The technology we use at home is slowly converging with the enterprise environment. The innovation taking place within the virtual assistant (VA) market -- and its potential to create an entirely new workplace reality -- is particularly exciting to see. Artificial intelligence-powered, voice-controlled assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, and Cortana are already commonplace in many homes. This popularity is building pressure to integrate VA functionality into enterprise technology, as well, which could significantly reconfigure and enhance the employee experience. By 2021, Gartner, Inc. predicts that "25 percent of digital workers will use a virtual employee assistant (VEA) on a daily basis. This will be up from less than 2 percent in 2019."*

Not all voice assistants can handle the same requests. We put Siri, Alexa and Google to the test. The number of voice assistants used worldwide could rise from 2.5 billion in 2018 to 8 billion in 2023, according to Juniper Research. A recent survey by Clutch found that 48% of respondents in the U.S. owned a digital assistant, and 33% planned to buy one within the next three years. The firm also found that 69% of voice assistant owners used their devices every day.

Decades of research in artificial intelligence (AI) have produced formidable technologies that are providing immense benefit to industry, government, and society. AI systems can now translate across multiple languages, identify objects in images and video, streamline manufacturing processes, and control cars. The deployment of AI systems has not only created a trillion-dollar industry that is projected to quadruple in three years, but has also exposed the need to make AI systems fair, explainable, trustworthy, and secure. Future AI systems will rightfully be expected to reason effectively about the world in which they (and people) operate, handling complex tasks and responsibilities effectively and ethically, engaging in meaningful communication, and improving their awareness through experience. Achieving the full potential of AI technologies poses research challenges that require a radical transformation of the AI research enterprise, facilitated by significant and sustained investment. These are the major recommendations of a recent community effort coordinated by the Computing Community Consortium and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence to formulate a Roadmap for AI research and development over the next two decades.

If there is one industry in which advanced technology has made a significant impact, it's the finance sector. For years, the finance sector has been dominated by traditional, 'legacy' banks. Who've built a reputation for long, slow and tedious processes. But with the introduction of digital banking and fintech, there has been a shift and many banks have embarked upon their digital transformation journeys. One of the main reasons for this shift is artificial intelligence.

It's a rather simple concept -- writing tests for features that haven't been written yet. Although we won't cover TDD entirely -- if you're interested in learning the basics I'd recommend reading up on Agile Alliance's article here before reading on. The C2 Group has had years of experience working with browser-based solutions, conquering web projects and requests of all sizes, but this was the first opportunity C2 had to develop and test an Alexa skill. Based on research and the experiences of other developers, we knew an Alexa skill would be a great chance to try out TDD since writing tests for a product with a repeatable function has a more practical application than writing tests for websites. Alexa skills introduce an interesting development process.

A woman is typing at her desk in an office. Companies should ensure that their AI applications do not have an adverse impact on any group of people. "Did you mean Stephen Williams?" In 2016, a Seattle Times article found that searching for a female contact on LinkedIn -- in this case, Stephanie Williams -- yielded a prompt that asked if you meant to search for a similar-sounding man's name, Stephen Williams. In 2018, Amazon had to shut down an AI recruiting tool designed to screen applicant resumes because it was discriminating against women.

Amazon will be the last of three major tech companies to alter its policy on listening to customers' voice recordings amid mounting public pressure. On Friday, Amazon began allowing users of its Echo smart speaker -- equipped with the voice-assistant Alexa -- to opt out of program that gathered some users' voice recordings for human review. After being collected, recordings were sent to third-party contractors who then listened to the clips and documented its content and whether or not the device was able to complete the command. Amazon will let users choose whether or not their voice recordings can be used in a program that listens to audio snippets for Echo smart-speaker improvements. As previously reported, the program accidentally scraped up private information from users by accident, including arguments, official business talk, and audio of people having sex.

Welcome to your 2019 kitchen. There's a smart oven, which lets you adjust the temperature and cook time from your phone. There's a smart refrigerator, which can tell you when your produce is about to go bad. There's a smart scale, which (hopefully) makes you a better baker. If you're wondering why you'd ever need a smart sink--and how it's different than a regular sink--we broke down exactly what the Kohler Sensate smart faucet is (and isn't) below.

Not all voice assistants can handle the same requests. We put Siri, Alexa and Google to the test. Apple is suspending a program that allows third-party contractors to listen to the questions you ask Siri. This comes after a whistleblower said that workers listen to the recordings to help Siri improve and determine if the request was handled correctly, a process called grading, reported The Guardian. Amazon and Google came under fire earlier this year for similar reasons when it was discovered workers were listening to the recordings the Echo and Google Assistant collected.

A German privacy watchdog has ordered Google to cease manual reviews of audio snippets generated by its voice AI. This follows a leak last month of scores of audio snippets from the Google Assistant service. A contractor working as a Dutch language reviewer handed more than 1,000 recordings to the Belgian news site VRT which was then able to identify some of the people in the clips. It reported being able to hear people's addresses, discussion of medical conditions, and recordings of a woman in distress. The Hamburg data protection authority told Google of its intention to use Article 66 powers of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to begin an "urgency procedure" under Article 66 of GDPR last month.