With marketing becoming taking a central role in many companies, CMOs are forced to think more strategic. While they wade through the thousands of martech and adtech software out there, they must also align with the board and line of business heads to ensure that their marketing strategies meet corporate goals. It has ushered a new interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help CMOs succeed. Such needs as created a frenzy among vendors to build the ultimate AI. Amazon, for example, recently announced three new AI tools – Lex, Polly, and Rekognition -- drawing on the character of the company's personal AI assistant Alexa.

Hunted The Hunters set up a fake online dating profile in an attempt to lure two out of hiding. Showtime at the Apollo Steve Harvey hosts a new reboot of the classic talent showcase featuring Chaka Khan, T.I. with Meek Mill, Quavo and RaRa, Mike Epps and comic Gabriel Iglesias. Spy in the Wild: A Nature Miniseries This new documentary features footage from cameras disguised as wildlife that are able to capture candid and closeup footage of wild animals including wild dogs, elephants and monkeys. Star Star, Simone and Alex (Jude Demorest, Brittany O'Grady, Ryan Destiny) are invited to perform at a charity event in this new episode. NOVA In a new episode "Search for the Super Battery," host David Pogue investigates how batteries work and what the future may hold for technical innovation.

During the 2016 Microsoft Build conference, CEO Satya Nadella said that the future of the company was "conversation as platform." In other words, less Windows and Office, and more Cortana and Tay--conversational interfaces that can understand the natural language of human users. If Nadella thought he was expressing some unique vision of the future, though, he was fooling himself. The idea of conversational UI has quickly colonized nearly every corner of Silicon Valley over the past year. Now seems like a good time to ask: What is a conversational interface?

A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry. A great deal has been written recently on the growing importance of voice-driven computing devices, such as Amazon's Echo, Google Home and others like them. At the same time, there's been a long-held belief by many in the industry that software innovations will be the key drivers in moving the tech industry forward ("software is eating the world," as venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously said more than five years ago). The combination of these two -- software for voice-based computing -- would, therefore, seem to be at the very apex of tech industry developments. Indeed, there are many companies now doing cutting-edge work to create new types of software for these very different kinds of computing devices.

Mark Zuckerberg envisions a software system inspired by the "Iron Man" character Jarvis as a virtual butler managing his household. The Facebook founder's dream is about artificial intelligence, which is slowly but surely creeping into our daily lives, no longer just science fiction. Artificial intelligence or AI is getting a foothold in people's homes, starting with the Amazon devices like its Echo speaker which links to a personal assistant "Alexa" to answer questions and control connected devices such as appliances or light bulbs. Analyst Carolina Milanesi of the research firm Creative Strategies said that "2016 was the year about raising awareness, and exposing consumers to the idea of AI in a more mass market way." Milanesi said it may take time for the technology to fulfill its potential, noting that companies need "a strong hook" to bring large numbers of consumers into this world.

Artificial intelligence has reached a new milestone, with a program beating four professional players in a poker tournament lasting 20 days. Libratus, an AI program developed by a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, took on Dong Kim, Jimmy Chou, Daniel McAulay and Jason Les at no-limit Texas Hold'em in a Pittsburgh casino, eventually taking $1.76 million (£1.4 million) in chips. It's been hailed as a milestone for AI, with Libratus co-creator Tuomas Sandholm declaring, "The best AI's ability to do strategic reasoning with imperfect information has now surpassed that of the best humans." Boston Dynamics describes itself as'building dynamic robots and software for human simulation'. It has created robots for DARPA, the US' military research company Deep Blue, a computer created by IBM, won a match against world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. Apple's virtual assistant for iPhone, Siri, uses artificial intelligence technology to anticipate users' needs and give cheeky reactions Xbox's Kinect uses artificial intelligence to predict where players are likely to go, an track their movement more accurately Its human opponents had been sharing notes in an effort to expose Libratus' weaknesses, but the AI grew stronger as the tournament went on.

Starbucks Corp. will begin letting customers order via voice on their iPhones and Amazon.com Inc.'s Alexa system, a bid to bolster its tech capabilities even as the rapid evolution brings headaches to the coffee chain. The new capability works with the barista feature on the Starbucks' app, which relies on artificial intelligence to interact with customers. Customers can talk with the software in the same way they would order coffee at a store, Starbucks said in a statement Monday. "The use of mobile order and pay continues to accelerate," Chief Operating Officer Kevin Johnson said in an interview last week.

The good: Long battery life, Good camera with a wide range of controls, Easy to grip without a case The bad: Includes excessive apps, Not water and dust resistant, No virtual assistant at launch Who should buy: Android fans looking for a great large phone with long battery life. When Samsung recalled its Galaxy Note 7 last September, Android fans looking for a big-screened smartphone were left with few choices aside from Google's Pixel XL. Enter Huawei's Mate 9, which launched in the U.S. in early January. Huawei's device will also be the first smartphone to include Amazon's Alexa voice assistant built-in, which will be added through a software update promised to arrive during the first quarter of this year. With Alexa, Mate 9 will be capable of handling many of the same tasks as the Amazon Echo.

Machine learning has long powered many products we interact with daily–from "intelligent" assistants like Apple's Siri and Google Now, to recommendation engines like Amazon's that suggest new products to buy, to the ad ranking systems used by Google and Facebook. More recently, machine learning has entered the public consciousness because of advances in "deep learning"–these include AlphaGo's defeat of Go grandmaster Lee Sedol and impressive new products around image recognition and machine translation. In this series, we'll give an introduction to some powerful but generally applicable techniques in machine learning. These include deep learning but also more traditional methods that are often all the modern business needs. After reading the articles in the series, you should have the knowledge necessary to embark on concrete machine learning experiments in a variety of areas on your own.

Starbucks is about to make it even easier to order and pay for your coffee. The coffee chain is testing a new feature within its iOS app and a skill for Amazon Alexa devices, both of which let customers place orders with just their voice. The new voice-ordering features are an extension of Starbucks Mobile Order & Pay, which lets you order and pay for items before arriving at the store. At this point, the new My Starbucks barista feature within the company's iOS app will only be available to 1,000 customers nationwide. The feature leverages artificial intelligence to let you speak or text what you want, just as if you were talking to a barista in the store.