The University of Southern California has unveiled a pair of programs--one in partnership with Amazon--designed to meet the tech industry's accelerating demand for engineers in the realm of artificial intelligence. On Tuesday, USC announced the launch of the new Center for Autonomy and AI at its Viterbi School of Engineering. Co-directed by USC professors Rahul Jain and Jyo Deshmukh, the center aims to study and develop AI applications ranging from self-driving cars and autonomous robots. The university also rolled out a new partnership with Amazon to launch a summer residency program for undergraduate engineering students. Amazon is sponsoring the program, which will see 30 students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines from across the U.S. work with USC faculty during an eight-week on-campus program.

The £240 ($250) Alexa-powered Echo Show 15 device boasts a 15.6-inch display that you can mount to your wall or place on your counter. Users can hang it horizontally or vertically on a wall, like a photo frame, as it displays how-to videos, recipes from the web or shows streamed from Netflix and Spotify. 'We think of it [Echo Show 15] as a kitchen TV, but much, much smarter,' said Miriam Daniel, vice president of Alexa and Echo devices. Echo Show 15 can display a live-stream from your smart doorbell, streaming services interfaces, personalized sticky notes to members of the family and much more. If you've opted to hang it from the wall and want to disable the display, users can ask Alexa to show a photo frame, and Echo Show 15 just shows photos, so it blends into the background. 'Echo Show 15 brings everything that makes your household tick into one place,' said Tom Taylor, senior vice president, Amazon Alexa.

"The holy grail of a chatbot or virtual assistant is to help you adjust your behavior, telling you when to save more or spend in order to reach certain goals," said Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech research for Autonomous Research. Could UBS clients soon be serviced by voice-controlled AI? Maybe not yet, but a new pilot program between the bank and Amazon's Alexa service is testing the frontiers of both science fiction and wealth management. UBS' partnership with Amazon will enable clients and non-clients of the bank to get answers to financial and economic questions, ranging from what is inflation to how the U.S. economy is faring. It's the latest example of how wealth management firms are experimenting with new technologies such as data analytics and artificial intelligence to expand or reinvent the business.