Alphabet Inc.'s Google Home, people in the technology industry are increasingly thinking about how such voice-activated devices can be made useful in the workplace. The workplace offers challenges that experts say intelligent assistants built for home use so far haven't effectively met, mostly in the area of voice recognition. Workers at Goodwinds Inc. in New York City, for example, have used an Amazon Echo attached to the office ceiling for such tasks as adding events to their calendars and setting reminders for meetings, says Vinay Patankar, chief executive of the workflow-management startup.

That's because many online-only banks and others are investing in automated assistants that improve customer interactions by predicting why customers are contacting the bank and resolving the issue quickly, according to Servion Global Solutions. "Our philosophy is that a customer has a reason for making contact with his bank and over a period of time, as the interaction history builds up, the bank should be able to predict why the customer is calling, regardless of the channel being used," says Ashish Koul, Servion senior vice president and general manager. "Instead of letting the customer go into [interactive voice response] mumbo jumbo of pressing 1 for this and pressing 2 for that … you have a virtual assistant, which is intelligent, powered by analytics and can either solve the problem or connect the customer to the most qualified human when that interaction requires it." Servion predicts AI will support 95 percent of customer interactions with banks by 2025. The company's ServIntuit platform provides the context of previous customer interactions across channels to make the virtual assistant more intelligent, the company says.

Google Home has come under fire after slipping a promo in for the movie'Beauty and the Beast' while sharing information about several of its owners' days. Many Reddit and Twitter users have reported hearing an'advertisement' for the opening day of the film after using the configuration'My Day' when speaking to the virtual assistant. Following information about the weather, commute and daily reminders, the AI seamless said'By the way, Disney's live action Beauty and the Beast opens today'. Commute: Hear an overview of traffic to work and an estimated travel time. Reminders: Hear a list of reminders that you have set for the day.