Sometimes, it's the little changes to language that give away a company's ambition. At the unveiling of Google's new Pixel phones yesterday, CEO Sundar Pichai started the event not by talking about what users can get from Google, but what they can get from their Google. Using artificial intelligence and its new digital assistant, said Pichai, Google's computing power will be available in every facet of users' lives. It'll be seamless and pervasive. "Our goal," he said, "is to build a personal Google for each and every user." Not a single Google that we all can use, but an individualized Google for everyone.

Samsung said in a statement it plans to integrate the San Jose-based company's AI platform, called Viv, into the Galaxy smartphones and expand voice-assistant services to home appliances and wearable technology devices. Technology firms are locked in an increasingly heated race to make AI good enough to let consumers interact with their devices more naturally, especially via voice. Alphabet's Google is widely considered to be the leader in AI, but others including Amazon.com, Apple and Microsoft have also launched their own offerings including voice-powered digital assistants. Samsung, the world's top smartphone maker, is also hoping to differentiate its devices, from phones to fridges, by incorporating AI.

Samsung, the largest maker of televisions and smartphones in the world, is buying Viv Labs, a high-profile artificial intelligence startup founded by the inventors of Apple's Siri voice assistant, the South Korean electronics conglomerate said Wednesday. The move is a major land grab in the battle for cutting-edge artificial intelligence taking place among tech giants. Samsung, which has lagged in such services, is now positioned to add intelligent, Siri-like voice capabilities to its vast collection of home and mobile electronics. "We have a unique opportunity to take advantage of AI, and show the rest of the industry what the smart, connected world can look like," Jacopo Lenzi, Samsung's Senior Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Acquisitions, said in an interview. The companies declined to disclose the purchase price of the deal.

Just a day after Google revealed its premium Pixel phone and Google Home featuring Assistant AI baked in, Samsung is making a splash by buying up some AI power of its own. Viv Labs was founded by some of the same people behind Apple's Siri technology, who have referred to their new platform as an assistant that's capable of anything. Co-founder and CEO Dag Kittlaus writes in a blog post that "Samsung will drastically accelerate our vision." Samsung says the team will continue to operate independently, but it clearly has an eye towards integrating natural language understanding into its phones, TVs, appliances, VR and everything else.

Samsung said in a statement it plans to integrate the San Jose-based company's AI platform, called Viv, into the Galaxy smartphones and expand voice-assistant services to home appliances and wearable technology devices. Technology firms are locked in an increasingly heated race to make AI good enough to let consumers interact with their devices more naturally, especially via voice. Alphabet Inc's Google is widely considered to be the leader in AI, but others including Amazon.com, Apple and Microsoft have also launched their own offerings including voice-powered digital assistants. Samsung, the world's top smartphone maker, is also hoping to differentiate its devices, from phones to fridges, by incorporating AI.

The Pixel smartphones and the Google Home are amazing new Google devices. But they're not the best thing Google unveiled on stage during Tuesday's media event. You won't be able to buy it in a store by itself. It will come prepackaged in Pixels, Homes and other smart devices Google launches in the future. It's the Google Assistant, the intelligent, voice-activated AI-powered computer that can respond to intricate queries, and predict what you're going to need next.

Google Home is the latest embodiment of a virtual assistant. The voice-activated speaker can help you make a dinner reservation, remind you to catch your flight, fire up your favorite playlist and even translate words for you on the fly. While the voice interface is expected to make quotidian tasks easier, it also gives the company unprecedented access to human patterns and preferences that are crucial to the next phase of artificial intelligence. Comparing an AI agent to a personal assistant, as most companies have been doing of late, makes for a powerful metaphor. It is one that is indicative of the human capabilities that most major technology companies want their disembodied helpers to adopt.

It was Assistant, the artificially intelligent digital helper that caters to your every whim and powers your every interaction. Assistant is invisible, in the design-jargon sense. The omnipresent concierge works in the background, predicting your needs, processing your requests, and offering neatly parceled answers to your questions. You never see the cogs behind it, you merely type (or speak) a command and read (or hear) tailored responses served on screen or through a speaker. This requires more than a smartphone, which explains the gadgets Google announced Tuesday.

Google had more fun at the expense of Apple, poking fun at its South Bay neighbor by announcing Pixel comes in three colors -- quite black, very silver and really blue.

We've scoured the web to find you the best deals on good products. Despite Google's latest announcement, there's no denying Amazon has one heckuva head start with its smart assistant Alexa and the Alexa-enabled products. The Echo, Echo Dot, and Tap have become a great addition to any home of the future. The list of things Alexa can do is pretty extensive. Once you add in the handiness of a smart assistant (ever wonder how much the sun weighs in grams?) the usefulness is pretty apparent.