Like most industries, the financial services sector is being rapidly redefined by emerging new technologies. No longer limited to operating at the transactional level (think mobile banking and digital payments), increasingly advanced tech is encroaching into the more human-dominated roles within the sector. A Bank of England survey recently reported that financial services firms expect to see significant growth in their use of technologies such as Machine Learning over the next three years. These technologies are expected to be brought in to automate processes such as decision making – relying on algorithms to reach conclusions in a quicker, more accurate manner than a human. Aside of these obvious benefits which serve to boost company and industry performance and profitability, there is the added expected advantage that, by gathering the data necessary for this process to occur, the company can also discover new insights that can be exploited for commercial gain.

The development of the internet over the last few decades has resulted in a massive increase in the production of data and the unprecedented availability of computing power for corporate applications. Machine Learning and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques have been fuelled by these revolutions to emerge from being purely academic topics of investigation to be the basis for a new wave of products and services for the digital age. The paradigm-shifting opportunities presented to corporates by this emerging technology range from the ability to expose and extract insights and patterns from data lakes to replacing human beings in critical decision-making scenarios. However, with these opportunities also come novel risks and concerns that must be considered when contemplating the development and deployment of AI and machine learning agents. These include understanding how their trustworthiness may be measured, the ethics and policies required for their deployment and the cybersecurity implications of their widespread adoption.

Sales and business development are suffering and AI-powered sales performance solutions can help. So-called propensity models can identify which customers are most likely to buy a product or service from a company, says Dr Tom Davenport, president's distinguished professor of information technology and management at Babson College, Massachusetts. These models can help those working in sales improve their productivity and effectiveness, by showing them which customers to prioritise. "For brands, having insight into what their customers think and want has always been a key priority, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made this understanding even more critical," says Chris Colley, principal of customer experience at Medallia. But he notes, at the same time, collecting data on what customers think has become more challenging.

When Amazon first coined the strapline "Ask Alexa" for its virtual assistant, it couldn't have predicted the X-rated nature of some of the requests. "She" may boast an encyclopaedic knowledge, but research by consumer behaviour analysts Canvas8 reveals that some users are more interested in a virtual hook-up than fact finding. And she's not the only target: the equally smooth voice of Microsoft's Cortana is getting customers just as hot under the collar apparently. From perma-smiling avatars in traditionally female support roles, to hyper-sexualised "fembots" pandering to male fantasies, the female form is everywhere in techno-world - attractive, servile and at your command. A little more conservative, but just as eager to please, is virtual personal assistant Amy Ingram, the brainchild of New York start-up X.ai.

When Amazon first coined the strapline "Ask Alexa" for its virtual assistant, it couldn't have predicted the X-rated nature of some of the requests. "She" may boast an encyclopaedic knowledge, but research by consumer behaviour analysts Canvas8 reveals that some users are more interested in a virtual hook-up than fact finding. And she's not the only target: the equally smooth voice of Microsoft's Cortana is getting customers just as hot under the collar apparently. From perma-smiling avatars in traditionally female support roles, to hyper-sexualised "fembots" pandering to male fantasies, the female form is everywhere in techno-world - attractive, servile and at your command. A little more conservative, but just as eager to please, is virtual personal assistant Amy Ingram, the brainchild of New York start-up X.ai.

When Amazon first coined the strapline "Ask Alexa" for its virtual assistant, it couldn't have predicted the X-rated nature of some of the requests. "She" may boast an encyclopaedic knowledge, but research by consumer behaviour analysts Canvas8 reveals that some users are more interested in a virtual hook-up than fact finding. And she's not the only target: the equally smooth voice of Microsoft's Cortana is getting customers just as hot under the collar apparently. From perma-smiling avatars in traditionally female support roles, to hyper-sexualised "fembots" pandering to male fantasies, the female form is everywhere in techno-world - attractive, servile and at your command. A little more conservative, but just as eager to please, is virtual personal assistant Amy Ingram, the brainchild of New York start-up X.ai.

When Amazon first coined the strapline "Ask Alexa" for its virtual assistant, it couldn't have predicted the X-rated nature of some of the requests. "She" may boast an encyclopaedic knowledge, but research by consumer behaviour analysts Canvas 8 reveals that some users are more interested in a virtual hook-up than fact finding. And she's not the only target: the equally smooth voice of Microsoft's Cortana is getting customers just as hot under the collar apparently. From perma-smiling avatars in traditionally female support roles, to hyper-sexualised "fembots" pandering to male fantasies, the female form is everywhere in techno-world - attractive, servile and at your command. A little more conservative, but just as eager to please, is virtual personal assistant Amy Ingram, the brainchild of New York start-up X.ai.

While online dating was once seen as a last resort for meeting a partner, one in five relationships now starts online. And it appears that the future may extend the ways to use technology to find love even further. A new study suggests that by 2026, smart home devices, including your toaster and wardrobe, could help you find love. As for smart wardrobes, eHarmony's research indicates clothing style is actually an extremely precise and detailed reflection of a person's personality. Smart appliances such as fridges, toasters, coffee makers and cooking devices could reveal a large amount of information about our diet, meal times and even spontaneity when choosing or preparing food.