Creative Strategies, a service that tracks trends and develops deeper insight into key industry topics, released their findings that looked at how consumers are using these virtual assistants and how they really feel about them. The firm ran two studies: Once looked at Alexa that covered 1,300 early adopters across the US and the UK. And the other focused on 500 mainstream consumers and their use of smartphones based digital assistants. Creative Strategies revealed that 21% of its panel never used Siri, 43% never touched OK Google and 72% have never asked Cortana anything. They also found that 2% of iPhone owners have never used Siri and only 4% of Android owners have never used OK Google, which suggests those who own the phone do indeed call on the powers of the digital personas.

Artificial intelligence may have no need for love, but it may soon be helping you find it. Tinder CEO Sean Rad said the company is exploring the possibility of integrating AI into the popular dating app as a means of helping people meet a match. Rad spoke at tech conference Start-Up Grind in Silicon Valley last week, where he spoke about what the future holds for his service. While Tinder has already been a leader in online dating, Rad sees the future of matchmaking as being even more driven by technology, including artificial intelligence. In five years' time, Tinder might be so good, you might be like "Hey Siri, what's happening tonight?'" Rad said.

A VENERABLE mobile phone saw its reputation for survival further enhanced this week. Nokia's reboot of its 3310 model, first released way back in 2000, was the star of annual tech event Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The updated model has a colour screen and camera, but still offers classic game Snake. Whether it proves as indestructible as its predecessor remains to be seen. "The updated Nokia 3310 has a colour screen and camera, but still offers classic game Snake" The event also saw the latest smartphones unveiled, such as Sony's Xperia XZ Premium, the first handset to feature a high-resolution 4K HDR screen.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making unending waves, both positive and negative. While some experts are going gaga over its productivity orientation and task precision, a few others are expressing concerns over the social impact due to the loss of jobs to robots. A single fact overrides these opinions--all sectors are without question exploring how they can leverage AI to better business, banking being no exception. For example, last year, RBS replaced some of its human employees with automated services. This is just the beginning, as machines slowly but steadily make their presence felt in the fintech sector.

On the other hand, it could be a minefield of creepy chatty up lines, crude messages and downright bizarre questions -- all from complete strangers. Dozens of people have taken to Twitter to share their Tinder horror stories. These messages and pictures sent on online dating apps are sure to make you cringe. I hate feet so receiving a message like this is really not cool with me!! #okc #datingfail #feetphobia pic.twitter.com/V0FVE1QG4A

Fintech artificial intelligence applications continue expanding across the financial services industry (payments, insurance, deposits and lending, funding, investing, and other business services). Banks represent a major target as branches close, employee headcount drops, and profits stagnate. But financial technology by itself is not the key factor in continued growth. AI can also be used to analyze the data produced by IoT, social media, mobile phones, and other sources to provide active learning analytics that can create a virtuous circle." Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant, Amazon's Echo and Home are consumer examples. CBInsights' diagram of fintech sectors and companies below provides a visual of the industry's growth (click the image to see the full article): According to a Euromoney Survey and report commissioned by Baker & McKenzie, out of 424 financial professionals, 76% believe that financial regulators are not up to speed on AI and 47% are not confident that their own organizations understand the risks of using AI. Additionally an increasing reliance on artificial intelligence technologies comes with a reduction in jobs. Many argue that the human intuition plays a valuable role in risk assessment and that the black box nature of AI makes it difficult to understand certain unexpected outcomes or decisions produced by the technology."

You don't have to wait for an Amazon Echo anymore (Photo: Amazon) If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. Our picks and opinions are independent from any business incentives. If you were wishing for an Amazon Echo for the holidays and had your hopes dashed, you weren't alone. Echo was such a popular holiday gift that Amazon had it on backorder since the beginning of December. Thankfully, Amazon's best, most versatile device is in stock and ready to ship immediately.

Every year there's a new technology which seems to dominate MWC, with seemingly constant announcements and big queues at any stand showing it off. At previous shows that role has been filled by VR, the connected home, wearables, and this year – surprising no one – it seems to be AI. AI is currently undergoing a renaissance, with Amazon's Alexa as its mainstream-friendly face, or rather voice, but the retail giant was notably absent from this morning's'Artificial Intelligence: Chatbots and Virtual Assistants' conference session. In its place were Google, talking about its rival offering, Assistant; SK Telecom, which admitted that it has been lucky Amazon hasn't entered the Korean market, giving it space to develop a localised answer to Echo, Nugu; and the company which seems to have put its full weight behind the technology, IBM. While the company doesn't have any stake in consumer-facing offerings like Echo, as IBM fellow Rob High acknowledged on stage, it wants to be the engine that powers those experiences, through its cognitive system Watson.

Have you noticed the accelerated pace of artificial intelligence in the world? Seventy-five percent of the movies watched on Netflix and one-third of product sales on Amazon are powered by AI. Voice activated devices such as iPhone Siri, Amazon Echo and Google Home are powered by AI. The medical industry is using AI to make better diagnoses. We revealed how companies can deliver a more personalized online experience using AI powered personalization, predictive analytics and autonomous delivery of content recommendations resulting in a better customer experience.

Tired of swiping right for muscly hunks who turn out to be nothing more than lazy couch potatoes? Then you might a fan of a new app that matches couples based on how many steps they take. Lime describes itself as'Tinder minus the lazy people', and is the first app to use data from Apple's Health app to help people find love. Lime, a new dating app, matches couples based on step count data from the iPhone's in-built Apple Health app The mobile dating service looks at its users step count by gathering data from the iPhone's in-built Apple Health app. The real-time step counts of the app's users are displayed on their dating profiles.