Artificial Intelligence Changing Everything

I've written before about the growth of artificial intelligence technology and how it is poised to transform not only retail but our lives in general. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, stated in a USA Today article (6/1/2016) that "The emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning in household gadgets is gigantic". He goes on to say that "its hard to overstate how big of an impact this will have on society over the next 20 years". Bezos is speaking from firsthand experience as Amazon's Echo and Alexa, the company's digital assistant, have become a surprise hit since being released a year or so ago. Alexa lives in the cloud and is powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. 'She' learns from every interaction with you, understanding over time that your favorite brand of cookies are Oreos so when you say'Alexa, please put cookies on the shopping list' she knows you mean Oreos.