AI Weekly: AI assistant success is defined by each tech giant's business strategy

Unless you live under a rock, you probably saw headlines this week about a war between Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Alexa in personal computers and AR glasses may be a bit surprising, but the CES 2018 theme seemed to be the same as last year: more cars and auto appliances with AI assistants, and more smart home devices for the kitchen, family room, and bedroom that respond to voice commands and talk to Alexa and Google Assistant. In addition to Alexa in everything from a car cockpit to a toilet, Samsung's Bixby, Microsoft's Cortana, and Google Assistant all showed up to vie for the world's attention. Away from Las Vegas, reports of a Facebook video chat device named Portal that responds to voice commands also made news this week. CES this year made clear the distinction in strategy between these tech giants that no longer treat their assistants as a novelty, but rather as a major selling point and part of their brand identity.