To hold its own against digital assistants from Google, Microsoft and Amazon, Siri needs an IQ boost. Last month, Google took the stage in Mountain View, California, to show off improvements to its digital voice assistant. Its signature ability is to have a conversation with it like you would a normal person. You can ask "Google Assistant" what's on your schedule and then have it text the person you're meeting to say you'll be late. Google remembers your first question, so you don't have to start over with a new command.

It's been 25 years since "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" gave us nightmares about Skynet and liquid-metal assassin robots, and we're still freaking out about artificial intelligence breaking bad. Now Australian researchers are helping to resurrect fears of the movie's spooky T-1000 killing machine by developing self-propelled liquid metals reminiscent of the ones that made up its body. Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne plan to create elastic electronic components and soft-circuit systems that act more like live cells. For the most part, our modern electronics use fixed metallic tracks to create circuits that are stuck in a single configuration. This is why you can't simply ask Siri to split and rearrange your iPhone into four smaller iPods to share your music with friends.

As Google showed off its master plan for a future built around artificial intelligence in May, CEO Sundar Pichai introduced a virtual helper that aims to make its search technology even more useful for you. It's a grand plan -- in an interview in May, Pichai called it a "broad journey" -- but we'll have to wait a while longer until it comes into focus. Consumers won't be able to even try out the Google assistant until the fall. That's when the company will make available the first gadgets to have AI built-in: Google Home, a device like Amazon's Echo speaker and smart home hub, and Allo, a messaging app. "We are building the engine that will drive our future," Pichai said Thursday on a conference call.

If the battle between rival digital assistants can be summed up by the NBA championships, then Google's take would be the Golden State Warriors. That's assuming, of course, the record-setting Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers to defend their NBA title. It's the analogy used by Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who characterized the competition as more friendly than bloody. "This is not like'Game of Thrones,'" he said Wednesday at Recode's Code conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California. Artificial intelligence is already a hot topic at the conference, and it's a big part of Google's future.

Google may be getting even more serious about business. The company is in talks with Hewlett-Packard about expanding the Internet giant's Google Now voice recognition software to be able to search through corporate data, according to a report published Wednesday by The Information (subscription needed). The partnership would allow Google Now --- which serves as a "virtual assistant" that lets users ask it about restaurants, driving directions or sports scores -- to do the same thing with company data. For example, an enterprise user on a device running Android, Google's mobile operating system, would be able to ask the software about financial information or inventory data. HP would be valuable to Google in this case because of its wealth of relationships with corporate customers.

You can soon expect to see new, interactive gaming experiences developed for Amazon's Alexa-powered smart speakers. Amazon wants more gaming options for its voice-powered virtual assistant Alexa, and today, it's introducing a new set of tools that'll make it easier for developers to bring them to life. The gaming tools are the newest addition to the Alexa Skills Kit, a set of blueprints for creating Alexa's "skills" -- essentially the apps of the Amazon Echo and Amazon's other Alexa-enabled gadgets. Developers already had access to templates for crafting basic command-and-response skills, along with skills that put Alexa in control of smart-home devices like lights and thermostats. Developers have already trotted out games for Alexa, too -- but now, they'll be able to plot out their voice-powered gaming skills in a simplified design interface, with Amazon-approved templates to guide them through the process.

Last year, Amazon established the $100 million dollar "Alexa Fund" for developers and manufacturers both large and small. The idea was fairly straightforward -- support people with good ideas on how to put the voice-recognition technology in the Amazon Echo smart speaker to good use. Now, the online mega-retailer is ponying up for its biggest investment yet and joining in on a$35 million-dollar funding round for the makers of the Ecobee smart thermostat. The funding round brings Amazon in with Thomvest and Relay Ventures, and comes several months after the Ecobee3 became the first smart thermostat to sync up with Alexa, Amazon's increasingly popular virtual assistant. To that end, Steve Rabuchin, Vice President of Amazon Alexa, called Ecobee "instrumental" in the development of the Alexa Skills Kit, the set of open-source tools that allow third-party developers to put Alexa to work.

Recent work demonstrated the ability of relational agents to establish and maintain relationships with people over a series of interactions. In this effort, the agent played the role of an exercise advisor designed to motivate users to exercise more. One hundered subjects participated in a six-week study longitudinal study (four week intervention and two week follow up) to determine the efficacy of this agent. Results indicate that the agent was successful at creating and maintaining a trusting, caring relationship with users and increasing their desire to continue interacting with it.

From virtual reality to a new smart-home speaker, Google is showing off just how pervasive it has become even as it's squeezed by its biggest competitors -- Facebook, Apple and Amazon. Google showed off a VR system called Daydream, along with plans for headsets that will compete with Facebook's Oculus Rift. And in a jab at Amazon, the company announced Google Home, an internet-connected speaker that listens for your voice commands to play music or control lights and thermostats in the home. It is reminiscent of Amazon's Echo and will be available later this year for a yet-unannounced price. In an attempt to outshine Apple, Google is also adding features to its Android operating system, including the ability to run apps without actually installing apps.

Rick Bookstaber is a Research Principal in the Office of Financial Research. We can start counting the days until computers routinely win a Turing Test. It will happen for two reasons. One reason, which is the basis for a post I wrote on the Turing Test earlier in the year, is that we are meeting the computers half way. The more we become twittering, texting beings, the easier it is for a computer to mimic us, because we are stripped of much of our human context and behave more like computers.