At CES 2017, tech companies introduced the world to loads of gadgets that talk back, making this a big year for intelligent assistants. If this trend continues, it might someday be common to talk to smart cars, table lamps, refrigerators, and TVs, thanks to smart technologies such as Amazon's Alexa. Demonstrating this cutting-edge technology at a trade show is one thing, but actually deploying it in a business setting is another. This begs the question: Will these assistants be truly useful anytime soon or are they gimmicks that need to work out their bugs (like causing you to accidentally order expensive stuff) before they're ready for prime time? Ideally, we want intelligent assistants like Alexa or Siri to "just work," like the computer in Star Trek.

In the 2013 movie "Her," Theodore Twombly, a lonely writer, falls in love with a digital assistant designed to meet his every need. She sorts emails, helps get a book published, provides personal advice and ultimately becomes his girlfriend. The assistant, Samantha, is A.I. software capable of learning at an astonishing pace. Samantha will remain in the realm of science fiction for at least another decade, but less-functional digital assistants, called bots, are already here. These will be the most amazing technology advances we see in our homes in 2017.

A robo-advisor is an online, automated wealth management service based on data science algorithms with no or minimal human interventions that allocate, deploy and rebalance(spreading your money in stocks, mutual funds, bonds to balance risks) your investments. The robo-advisor industry is in its infancy. Online life is migrating from persona desktop computing to laptops to tablets and finally to mobile. Big data and advanced analytics can help broaden the scope of robo-advice dramatically, incorporating financial planning into broader retirement planning, tax planning, vacation savings, higher education planning. Robo-Advisors have typically targeted millennials segment because these young investors want to save & multiple money faster and often don't have enough patience & wealth to warrant the attention and interest of a human advisor.

With the constant barrage of emails, your promises to do one thing or another can get lost in the shuffle. You may already use Windows 10's digital assistant to set reminders for yourself, but now Cortana will take a more proactive approach to preventing things from slipping from your to-do list and through the cracks. Microsoft announced on Thursday that Cortana can now scan your emails for promises you made and remind you before they're due. To make these "suggested reminders," Cortana uses machine learning to recognize promises you've made that have a date attached to them. If you want Cortana to scan your emails, the assistant will help you keep up your appointments.

People have always signified progress with their relentless endeavours to make life simpler and thanks to the co-operation of technology; the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have seen a number of advancements that revolutionised the functioning of our daily lives. Industries have, time and again, harnessed the advancements – the current one to lead the pack is'artificial intelligence'. Artificial intelligence is the most trending term in the business domain, with its major benefits catering to the decision-making process, according to Gartner analysts. The analysts' further predict that within the next five years, 50% of the analytical decisions will be made through AI: opting it over simple verbal interactions. Artificial intelligence is the process of transforming human predictions into a mechanical route with the help of parameters and algorithms, through performing tasks of decision-making, problem-solving and learning by encapsulating intelligent behaviour of computational process.

Artificial intelligence is coming to banking -- scratch that, it's already here, but customers may not have noticed. AI is already playing a role in consumers' lives, whether they know it or not. Talking to Siri, looking at recommendations from Amazon or Netflix, or chatting with Google Home about the temperature -- AI is all around us, and we're growing more comfortable with it all the time. That's good, says Arif Ahmed, senior vice president of payments innovation for U.S. Bank, because AI is set to help customers in important ways, and in the not-too-distant future. "Emerging artificial intelligence will improve the customer experience without compromising privacy," Ahmed told Bank Innovation.

Three tech startups look to shake up the floral industry with apps, higher quality and eco-friendly stems that spotlight local florists. LOS ANGELES -- A new iPhone won't be out until September, but that hasn't stopped analysts from weighing in on new features. We begin with that new iPhone, one that could come in three different models, have wireless charging, an OLED display screen and cost over $1,000. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. The first was announced in January, 2007 and released in June of that year, before Apple moved to a September schedule.

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the social network on Monday saw 1 billion users log in during the course of a single day. "We just passed an important milestone. For the first time ever, 1 billion people used Facebook in a single day," Zuckerberg said on Thursday afternoon. "On Monday, one in seven people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family. See how the cloud is disrupting traditional operating models for IT departments and entire organizations. "When we talk about our financials, we use average numbers, but this is different.

Microsoft's intelligent assistant, Cortana, is coming to iOS and Android devices, according to a Reuters report published today. But don't expect Siri to step aside right away. The Reuters report, based on interviews with Eric Horvitz, managing director of Microsoft Research, and unnamed sources, is frustratingly vague about the timeframe for the appearance of Cortana in standalone apps on non-Windows platforms. Horvitz told Reuters that technology from an artificial intelligence project codenamed Einstein, "will play a central role in the next roll out of Cortana, which we are working on now for the fall time frame." The standalone apps for iOS and Android are due "later," according to Reuters.

The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Research Park has a new company: a spin-off of the UAB and the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). MusicStrands uses artificial intelligence techniques to provide people with music recommendations. This initiative is the first and only one to use tags applied to music; tags are labels that people can attach on the music they like for easy retrieval later. Tags also make it easy to discover playlists by keying on interesting tags supplied by other users; in addition, tags can help anyone organize playlists by common features. Users of the MusicStrands website have access to a directory of 3.9 million songs.