Right now, there is no common ground with most of the AI technology consumers engage with. Instead of knowing who you are by simply the sound of your voice, most people are identified as a fresh user every time. Logging you in, authenticating you and knowing your history will be critical--and it all must be done seamlessly. Pins, passwords, security questions won't cut it,

Kristina: What trends are you watching now in the B2B space? Peter Isaacson, CMO, Demandbase: Artificial Intelligence (AI) was the hot topic of 2017, and it will continue to be a trend to watch in 2018. From using AI to enhance personalization to improving engagement and increasing conversions, we've only just begun to scratch the surface of its capabilities in the B2B marketing space. The good news is that the technology is getting easier to use, becoming more customizable and able to drive more meaningful and measurable results. It'll also be interesting to see how the marketing technology landscape develops in 2018, as new companies, partnerships and avenues for growth surface.

"Because businesses are transactional in nature, leveraging machine learning and automation allows businesses to make simple point transactions while scaling human talent, this means that sales, and other front-line representatives, are able to focus their time on working on some of the more engaging or complex interactions with clients," said Jamie Anderson, CMO, SAP Hybris. "Algorithms are able to learn from existing data, bringing forth the most relevant data at the appropriate time. Machine learning enables more efficient ecommerce interactions with a customer, thus making more transactions possible at any given time and boosting sales overall." "Many organizations are dealing with disparate data sources, with data siloed across departments, which means that insights pulled are often not fully representative of the company's transactions or most recent behaviors. Platforms that can aggregate data to deliver a live customer profile that is constantly evolving with their needs are key for today's marketers to ensure the customer data they possess is updated in real time and reflects evolving interests and preferences," said Anderson.

Kristina: While most of us are focused on the positives of AI - better targeting, more personalized experiences - there is a darker side to the use of AI. Michael Fauscette, Chief Research Officer, G2 Crowd: The simplest and one of the most dangerous dark sides relates to security and hacking. With the increasing growth of hacking / criminal activity including government sponsored efforts, the probability that AI will be used to create anything from adaptive or situational malware that learns and changes as you try to detect and fight it; to malware that invades a network or system and sits in the background learning the best time to deliver its payload. Intelligent security is the white hat version of AI and its opposite or black hat, adversarial machine learning will surely kick off an arms race. Kristina: But the deep learning opportunities through AI are supposed to be a help.

Kristina: We're seeing more businesses use chatbots for customer service. How are consumers using chatbots? Amit Sharma, CEO, Narvar: Shoppers have an increasing appetite for chatbots and AI-powered technology, given the customized, data-driven, contextual experience they provide. An analysis of conversations with the Narvar chatbot on Facebook Messenger found that 65 percent of people communicate with bots as they would a human by acknowledging the bot with a thank you or thumbs up. Communicating with consumers in a natural, human way without being in the same physical location is a key benefit of chatbots and conversational tools.

Earlier this year, a survey from Nuance Communications into consumer preferences and expectations around customer self-service revealed that a significant number (89%) prefer, and even expect, to have conversational interaction. In fact, for 87%, a positive interaction with a company determines whether or not they will continue their relationship. Of particular interest is Nuance's finding that 89% of consumers "want to engage with virtual assistants to quickly find information instead of searching through Web pages or a mobile phone app on their own". Nearly three-quarters (73%) said they want their conversations with customer service to be personalized and 64% want customer service to be proactive and include suggestions and reminders. New research from the Direct Marketing Association (UK) reflects Nuance's findings in terms of brand engagement.

Kristina: Why should subscription-based software companies care about machine learning? Matt Fleckenstein, SVP Products and Marketing, Amplero: Today's connected customers demand that companies provide a service to them that is personalized, connected, memorable, and one that provides ongoing value (the more I use it, the more value I receive). Traditional marketing tools simply can't scale to deliver against these connected customer demands, as rules-based marketing automation solutions require a human to set up complex rules trying to account for thousands of different contexts across the customer journey. Humans simply can't manage and implement, let alone continually optimize, for thousands of customer contexts across the journey, so marketers are increasingly looking to computers and machine learning for help. Kristina: How do machine learning marketing capabilities play into the priorities of SaaS subscription companies?

The findings of a recent survey from Nuance Communications into consumer preferences and expectations around customer self-service reveals that a significant number of consumers (89%) prefer, and even expect, to have conversational interaction. For 87%, a positive interaction with a company determines whether or not they will continue their relationship. With chat bots to the front of mind following Facebook's recent announcement, it is interesting to note from Nuance's survey that 89% of consumers "want to engage with virtual assistants to quickly find information instead of searching through Web pages or a mobile phone app on their own". The same need is reflected in consumers' desire to engage with automated phone systems that allow them to speak naturally. Nuance recently announced that one of the leading financial institutes in Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is now using Nuance Nina, and intelligent virtual assistant that delivers "a human-like, conversational customer service experience" to assist customers to quickly and easily access information.

Kristina: AI is being used in call centers and other customer service areas. Can AI be used in situations outside these areas? Mikhai Naumov, Chief Strategy Officer, Digital Genius: Yes, some of the most exciting areas of AI implementations are around image recognition. This could be as simple as recognizing people on a photo, or as complex and controversial as self-driving cars. However - those implementations are quite different from using AI to improve brand-to-consumer communications.