Samsung may have accidentally revealed the identity of its answer to Apple's Siri: a virtual assistant called'Bixby.' The South Korean electronics manufacturer has been largely left behind in the battle of the bots, with Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa and the Google Assistant all offering rivals to Siri. With the much-anticipated arrival of the Galaxy S8 smartphone, Samsung is expected to launch its own virtual assistant. In a recent beta version of the Samsung Pay app, three options were offered in the menu bar: Shopping, Mini and Bixby. The options, first spotted by unofficial Samsung blog SamMobile, have since been removed, but suggest the company is planning to integrate the digital assistant into its mobile payments platform.

The machines haven't taken over. However, they are seeping their way into our lives, affecting how we live, work and entertain ourselves. From voice-powered personal assistants like Siri and Alexa, to more underlying and fundamental technologies such as behavioral algorithms, suggestive searches and autonomously-powered self-driving vehicles boasting powerful predictive capabilities, there are several examples and applications of artificial intellgience in use today. However, the technology is still in its infancy. What many companies are calling A.I. today, aren't necessarily so.

A Welsh blogger asked her Amazon Echo to pronounce the longest place name in Europe - prompting the gadget to come back with an incomprehensible reply. Ms Angharad, who writes about food, said to the Echo: 'Alexa, what's the longest place name in Europe?' Llio Angharad asked the Echo to pronounce all 58 letters of the town's name. It replied correctly, noting that the town near Anglesey in north Wales had the'longest town name anywhere'. However, the pronunciation was described as'diabolical' by a Welsh speaker on Twitter. The place name is translated, roughly, into English as: St Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near to the Rapid Whirlpool of Llantysilio of the Red Cave.

In early 2016, the creators of Siri revealed their latest artificial intelligence assistant, Viv, meant to be the the intelligent interface for everything. Viv goes beyond Siri's ability to pull answers from basic web searches and answers complex questions that more closely resemble how people talk. It's no doubt that engineers are always looking for ways to create the most versatile artificial intelligence. Now, you can find AI assistants to take care of your shopping, travel plans and much more. We asked ten entrepreneurs how they're using AI assistants to make their businesses run smoother to learn more about the power of these useful devices.

Following on from the discovery of Samsung's Bixby AI assistant, the South Korean company has provided more evidence that the service will be available in the near future. As part of promoting Samsung Pay on its own website, Samsung's webmasters uploaded a picture detailing three options on how to pay for goods: "Shopping, Mini, and Bixby". 'Bixby' is believed to be a voice-powered digital assistant (see here on Forbes). The assistant is expected to be used by all of Samsung's first-party applications, including the Samsung web browser, Samsung's PIM software and as is now apparent Samsung Pay. It's not clear yet if Bixby will ship with the upcoming flagship handset, although it's the sort of service that feels like a great fit to promote alongside the launch of the Galaxy S8.

Big data could provide early warning of disease--if medical records can learn to talk to one other.

It's poised to be an exciting year in artificial intelligence. Last year, artificial intelligence deals topped a billion for the first time. The White House started publishing reports on AI and the economy. Samsung just announced a new $150 million fund for early-stage AI startups. Their recent acquisition of "super-Siri" Viv Labs must have whetted their appetite. There's are even AI startup incubators popping up, like deep learning mastermind Yoshua Bengio's Element in Montreal.

Nokia is exploring the digital AI assistant space with a service called Viki. The details come from a European trademark application by Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy which describes Viki as "software for the creation and monitoring of mobile and web digital assistants working with knowledge and combining all data sources into a single chat and voice based interface." Speaking to Engadget's Jon Fingas, a Nokia spokesperson said "Nokia registers trademarks from time to time but we don't comment on how, whether or when they may be used for Nokia products or services." Although the rise of voice-powered digital assistants is tied in heavily to smartphones, there is no indication that Viki is going to make an appearance on a device in the near future. The recently announced Nokia 6 may carry the name of the Finnish company, but that name was licensed to HMD, along with access to a number of key patents.

The machines haven't taken over. However, they are seeping their way into our lives, affecting how we live, work and entertain ourselves. From voice-powered personal assistants like Siri and Alexa, to more underlying and fundamental technologies such as behavioral algorithms, suggestive searches and autonomously-powered self-driving vehicles boasting powerful predictive capabilities, there are several examples and applications of artificial intellgience in use today. However, the technology is still in its infancy. What many companies are calling A.I. today, aren't necessarily so.

Alpha Go's victory over Lee Sedol was perhaps one of the most important, but we saw advancements in self-driving cars, the continued embrace of bots and personal assistants for retail, adoption and competition around in-house assistants like Amazon Echo, along with frequent, sometimes weekly, breakthroughs on the academic side, mainly relating to machine learning. With the biggest tech companies in the world--Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and others--devoting more and more resources to AI, the momentum is going to increase. For those of us who've been in the field for a while, it's an incredibly exciting time. AI and Machine Learning have come to the fore in the recent past, but we believe that the next few years hold even more far reaching successes. So what advances will we be seeing exactly?