San Francisco: Mark Zuckerberg envisions a software system inspired by the "Iron Man" character Jarvis as a virtual butler managing his household. The Facebook founder's dream is about artificial intelligence, which is slowly but surely creeping into our daily lives, no longer just science fiction. Artificial intelligence or AI is getting a foothold in people's homes, starting with the Amazon devices like its Echo speaker which links to a personal assistant "Alexa" to answer questions and control connected devices such as appliances or light bulbs. Analyst Carolina Milanesi of the research firm Creative Strategies said that "2016 was the year about raising awareness, and exposing consumers to the idea of AI in a more mass market way." Milanesi said it may take time for the technology to fulfill its potential, noting that companies need "a strong hook" to bring large numbers of consumers into this world.

The startup 30SecondsToFly, based in New York City and Bangkok, is aiming to use artificial intelligence and natural language processing to automate and improve the travel processes currently performed by corporate travel agents. "We aim at becoming the scalable travel management company of the future," says Riccardo Vittoria, co-founder of 30SecondsToFly in an interview, saying his is among a handful of the trip tech enterprises that are pioneering a new generation of business travel. Every year companies around the world spend more than $1 trillion US on corporate trips. Even though this market is enormous, it is still dominated by a few giant travel management companies whose business model hasn't changed in more than half a century. Now this market is under attack.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp Says Going Public Is'A Possibility' These were all prime fields of growth and innovation in 2016 and we can expect these trends to continue into next year and probably far beyond. In truth 2017 is likely to be the year when many of these technologies hit the mainstream – rather than something only those companies with the largest corporate budgets and most tech-friendly executive teams. A strong growth in the availability of technology delivered "as-a-service" through cloud platforms, as well as hardware improvements in the form of affordable sensor and display technologies, should help to bring into reality the "democratization" of data-driven enterprise which has become fashionable to talk about this year. So here is a run-through of my key predictions for the next year. Organizations wanting to stay ahead of the curve will want to ensure they are exploring all of the opportunities indicated by these trends.

Tech giants are hungry for artificial intelligence. In a race to create the best AI solutions in an increasingly hot sector, U.S. tech behemoths like Alphabet's Google and iPhone maker Apple have been quietly snapping up dozens of artificial intelligence companies over the last five years, according to a recent report from analysis firm CB Insights. The firm's data sheds new light on a trend that's been evolving for years. Nearly 140 private companies working to advance AI technology have been acquired since 2011, including 40 buyouts just this year, CB noted. From Google's Assistant to Apple's Siri; Microsoft's Cortana to Facebook chatbots, tech companies appear to be locked in a fierce competition to create autonomous technology that can understand users' needs, and provide information quickly and reliably, CB Insights noted.

More than 30 startups and companies like Domino's Pizza, Food Network, and Product Hunt launched new actions for Google Home today. Actions, like Amazon Alexa skills, give a user control and command of Google Assistant. This marks the largest rollout of actions since Google Home went on sale in October and since the Google Assistant platform to make commands for Google Home launched last week. There are currently 35 third-party conversation actions you can use on Google Home, 32 of which were released today. "Conversation Actions from early access partners will begin rolling out over the coming weeks -- starting today. We're excited to see what developers build!,"

If your name is Lucas or Hannah, you owe your parents a thank you for all the success you've likely had with online dating. According to Tinder, those were the most right-swiped names on the dating app in 2016. The numbers were pulled from all left and right swipes in the U.S. between December of 2015 and November of this year.

All 4,748 hotel rooms at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel are set to be equipped with an Echo, Amazon's voice-controlled speaker, the resort announced this week. So you'll soon be able to ask Alexa, the brain behind the device, to control the room temperature or play some pre-game tunes before you hit the Strip. SEE ALSO: Someone rigged Amazon Echo and Google Home to talk to each other and it's hilarious The hotel is already installing the Echo in its suites this month and the controller will be in all rooms by mid 2017. Guests will be able to ask Alexa to turn off the lights, blast the AC, open the curtains or turn on the TV. The hotel expects to have Alexa also available for guests to ask questions, set alarms, check about sporting events (probably for gambling purposes) and catch up on the news.

Now's your chance to prove it with The Huffington Post's new weekly audio news quiz, powered by the Google Assistant. The 10-question, multiple-choice quiz, which was built by AOL Alpha, is available on Google's voice-activated speaker, Google Home. You can access the quiz by saying, "Ok Google, talk to the HuffPost Headline Quiz." A new quiz will be available every Friday morning and will challenge you on a range of different topics, from politics to pop culture to world news. For the serious HuffPost fans, we've also added a bonus question at the end of each quiz that tests how closely you've been following our lead headlines each week.

To start off, I don't think the battle between Amazon Echo and Google Home is as important as the one between Amazon Alexa, which is their voice assistance service, and the Google (Voice) Assistant. Both Amazon Echo and Google Home are speakers with voice assistance built into them. The speakers are fairly standard, as speakers go. The real magic happens in the voice assistants that sit in the cloud and do the heavy lifting on behalf of these devices. You can expect that, in the future, most of the devices you own will have voice assistance built into them.

The year of AI: Major developments in 2016 could pave the way for a future where'intelligent machines are omnipresent in our daily lives' Artificial intelligence or AI is getting a foothold in people's homes, starting with the Amazon devices like its Echo speaker (pictured) which links to a personal assistant'Alexa' to answer questions and control connected devices such as appliances or light bulbs Donald Trump claims torture ¿works¿ ¿ but what does the... South Korea comes a step closer to LIMITLESS energy:... Facebook Messenger launches an in-app camera and... The shoes that will tell you if you're too tired to run:... Donald Trump claims torture ¿works¿ ¿ but what does the... South Korea comes a step closer to LIMITLESS energy:... Facebook Messenger launches an in-app camera and... The shoes that will tell you if you're too tired to run:... Analyst Carolina Milanesi of the research firm Creative Strategies said that '2016 was the year about raising awareness, and exposing ...