LG's latest G6 flagship may have become the first non-Pixel phone to have Google's new Assistant feature, but the search giant is focused on bringing its new personal assistant to as many other smartphones as humanly possible. Keeping true to its promise, the Mountain View firm just started rolling out Assistant to smartphones running Android 7.0 Nougat and Android 6.0 Marshmallow versions. With Assistant, you just long press on the Home button or say "Ok Google" to get started. The advanced feature leverages Google's knowledge graph, artificial intelligence and machine learning to better understand context of your questions. Google's conversational artificial intelligence helper debuted at Google I/O in March 2016 on its Pixel smartphones, the Amazon Echo-like Home speaker, in the cross-platform Allo messaging app and as a built-in feature of the latest version of the Android Wear platform.

Artificial intelligence startup Ozlo thinks it has a solution for situations where virtual assistants fail in their responses: Getting the bots to ask questions back. Ozlo is launching a trio of software packages for other companies to enhance the virtual assistants they build. They're aimed at making those assistants more sophisticated, including getting them to ask clarifying questions when they don't understand a user request. Current virtual assistants, meaning conversational apps and bots like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, "have this problem with being very brittle," Ozlo CEO Charles Jolley told Recode. He's referring to those moments when Siri says, "I didn't quite get that," or where Google Assistant says, "Sorry, I don't know how to do that yet," without addressing what part of the question the virtual assistants don't understand.

Line Corp., owner of Japan's most popular messaging service, is getting into the artificial intelligence market in a big way by outlining an ambitious plan that pits it against the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon. According to a report in Bloomberg News, Line Corp. is gearing up to launch a suite of AI software tools that will enable a digital assistant that speaks in Japanese and Korean. The assistant will be able to converse with users and provide weather and news via a dedicated smartphone app or a speaker that sits on the table and is called Wave, similar to Amazon's Echo. Line Corp., which unveiled the strategy during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this week, said both the app and the speaker will come to the market between April and June. While Line faces a lot of competition, the company thinks it can stand out from the pack because of its local knowledge about the markets in which it is operating, including South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia.

The past decade has witnessed tremendous influx of technology across all aspects of business operations. Organizations are increasingly turning to automation, artificial intelligence and robotics to bring about a transformation in their revenue generation capability, reduction in costs and increase in efficiency. Indian banking leaders like ICICI and HDFC have piloted using humanoids/robots to bring about operational efficiency by intelligently automating many of the backend processes and customer facing areas. On a similar note, global banks like Mizuho and Sberbank use virtual assistants to enhance customer experience. Technological advances are increasingly being viewed as game changers in the ever evolving business landscape.

It's not a stretch to say we'll all be speaking to AI-powered digital assistants in the future. But who will build the assistants we use the most? Till now that battle has been waged by tech giants in e-commerce, search and mobile hardware, through Amazon's Alexa, Google Now and Apple's Siri. Now a popular chat app in Asia is throwing its hat into the ring. LINE, the messaging app owned by South Korea's Naver and with 700 million registered users, wants to take a step beyond smartphones and towards screen-less technology, the company's chief executive, Takeshi Idezawa said at Mobile World Congress (MWC) on Wednesday, with its own digital assistant powered by machine learning. Moving past the smartphone screen is a wise strategy for any tech company these days, even those who were born on mobile.

You've probably been hearing a lot about Google Home lately. Yes, it's the all-knowing oracle that tells you what's coming up your day is and fill the room with the sounds of whales if you so desire. But there's another Google Home you need to know about. It's an app that bears the same name, although it does way more than just work with your living room answer box. The Google Home app is essential because it does so many things, such as connecting to your physical Google Home device, finding apps for Chromecast, and giving you customization for what you get from the Google Assistant.

The U.S. technology giant's move comes after Amazon continues to aggressively push Alexa onto new devices. At CES, Amazon announced Alexa would be integrated with LG refrigerators and even Ford cars. But it began to step on Google's feet when Amazon announced that Alexa would be on the Huawei Mate 9 smartphone in the U.S., which runs Android. "It is little surprise Google has come out with all guns blazing at MWC. It must be reeling from the decision to include Amazon's Alexa on the Mate 9 when it was announced," Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, told CNBC by email on Tuesday.

For most of the people reading this post, artificial intelligence seemed like a far-off futuristic thing. Unless you're a computer scientist or engineer, the term AI likely conjures up images straight out of science fiction: robots roaming the earth and machines that cook breakfast like the Jetson's foodarackacycle. But AI isn't just a sci-fi dream of the future from our childhoods anymore -- it's here and already a core part of the apps, tools, gadgets, and services we use every day. Most of the time we don't even realize it's there, and yet, AI has made our lives much easier. In fact, check out these amazing stats that reminds us that AI technology is here to stay.

Wearables appeared to have so much potential, especially when smartwatches first hit the scene: I mean, who wouldn't want a tiny touchscreen right on your wrist for fitness, smartphone notifications, and even calling? Well, unfortunately, they never took off for several reasons. However, 2017 may see some interesting changes, according to the latest data: Counterpoint claims that wearables powered by AI will grow 376 percent this year, but the question is "Will this be enough to generate renewed interest in wearables?" Currently, wearables market is largely divided into two categories: fitness trackers and smartwatches. Not surprisingly, despite Apple Watch's "success," fitness trackers still lead the market by a big margin.

Artificial intelligence is transforming our lives at home and at work. At home, you may be one of the 1.8 million people who use Amazon's Alexa to control the lights, unlock your car, and receive the latest stock quotes for the companies in your portfolio. In total, Alexa is touted as having more than 3,000 skills and growing daily. In the workplace, artificial intelligence is evolving into an intelligent assistant to help us work smarter. Artificial intelligence is not the future of the workplace, it is the present and happening today.