As part of a three-week pilot study this quarter, half of the students in STATS 60: "Introduction to Statistical Methods" were assigned a RoboTA, an artificially intelligent robot teaching assistant (TA), to answer their questions by email. Students emailed different addresses based on the TA they were assigned. The emails were then funneled through a program, stripped of any identifying information and relayed to Lucas Janson, the TA for the class. Janson replied to all the emails without knowing whether they were intended for the human TA or the artificial intelligence (AI) TA. This study is double-blind, so neither the students nor the experimenters have information about the other, which helps prevent bias.

When the engineers had at last finished their work, Eugenia Kuyda opened a console on her laptop and began to type. "This is your digital monument." It had been three months since Roman Mazurenko, Kuyda's closest friend, had died. Kuyda had spent that time gathering up his old text messages, setting aside the ones that felt too personal, and feeding the rest into a neural network built by developers at her artificial intelligence startup. She had struggled with whether she was doing the right thing by bringing him back this way. At times it had even given her nightmares. But ever since Mazurenko's death, Kuyda had wanted one more chance to speak with him. A message blinked onto the screen. "You have one of the most interesting puzzles in the world in your hands," it said. Born in Belarus in 1981, Roman Mazurenko was the only child of Sergei, an engineer, and Victoria, a landscape architect. They remember him as an unusually serious child; when he was 8 he wrote a letter to his descendents declaring his most cherished values: wisdom and justice. In family photos, Mazurenko roller-skates, sails a boat, and climbs trees. Average in height, with a mop of chestnut hair, he is almost always smiling.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence Apps and Platforms Briefing subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here. Apple filed a patent last year to integrate Siri with its iMessage platform for iOS devices, TechCrunch reported. The voice-based virtual assistant would be able to conduct activities like making payments, scheduling appointments, and providing weather updates within a chat in the iMessage application. The patent filing clearly indicates that Apple has been working on bringing chatbots and other messaging app functions to iMessage.

Amazon is getting a jump on the holiday shopping craze with an all-Alexa weekend. The online retailer just announced its first "voice shopping weekend." Prime members can use an Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Amazon Tap, Amazon Fire HD tablet, or Amazon Fire TV to ask, "Alexa, what are your deals?" Alexa will then tell you about Amazon's deals for that day. If you like what you hear, you can then tell Alexa to order the item.

Say, you have your hands full and need to text someone ASAP -- if you're an AT&T subscriber with access to Amazon's speakers, you can now send messages completely hands free. Starting today, Amazon's Alexa-powered devices can compose messages for you and send them to a pre-programmed list of contacts. You only need to say "Alexa, ask AT&T to text name," and the assistant will prompt you to dictate your message. Company VP Jeff Bradley said AT&T "is the first carrier to bring this unique skill to a product already known for innovation." The feature does come with limitations, though.

Sundar Pichai is huddling with five Google staffers in a room next to his office that's known--appropriately enough--as "Sundar's Huddle." The employees are members of the Google Photos team, and they're here this morning to update Pichai on something they've been working on for months. The group has barely begun its presentation when Pichai starts peppering them with questions, opinions, and advice. For half an hour, the discussion careens from subject to subject: the power of artificial intelligence, the value of integrating Google Photos with other products such as Google Drive, the importance of creating an emotional bond with the users of an app. After the team shows Pichai a rough cut of a promotional video, his feedback is unguarded and heartfelt: "That's awesome!" Google's bearded, 44-year-old CEO is, unmistakably, in his element. "Nothing makes me happier than a product review in which I can sit with the team and they're showing me something they're building," Pichai had told me a few days earlier. "Being able to react to it and think through, 'When users get this, what will their feedback be?' I'm always on a quest to do that better and do more of it."

Amazon Prime customers will now have access to a new feature from the company called "voice shopping." From Nov. 18 till Nov. 21, the company will hold its first voice-shopping weekend. It will offer exclusive deals to Prime members who have an Alexa-enabled device. "This is the first holiday that Prime members will be able to use their voice to shop and we're excited to offer exclusive deals they won't find anywhere else," said Assaf Ronen, Vice President Voice Shopping in the official press release. "Voice shopping with Alexa takes the hassle out of the holidays, giving customers the ability to order from millions of items simply by saying the word. Make sure to ask'Alexa, what are your deals?' every day because we'll have exciting deals throughout the holiday season and beyond."

When you hear the term "artificial intelligence," you may think of tech giants Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, or Facebook. Industrial powerhouse General Electric is now aiming to be included on that short list. It may not have a chipper digital assistant like Cortana or Alexa. It won't sort through selfies, but it will look through X-rays. It won't recommend movies, but it will suggest how to care for a diesel locomotive.

As you might expect, a lot of Uber riders use the service to get to and from restaurants and bars. Thanks to its customer base, the ride-sharing company has a lot of info on which spots are popular in the cities where it operates. Uber announced this week that its putting all of those trip details to use with a new restaurant guide. The ranking system divides restaurants into six different categories: most popular, local favorites, up-and-coming, brunch spots, weekend picks and date-night destinations. All of those are pretty self-explanatory and the lists can be viewed on this web page.

With the backing of supporters as varied as the CIA, Samsung, Intel, and one of the biggest wireless carriers in the world, MindMeld launched its conversational AI platform today. MindMeld's AI, which has been referred to as "Siri on steroids," is sometimes considered more advanced than other voice-enabled intelligent assistants. The first generation of AI-powered assistants failed to live up to the hype, according to the company. "Deep-Domain Conversational AI promises to power a new generation of AI assistants which can streamline common daily tasks such as placing a take-out order at a local restaurant, booking a flight or hotel reservation, creating a service appointment at an auto repair shop or doctor's office, or finding retail store and product information," the company said in a statement shared with VentureBeat. Voice-enabled intelligent assistants and chatbots made with the platform can go virtually anywhere, from websites, apps, and devices to messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Slack.