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.

Google Home users got a surprise on Thursday when their virtual assistants cheerily mentioned that the live-action remake of "Beauty and the Beast" is opening in theaters this weekend. The ad seems to pop up when users ask for a rundown of their day, which kicks off the Home's "My Day" feature. That feature is supposed to offer users information about the weather, their calendars and relevant news. "By the way, Disney's live action'Beauty and The Beast' opens today," it says. "In this version of the story, Belle is the inventor instead of Maurice. That rings truer, if you ask me. For some more movie fun, ask me something about Belle."

Samsung's Italian support site let the Bixby name slip It's now been confirmed, by Samsung, on its own support pages that the Galaxy S8 will have a personal assistant called Bixby. Rumours have been about for some considerable time, but the company has clearly started getting its web services ready for the big day, and a mention of the AI system has leaked out. What's quite interesting here is that the page confirms that Bixby will be able to control all aspects of Samsung's touch interface. This is interesting if Samsung builds in the right apps to take advantage of this. Siri can already text and make calls, as well as play music or podcasts.

Amazon is taking Alexa to iOS in their latest app update. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Amazon is taking Alexa to iOS in their latest app update.

Amazon Alexa is now closer to its main rival, Apple's Siri. This week, the Seattle-based electronic and cloud computing company updated its official iOS app to add support for its AI assistant. On Thursday, VentureBeat learned that Amazon is making its Alexa assistant available to iPhone users starting this week until the following week. This means when iPhone users receive an update for their Amazon app, they'll be getting not just certain improvements for the app's features, but also the intelligent assistant Alexa that boasts of over 10,000 skills. With the addition of Alexa into the Amazon iOS app, users will now see a microphone icon on the far right of the search box. This icon is dedicated to Alexa, so users have to press it to summon the AI assistant.

The California-based robot vacuum manufacturer has announced that Google Home support is coming to its Connected series vacuums. With the Botvac Connected already having Alexa integration, it was only a matter of time. If you are looking into getting a robot vacuum cleaner, you probably know the name. A California-based company that specializes in automated vacuums, Neato's Botvac series is arguably iRobot Roomba's biggest rival. I have the Botvac Connected for my apartment, and I personally thinks it's the best robot cleaner your money can buy right now.

Many discussions around artificial intelligence (AI) have focused on the new developments in machine learning, such as assisting with cancer recognition and even detecting earthquakes. However, the use of AI in the creation of a virtual assistant is starting to gain some traction. A recent article from VentureBeat stated that 2017 is the year that "virtual assistants really arrived." In this post, we wanted to look at the rise of virtual assistants and how they could change the way we work. It is hard to imagine an office desk these days without a computer.