Google hopes making Google Assistant smarter will make its Google Home speaker more useful. Google Assistant is about to get a bit smarter, thanks to third-party developers. The Alphabet-owned company said Thursday it is opening up its digital assistant with new tools for developers who want to interact with customers through Google Home, its always-listening smart home speaker. The tools, called Conversation Actions, will allow developers to engage with users in conversational form to answer questions, provide assistance and eventually sell products and make bookings. Powered by artificial intelligence, the idea is for Google Assistant to learn about you and your behavior so it can provide answers catering specifically to you.

As consumers, we're familiar with -- if not yet wholly invested in -- the term "artificial intelligence," whether it's by way of self-driving cars or voice-enabled search like Siri and Amazon's Alexa. Artificial intelligence is on course to drastically change the enterprise, with big implications for productivity, and possibly even larger ramifications for the economy. Business intelligence is providing companies with an overabundance of data, but it's AI that's emerging to make this data actionable by giving executives and employees useful insights that are relevant to their specific roles and what they need to accomplish on any given day. To name just a few implications of how business will change with AI, today's workforce will be empowered to take on new approaches with time management, teamwork and collaboration, client service, and business forecasting. For example, instead of just assessing raw data, artificial intelligence can take into account historical patterns and the current context of an employee's role, the nature of the business within which they work, and market dynamics.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now a reality, and want it or not, it soon will be part of our daily lives. In a recent study, Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicted that the artificial intelligence market will blossom to $153 billion over the next five years: $83 billion for robots and $70 billion for artificial intelligence-based systems. Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes that virtual robots powered by artificial intelligence are bound to transform the way companies interact with their customers. In a world where disruption has become the norm, super-intelligent machines have the potential to revolutionize businesses while benefiting users and society in general. But as these smart personal assistants blend into our environment, many questions arise.

IBM's supercomputer, Watson, has become the poster child for artificial intelligence (AI) in the age of big data. Opponent Ken Jennings' acknowledged the machine's huge potential when he said, "I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords". Today, as Watson forges new partnerships with major corporations like GM, providing cognitive computing solutions for businesses of all types, it has graduated to a new level. Through Watson's cognitive computing, IBM is the first to apply this intelligence to the workplace. There's been a huge amount of fear-mongering, propagating the idea that AI will replace human processes with automation -- making us redundant.

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Microsoft's Cortana virtual assistant is getting a facelift on iOS and Android aimed at making it more useful for users, and also bringing a bit of brightness to what's currently a rather dour interface. The app's biggest change is the launch of a button that lets users quickly choose between a suite of common actions, like viewing their calendar at a glance, checking reminders, or getting a weather forecast. The app itself looks friendlier, with a purple gradient background replacing a stark black, white, and blue color scheme. On top of that, Microsoft also announced on Thursday that the iOS and Android versions of Cortana are coming to the U.K., so that Brits will be able to use the virtual assistant. Microsoft has been slow to expand Cortana's geographic reach until the assistant has been set up to work with local social norms and other expectations.

Samsung's next-generation Galaxy smartphone appears to be poised to beat Apple's upcoming iPhone 8 to the punch now that Bloomberg has corroborated much of SamMobile's report saying the Galaxy S8 will be a bezel-free device with a wraparound display featuring an in-screen Home button. The phone should be unveiled in February 2018 and launch in March. That way, the Samsung device should enjoy a six-month lead over the iPhone 8's expected fall arrival. However, the Korean giant is considering scrapping plans for a dual-camera on the Galaxy S8 due to "higher manufacturing costs", one of the sources told the news gathering organization. "Samsung will create an all-screen front for the Galaxy S8 smartphones coming out next year and scrap the physical Home button," people with direct knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.

IOT is rapidly developing from a telecoms connected to "everything" to a new generation of services that are starting to connect markets with new capabilities. Two major polarizations are the consumer-IOT and the Industrial-IOT. On the consumer side, the products of Amazon Echo Alexa, Google Home and a plethora of other connected home and lifestyle IOT consumer products are flooding the market. The Industrial IOT perhaps born for the Industry4.0

Every major technology company is obsessed with voice control right now. From Amazon's Alexa speakers to Google's new Pixel phones -- almost everything has an assistant which you can strike a conversation with. Not wanting to be left out, Microsoft is still hard at work on Cortana for Windows 10 and various mobile operating systems. Today, the company has announced a "fresh" and "simplified look" for the iOS and Android apps which lean heavily on the color purple. The apps are faster than before, and a new Quick Actions section puts your most common requests front and center, such as reminders, meetings and weather summaries.

Under, behind and inside many of the apps we use every day, a revolution is underway. It's a revolution that started decades ago but today is empowering companies to deliver better, smarter services with greater ease and on broader scales than ever before. At Singularity University's inaugural Global Summit, Neil Jacobstein, chair of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, provided a primer showing how artificial intelligence literally transforms everything it touches. First of all, it's critical to define the scope of artificial intelligence (AI), which can be categorized into four areas: techniques in pattern recognition, software agency (that is, software that acts like real users), an exponential technology that is accelerating other exponential technologies, and a vision of a future superhuman intelligence (that fortunately hasn't happened yet). Anyone who has seen a science fiction film is likely familiar with this last area, but it's the other three areas where AI is making huge strides at a revolutionary pace.