User Interface (UI) design is an creative process that involves considerable reiteration and rework. Designers go through multiple iterations of different prototyping fidelities to create a UI design. In this research, we propose to modify the UI design process by assisting it with artificial intelligence (AI). We propose to enable AI to perform repetitive tasks for the designer while allowing the designer to take command of the creative process. This approach makes the machine act as a black box that intelligently assists the designers in creating UI design. We believe this approach would greatly benefit designers in co-creating design solutions with AI.

How did you end up working in Information and Data Sciences at Microsoft Research? Paul Bennett: I started quite a while ago. Originally looking first at just philosophical problems of how we reason about things.

The idea of jumping into your car, telling it where you want to go, and then just arriving safely is the thing of science fiction. And so, we want it to happen.

Tis the season for Listicles – those wonderfully quick reads with the "Top 10" things to look for in the coming year. Customers started showing a pronounced preference for self-service over lengthy interactions with live assistants. Conversational commerce, involving chatbots through mobile devices was rapidly expanding All flavors of Intelligent Assistants (especially bots and virtual agents) were making the transition from "assistant" to "advisor" Customers started showing a pronounced preference for self-service over lengthy interactions with live assistants. All flavors of Intelligent Assistants (especially bots and virtual agents) were making the transition from "assistant" to "advisor" Indeed, these three factors shaped IA in 2016 and will continue to do so in 2017, spurred on by increased spending by business enterprises on Speech Processing, Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Knowledge Management and Predictive Interaction Analytics. It's great news for the 28 or so firms that offer platforms for Enterprise Intelligent Assistants [link to our Landscape] while, at the same time it is a tremendous shot in the arm for the thousands of developers who are building bots for messaging platforms (especially Facebook Messenger) or "skills" for "metabots" (like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant).

An IPO legitimize TPaaS (Telco Platform as a Service.) Huge firms seek to corner "Big Data in the Cloud." Start-ups take command of "The Internet of Things." These highly-ambiguous terms have replaced "Mobile", "Social" and "Collaboration" in the word clouds of the Digital Age. They are shiny objects with great growth potential and transformative power.

Just weeks ago 20th Century Fox released a trailer for the upcoming horror film "Morgan," and frankly it's not the best trailer. So then why is it worth talking about? The reason it has made such an impact on our industry is that the trailer was edited partially with the assistance of artificial intelligence, namely the IBM system'Watson.' What does this mean for our future in this industry? And more importantly, what does this mean for your job specifically?

By 2020, we will all have an Invisible Friend. Whether we call it Siri, Alexa, OK Google, or a chatbot, we are entering a world where an intelligence assistant recognizes our "intent." This could spawn a massive consumer behavior shift, as AI-influenced bots would mean far fewer Google searches by humans. This invisible friend would learn from its mistakes, maintain context, and continue to expand into new areas of expertise through judicious use of Knowledge Management (see below landscape). Although 2020 is our destination, now is a time of heightened activity among the companies that provide the elements of Intelligent Assistance.

I've just run my second briefing on intelligent assistance. Much happened in the few months between sessions. This time, the second half of the day was dominated with stories about bots and their use cases on messaging platforms. It also included the amazing things now possible via automated voice which Amazon's Alexa Challenge exemplifies. Meanwhile IBM's Watson continues its conquest of carbon life forms with the trashing of an extraordinarily talented Go grand master.

I've just run my second briefing on intelligent assistance. Much happened in the few months between sessions. This time, the second half of the day was dominated with stories about bots and their use cases on messaging platforms. It also included the amazing things now possible via automated voice which Amazon's Alexa Challenge exemplifies. Meanwhile IBM's Watson continues its conquest of carbon life forms with the trashing of an extraordinarily talented Go grand master.

In the demo video below that simple command actually meant, "Help me buy new soccer cleats for my son." Powered by USAA's Savings Booster, a feature that the company has offered to its banking customers since mid-2015, Alexa quickly responded with a suggested action. Next thing you know, the happy Mom watches her child head out the door wearing the new shoes. According to Darrius Jones, AVP of Enterprise Innovation at USAA, the company built a crack team to rise to the Alexa Challenge, a contest conducted by PYMNTS.com, To build its demo, USAA's developers were able to create the Alexa-based conversational interface to Savings Booster, an existing feature for banking customers, in a matter of 10 hours. It then took 22 days to implement and be up-and-running on the Alexa platform.