Leading up to Superbowl Sunday, Amazon flooded social media with coquettish ads teasing "Alexa's new body." Its gameday commercial depicts one woman's fantasy of the AI voice assistant embodied by actor Michael B. Jordan, who seductively caters to her every whim -- to the consternation of her increasingly irate husband. No doubt most viewers walked away giggling at the implausible idea of Amazon's new line of spouse replacement robots, but the reality is that embodied, humanlike AI may be closer than you think. Today, AI avatars -- i.e., AI rendered with a digital body and/or face -- lack the sex appeal of Michael B. Most, in fact, are downright creepy. Research shows that imbuing robots with humanlike features endears them to us -- to a point.

For anyone who has followed CES 2020, one of the announcements that created the most buzz was Samsung's NEONs (neo-humans), or AI assistants that resemble humans. These NEONs are extremely lifelike--so much so that when you look at them, it can be hard to believe they aren't real people on the other end of the video. But will lifelike AI assistants really be the future? What practical use will they have if they are? And will these AI assistants find their way into the enterprise or just become nothing more than a consumer-focused gimmick?