Cut to the first official day of the show, and it was almost impossible to avoid the in-your-face signs attempting to lure you to "5G open innovation" demos. Everywhere we turned, we were confronted with yet another banner. This isn't surprising of course, 5G is very much a mobile communications standard and we were in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, after all. This isn't the first time 5G news has permeated MWC -- in years past, we saw companies show off "the first 5G phone," even before the spec was approved. But at MWC 2018, we were seeing not just a few obvious proofs of concept, but a broad creative range of connected devices.

Google AI is making it easier for everyone to learn ML by providing a huge range of free, in-depth educational content," Zuri Kemp, Programme Manager for Google's machine learning education, said in a statement. Google on Thursday introduced "Learn with Google AI" -- a set of educational resources developed by Machine Learning (ML) experts at the company, for people to learn about concepts, develop skills and apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) to real-world problems. "Learn with Google AI" comes with existing content as well as the new Machine Learning Crash Course (MLCC). "We believe it's important that the development of AI reflects as diverse a range of human perspectives and needs as possible. So, Google AI is making it easier for everyone to learn ML by providing a huge range of free, in-depth educational content," Zuri Kemp, Programme Manager for Google's machine learning education, said in a statement.

As IT environments become more complex, organisations must prepare efficiently. Ericsson has turned to machine learning and AI to do just that. Mobile World Congress has focused a lot around 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), but Ericsson has shifted the focus back to artificial intelligence (AI). The telecommunications company has announced incorporating machine learning and AI within its entire organisation and customer operations. The aim of the introduction is to enable networks across the company to self-optimize, improve efficiency and deliver better user experiences.

Today is the day Samsung will be unveiling its highly anticipated Galaxy S9, the company's latest flagship smartphone. As we discussed earlier this week, you can expect an improved, smarter camera on the handset, as well as an answer to Apple's Animojis, animated emojis that will use face recognition technology to make your phone more interactive when you message friends or family. We'll learn all about the Galaxy S9 in the next few hours, so stay tuned to this post to keep up with the action as it happens. The event kicks off at 12PM ET/6PM Barcelona time.

But with no major innovations awaited in handsets, analysts expect the four-day Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona to focus on new uses for artificial intelligence (AI) and the looming deployment of super-fast 5G wireless networks.

Phone makers will seek to entice new buyers with better cameras and bigger screens at the world's biggest mobile fair starting Monday in Spain after a year of flat smartphone sales.

LG Electronics will introduce the first of a suite of AI technologies for its smartphones at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The new technology will be featured in the 2018 version of the LG V30, LG's most advanced flagship smartphone to date. LG spent more than a year researching how AI should be implemented in smartphones, long before announcing LG ThinQ at CES 2018. This research focused primarily on making AI-based solutions with the objective to deliver a unique and more intuitive user experience, focusing on the camera and voice recognition. The result is a suite of AI technologies that is aligned closely with the needs and usage behavior of today's users.

LG will unveil a new version of its flagship phone, the V30, at the annual Mobile World Congress this year -- and as the rumors said, it'll have an AI-powered camera. The Korean company has developed "Vision AI" to make the phone's camera smarter and easier to use. Vision AI can automatically analyze what you're taking a photo of and can recommend the best shooting mode among the eight (portrait, food, pet, landscape, city, flower, sunrise and sunset) available. It can take the object's angle and color, any reflection in the surroundings, as well as the lighting and saturation levels into account to conjure up the best image possible. The AI also has a handful of shopping capabilities. It can do an image search or scan QR codes to show you where you can purchase the item you're taking a picture of (along with similar products) for the lowest price.

With MWC always at the beginning of the year, albeit in late February, there's always a stack of telco and related news to come, and with 5G clearly the top of the totem pole when it comes to obvious topics. But there's a few other big topics, such as AI and IoT that have been building steam, building capability and sophistication this year, dovetailing as they do with the incredible potential that 5G connectivity and its ultra low latency offers. It also wouldn't be a telco show without C-RAN and Massive MIMO, along with everything else that will be showcased, including various 5G smartphone prototypes on top of all the vendors claiming their 5G solution is the one, so what do five companies, unsurprisingly offering various aspects of the promised trends, think about these and other developments will impact the telecoms industry at MWC and beyond? Doron Youngerwood is the AI product manager at Amdocs, and he says that "Over the last year or so, we have witnessed a surge in the adoption of AI platforms to drive customer engagement and enable service providers to deal with the high volumes of inbound requests. "Machine learning and automation have become essential due to the speed, scale, or complexity of the customer data that needs to be processed.