So let's dive into some specifics, shall we? In a nutshell, Augment adds numerous augments (get it?!) onto your existing devices. Those lowercase augments are best described as layers of intelligence that observe what you're doing and then step in as needed to make sure you always have the info you need exactly when you need it. If that concept rings a bell, congratulations: You've been paying attention. Philosophically, at least, Augment is strikingly similar to Heyday, a context-surfacing service I covered for Fast Company earlier this year.

Ever spend much too long trying -- and failing -- to rediscover articles you've partially read? This reporter's been there, and it seems I'm not the only one. According to 2021 Carnegie Mellon study on browser tab usage, many participants admitted to feeling overwhelmed by the amount of tabs they kept open but were compelled not to close them out of fear of missing out on valuable information. Samiur Rahman is familiar with the feeling -- so much so that he co-created a product, Heyday, to alleviate it. Launched in 2021, Heyday is designed to automatically save web pages and pull in content from cloud apps, resurfacing the content alongside search engine results and curating it into a knowledge base. Investors include Spark Capital, which led a $6.5 million seed round in the company that closed today.

Conversational AI can be a major asset to your social media presence. These days, 64% of people say they'd rather message a business than call it. If you're active on social media and talk to customers on your social channels, that statistic applies to you too. Every month over 1 billion messages are exchanged between people and businesses on Facebook Messenger alone. With all those inquiries and only so many people to tend to them, a chatbot or virtual assistant can be a lifesaver.

Vancouver-based Hootsuite lets companies track social-network channels to see what people are saying about their brands and respond in real time. Hootsuite bought Montreal-based Heyday because companies have expanded their use of social media beyond marketing to include commerce and one-on-one messaging, said Tom Keiser, Hootsuite's chief executive. "You really can do the entire customer life cycle now, all the way through selling and support, on the social and messaging platforms," Mr. Keiser said. "With the acquisition of Heyday, we get a really strong base of AI capabilities that we'll be able to use in social care and across the other aspects of our business," he added, referring to customer service via social media. The deal is Hootsuite's second acquisition this year, following its January purchase of Sparkcentral, a provider of digital customer-support software-as-a-service.

It's wonderful to be in an area like computer science because, as we expand its reach, we encounter problems for which we don't even have the appropriate abstractions to be able to think about them. When you imagine the future of the field, what areas do you think hold the most promise? AHO: That is a great question. Particularly with fields like AI, we're starting to replace people who do routine cognitive jobs with computer programs. What will the job market of the future be with this increasing capacity and power of computing?

Heyday co-founders Steve Desjarlais, left, and Étienne Mérineau stand in the company's Montreal office on Sept. 30, 2020. When COVID-19 hit, forcing people to stay home, Heyday AI knew its chatbot technology would be vital for retailers that could no longer converse with their customers in person. But the Montreal-based company also knew landing new clients would be a challenge given the cancellation of big tech events where it often drums up business face-to-face. "A lot of [those] sales ... bank on relationships, and therefore you need to meet in person," says Étienne Mérineau, who co-founded Heyday in 2017 with Steve Desjarlais, David Bordeleau and Hugues Rousseau. Heyday uses artificial intelligence to help retailers communicate with customers on websites and across various apps and programs such as Facebook Messenger and Google Maps.

Steve Desjarlais is the CEO and Co-Founder of Heyday AI, a company that focuses on developing an AI capable of engaging and understanding customers in every stage of their journey: from pre-purchase to product browsing and answering FAQs. In this interview, Mr. Desjarlais shares insights on how enterprises can leverage conversational AI to empower their marketing, support and sales teams with the ultimate goal of improving customer experience. This interview has been featured in the Conversational AI Initiative 2019. I'm former Head of Product of Ubisoft, the video game powerhouse behind blockbuster titled such as Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs, FarCry and Splinter Cell. Heyday was launched by former Ubisoft (video game), Lightspeed (retail), Genband (cloud, telco) and Dentsu Aegis (advertising) executives who saw a pivotal moment in the history of computing and user interaction.

DavidsTea has brewed up a partnership with Heyday to create its own AI-powered chat platform, part of a larger digital transformation at the Montreal tea retailer. Heyday is a company that provides AI-powered conversational commerce platforms for retailers in a range of categories, including auto brand Ford, food brand Danone and luxury-goods brand LVMH. The two companies started working together earlier this year and the new platform is still being developed, with the goal of launching it in the lead-up to the crucial Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days that kick off the holiday shopping season. Partnering with Heyday is part of a larger digital transformation the company is undergoing, says DavidsTea's new vice president of ecommerce, Damon Sloane. He joined DavidsTea in April, having worked in a series of digital and marketing roles over the past decade.

As two of the world's most well-known business leaders lock horns on the topic of AI, the technology continues to evolve at a staggeringly unabated pace. Yesterday, Google's DeepMind announced it had created an AI with'imagination', making further advancements towards replicating the complex human functionalities which make us so individual. Over the years, advancements in technology have always caused concern, outcry and resistance. In 50 years' time we'll either be looking back at Musk and Zuckerberg's passive aggressive exchange of words from a post-apocalyptic world that's been savaged by robots, or one where we're reaping the many rewards that AI advancements have enabled.

As a judge for the newly minted Mobile UX Awards, I get to see and evaluate many different kinds of mobile experiences -- including chatbots. Nearly 10 years after the launch of the game-changing app store, UX designers are programmed to apply app design thinking to just about every mobile experience. But approaching a chatbot like an app is a mistake, because here's the truth: The two aren't created equal. Frankenstein-ing your way to a product will never be a winning formula, so it's critical that UX designers start developing a unique set of design principles for the new conversational paradigm. When it comes to user experience, three core components set bots apart from traditional apps: interface, accessibility, and personalization.