Will AI be the next big smartphone feature?

Amazon's "artificial intelligence" software or should we say smart assistant, Alexa, was the quiet star of CES 2017, appearing in a huge range of products, from fridges to smart lamps, to cars. Alexa has even made its debut in its first smartphone, the Huawei Mate 9 – Alexa, and this could be the start of a new trend in 2017 that sees smart assistants become important flagship differentiators. Of course, Google and Apple have been at this for a long time already, and Google Now is already baked in to every new Android smartphone release these days. So really the age of the smart assistant has been here for a while already. However, Google Now certainly isn't a unique selling point for manufacturers looking to stand out in the competitive high-end market, hence why custom assistants are starting to pop up.