You might think the meals that end up in the grocery store's frozen aisle, at Starbucks, or on airplanes are robot-packed already, but that's rarely the case. Workers are often much more flexible than robots and can handle production lines that frequently rotate recipes. Not only that, but certain ingredients, like rice or shredded cheese, are hard to portion out with robotic arms. That means the vast majority of meals from recognizable brands are still typically hand-packed. However, advancements from AI have changed the calculus, making robots more useful on production lines, says David Griego, senior director of engineering at Amy's. "Before Silicon Valley got involved, the industry was much more about'Okay, we're gonna program--a robot is gonna do this and do this only,'" he says.

This week at CES in Las Vegas, Audi gave hands-on demonstrations of its newest concept car, a self-driving vehicle called AI:Me, or'Amy.' The German luxury car manufacturer describes AI:Me as an'empathetic mobility partner' that will transport passengers into'an oasis of calm' while the car's autonomous navigation system cuts through stressful city traffic. AI:Me was built with a compact frame that was specifically designed to be able to move through high-traffic urban spaces and fit into tight parking spots. Audi gave demonstrations of a new concept car, AI:Me (pronounced'Amy'), at CES in Las Vegas this week Its roomy interior cabin was designed to give passengers the option to forget about big city anxiety and focus on inner tranquility and self-care. AI:Me actually features a'Well-Being' mode that allows users to customize light levels, dampen noise from outside the car, and'purify' the air inside the cabin.

Amy Ingram, the artificial intelligence personal assistant from startup X.ai, sounds remarkably like a real person. The company designed her to take on the mundane tasks of scheduling meetings and e-mailing about appointments. If a bot had access to your calendar and was cc-ed on correspondence, why couldn't it do the work for you? After she made her debut in 2014, users praised her "humanlike tone" and "eloquent manners." But what most people don't realize about this artificial intelligence is that it isn't totally artificial: Behind almost every e-mail is an actual human--someone like 24-year-old Willie Calvin. Calvin, who worked as an AI trainer for X.ai before he said he quit in October, was part of the reason Amy never tripped up, sending the sort of blind response that reveals she's a bot.

Amy is the future of human resources. I met Amy because she works for Abby. I met Abby through HR UndergroundX. Abby told me about a new technology she was using to recruit candidates for her startup clients. "Abby – It was nice meeting you the other night. I'd love to get together and have coffee. "…Amy CC'd has my schedule and will reach out to coordinate with you.

But once Feldman was hired to write the personality of a chatbot for Kasisto, a startup that focuses on artificial intelligence software for banks, she became vocal about the importance of taking gender out of the identity equation. Under her watch, myKai, the bot she was hired to craft a personality for, would be neither female nor male. Feldman's boss at Kasisto, Dror Oren, says the work the team has done with the bot made him more outspoken about the need for equality in tech than he'd have imagined going into the project, and he's a self-proclaimed feminist to begin with. Now, he's hyperaware of the differences between the personality of Kai and overly feminine answers inside similar products made by most large tech companies. Kasisto is on to something.

Amy Ingram is a dream personal assistant: professional, prompt and receptive to critiques. She's scheduled tens of thousands of meetings for her clients -- and she makes those who use her services look good. "Some people are like how the hell did they afford an assistant," said Dennis Mortensen, cofounder of X.ai, the startup behind Amy. "They" can afford to pay Amy because she's not a human. She is an artificially intelligent personal assistant -- just look at her initials (A.I.) -- and right now, she's free.