This has been the year of the chatbot. Siri opened up to developers recently. The Facebook Messenger bots arrived. The Slack App Store continues to evolve quickly with hundreds of bots. Chatbots have been in many ways disappointing to me, but they are an important step in the evolution of conversational technology.

Mark Zuckerberg has a new housemate: Jarvis, an artificial intelligence assistant he created this year that can control appliances, play music, recognise faces and, perhaps most impressively, entertain his toddler. The Facebook founder spent 100 hours putting together the virtual assistant -- named after the artificial intelligence system in Iron Man which understands spoken commands as well as text messages, he wrote in a 3000-word Facebook post Monday. The virtual assistant texts Zuckerberg images of visitors who stop by during the day, and opens the front door for those it recognises. It can also tell when Zuckerberg's 1-year-old daughter, Max, wakes up "so it can start playing music or a Mandarin lesson," he wrote. In a tongue-in-cheek video he posted on Facebook Tuesday, Zuckerberg offers an example of Jarvis at work: "Max woke up a few minutes ago. I'm entertaining her," the virtual assistant (voiced by Morgan Freeman) tells Zuckerberg, before turning his attention to the toddler.

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.

This year, many of us let a stranger into our homes and ended up loving it. I am, of course, talking about voice-activated artificial-intelligence assistants. The success of Amazon's Alexa, the launch of Google's Home, and Mark Zuckerbrg's public quest to build his own digital butler all demonstrate that conversational interfaces, which we predicted would be a breakthrough technology in 2016, are here to stay. Amazon's Echo smart speaker, which is a conduit for the company's Alexa AI assistant, was officially available to all in the U.S. from 2015. But this year it also went on sale in the U.K. and Germany, and estimates suggest that it sold as many as two million units in the first nine months of 2016.

You don't have to be a Go champion to have artificial intelligence change your game. You get in your car, and your Apple iPhone tells you what traffic looks like where you're going--before you ask. We're all on the road with Tesla's self-driving cars, which are redefining what driving means. The artificial intelligence calendar assistant Amy emails three of your friends to figure out a meeting time that works for everyone--and nails it. Thankfully, chatting with Amazon's Alexa is a lot more entertaining than, say, would be Hal, the fictional artificial intelligence from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The good: Easy setup, comfortable, Automatically pauses music when you remove a bud The bad: Expensive, Looks awkward when you're wearing them, Limited playback controls Who should buy: Apple fans willing to splurge on tangle-free earbuds When Apple launched the iPhone 7 this year, one controversial move stood out: The Cupertino, Calif.'s flagship smartphone no longer features a headphone jack. Instead, users connect older headphones to the phone's port via an adapter, use the included earbuds that connect the same way, or opt for wireless Bluetooth headphones. Using Bluetooth headphones, however, can be a pain. Pairing them can be a nightmare, and signals sometimes drop in the middle of a call or a song. Apple's attempt to fix those problems is now available in the form of AirPods, $159 wireless headphones that, thanks to the company's unique technology, instantly pair with a nearby iPhone. AirPods also have sensors allowing them to automatically mute a song when one bud is removed, while two taps on the side activate Siri, Apple's digital assistant.

Mark Zuckerberg has a new housemate: Jarvis, an artificial intelligence assistant he created this year that can control appliances, play music, recognize faces and, perhaps most impressively, entertain his toddler. The Facebook founder spent 100 hours putting together the virtual assistant -- named after the artificial intelligence system in "Iron Man" -- which understands spoken commands as well as text messages, he wrote in a 3,000-word Facebook post Monday. The virtual assistant texts Zuckerberg images of visitors who stop by during the day and opens the front door for those it recognizes. It can also tell when Zuckerberg's 1-year-old daughter, Max, wakes up "so it can start playing music or a Mandarin lesson," he wrote. In a tongue-in-cheek video he posted Tuesday on Facebook, Zuckerberg offers an example of Jarvis at work: "Max woke up a few minutes ago. I'm entertaining her," the virtual assistant (voiced by Morgan Freeman) tells Zuckerberg, before turning his attention to the toddler.

Building the AI'butler' is Zuckerberg's personal challenge for 2016 The 31-year-old said: 'You can think of it kind of like J.A.R.V.I.S in Iron Man' His plans include teaching the assistant to let friends into his home by looking at their faces when they ring the doorbell, for example Building the AI'butler' is Zuckerberg's personal challenge for 2016 The 31-year-old said: 'You can think of it kind of like J.A.R.V.I.S in Iron Man' The video shows Zuckerberg using the Jarvis AI throughout the day for everything from getting dressed to making toast. Watch as Nasa shake tests the Orion capsule that could take... Airlines add'fire containment bags' for overheating phones... Google and Facebook to install giant 8,000-mile internet... EXCLUSIVE: Royal Navy trials robot spy boats that can scour... Watch as Nasa shake tests the Orion capsule that could take... Airlines add'fire containment bags' for overheating phones... Google and Facebook to install giant 8,000-mile internet... EXCLUSIVE: Royal Navy trials robot spy boats that can scour... The AI is able to do everything from recognise friend's faces at the door to work out who is asking it questions - and Zuckerberg said he's even connected up a 1950s toaster and a t-shirt cannon to it. Zuckerberg also programmed the system to play music. Zuckerberg's daughter, Max is also able to use the AI to play. The project is modelled on the J.A.R.V.I.S. stands for (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System) system used by Tony Stark in the Iron Man films.

When Mark Zuckerberg's coding and the voice of Mandarin speaking Morgan Freeman combine, you have an AI technology wonder Jarvis that is sure to blow your mind! Mark Zuckerberg just posted an awesome video of his latest wonder in the field of Artificial Intelligence, which looks like a scene from a sci-fi movie! The system is seen to perform a host of tasks unassisted, from opening his blinds as soon as he wakes up and wishing him good morning, to entertaining his little daughter Max while Mark was sound asleep. The system seems to control every electronic gadget in his house, such as his toaster, lighting and the security system. And we were convinced on its intelligence when the system refused to play Zuckerberg's request of a Nickelback song since "they don't have any good songs."

Today, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a video of him living his totally normal life with his completely normal family and their newest member, an artificial intelligence system that Zuckerberg is calling Jarvis. In the video, Jarvis (voiced by the actor Morgan Freeman) helps Zuckerberg wake up, get dressed with a cannon that shoots him one of his signature grey t-shirts, and eat dry toast. A little strangely, the AI also chats to his baby daughter in Mandarin when no one is watching. At the end of the video, Zuckerberg asks viewers for some suggestions of new features for Jarvis. We had a few, so we figured we'd put them here instead: We at Quartz were impressed with your gumption to build your own AI assistant for your home, especially when Google and Amazon already have such useful products on the market that do the same thing.