It's been a big year for Artificial Intelligence, and its related terms like Cognitive Computing, Machine Intelligence, and Intelligent Machines, and for all its associated branches, from Machine Learning to Neural Networking and Natural Language Processing. IBM, for example, has continued making strides with Watson in verticals such as healthcare and financial services. The vendor announced everything from advances in its ability to add rich image analytics with Deep Learning to the Watson Health platform, to a furthering of its partnership with Deloitte that will use the technology in solutions to more efficiently and immediately manage risk and regulatory compliance requirements. At the end of last year, we also saw Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk join with other industry figures to launch a non-profit AI research venture, OpenAI, with its stated goal being to help spread the technology to a broader base and direct it to having a positive impact on humanity. Furthermore, just to pick one Google announcement in the area, the search giant said it's using AI and Machine Learning in the Smart Reply capability in its Gmail Inbox mobile email client.

Google has made a strong phone debut, according to the first round of reviews. Strong enough to take on the market-leading iPhone. The 5-inch Pixel and 5.5-inch Pixel XL are the company's first pure Google-branded smartphones, with the tagline "made by Google." To date, Google has released phones under the Nexus brand, which tended to emphasize the phone's manufacturer, such as LG and Huawei, not Google. Wall Street Journal: "The Google Pixel is now the best Android smartphone you can buy," the Journal said in its review.

Does it seem like your virtual personal assistant (VPA) knows everything about your life? Microsoft's Cortana can give you reminders, track packages, send emails or texts, keep track of your flights and even remind you to say happy birthday to your cousin next time she calls. According to Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, developers made deliberate design decisions with customers in mind as the company moves into the world of artificial intelligence (AI). "When it comes to AI, the fundamental vision I have is that AI will be infused into everything," Mr. Nadella said in the Mastermind Interview at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2016 in Orlando. "The currency going forward is going to be how to build trust in technology so that people and organizations are comfortable using more technology, and I think that's one of the pressing issues of our time," he said.

Stephanie Palermo wasn't interested in living in a "smart home" outfitted with web-connected appliances controlled remotely by phone or computer. She didn't need her fridge to have Wi-Fi or her blinds to close themselves. But when Amazon temporarily discounted the price on its voice-controlled Echo speaker to 99 for Amazon Prime members, there was "a low barrier to entry," and the 28-year-old from Belmont, Calif., was willing to take a risk. She started using the cylindrical device as a hands-free speaker. During board game nights, she'd tell Alexa -- the artificial intelligence that powers the Echo -- to play themed music from Pandora.

Google tweeted Wednesday that it has opened pre-orders for Daydream View headset and Chromecast Ultra. The devices will be available on pre-orders for the U.S. U.K. and Germany online. The Daydream View headset is priced at 79, while the 4K-capable Ultra is priced at 69. The View is compatible with the Daydream VR platform-capable Google Pixel smartphone. The headset will use VR images generated by Pixel smartphone so users will need the smartphone before they invest in the headset.

IBM's virtual health care assistant powered by Watson, which has memorized most of the world's medical journals and texts, is an example of this. Enterprise is already feeling the impact of AI assistants like IBM's Watson health care tool, but Gartner says these systems will become more "conversational." Powered by machine learning and AI, such systems will learn how to adapt to humans and vice versa. Gartner believes five major focal points will enable the new capabilities and business models of digital business, including information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence, the IoT, and business ecosystems.

Speaking to robots, asking the Google Assistant for directions, using Amazon Alexa to lock the front door. Those things reveal the current state of artificial intelligence--a human powered endeavor with some assistance. Soon, it will all seem like the Dark Ages. Tesla has decided to radically improve how A.I. automates our lives. Announced late last night during the Presidential debates, the new Enhanced Autopilot will work in future cars in the Tesla line-up, depending on regulatory approval.

Data science, advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence will be centre stage technologies shaping business in 2017 and beyond. That's according to analyst firm, Gartner, which predicts that enterprise will see "intelligence everywhere" as new software-based systems, which are programmed to learn and adapt, permeate businesses within the next three to five years. As outlined by Gartner vice president and fellow, David Cearley, these intelligent trends will intertwine to form a'digital mesh', blurring physical and digital workspaces. Artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced machine learning (ML) are intelligent machines that can understand, learn and operate autonomously. "Applied AI and ML give rise to a spectrum of intelligent implementations, including physical devices such as robots, autonomous vehicles and apps and services such as virtual personal assistants and smart advisors," Cearley said.

The best television characters have already been immortalized on screen, given reruns and our ability to stream our favorite episodes on demand. Now early research at University of Leeds is attempting to give these characters new life, by building digital recreations that can appear in new episodes or even take over for Siri on your smartphone. The Leeds team is building a nearly-automated pipeline for capturing the digital essence of a TV character. A series of algorithms mutes the laugh track on a TV show, tracks the faces of each character, and analyzes their voices and body language, as well as the way their mouths move as they speak. The machine learning tool also scours the show's script in order to learn dialogue and understand how each character strings together sentences. TV is a natural fit for this kind of research, because there's so much video from which to learn.

Government-funded artificial intelligence programs could soon be organized under a new effort by the General Services Administration. GSA earlier this month created the Data Federation, a site that intends to coordinate the disparate existing data-related efforts at various agencies by sharing standards, case studies and reusable tech tools. On Monday, GSA plans to announce a new community of practice, or subsection dedicated to artificial intelligence, according to Technology Transformation Service data portfolio lead Philip Ashlock. Ashlock was speaking at a Digital Government Institute conference on Thursday. The Data Federation is still in the very early stages, he said--long term, it's working with 18F and the Presidential Innovation Fellows program to develop a "maturity model" to understand how data projects tend to evolve.