Robo-advisors, which use artificial intelligence to make investment decisions for clients, are potential competition for many flesh-and-blood financial advisors. But other types of AI might soon become advisors' best friends, writes Financial Advisor IQ. Banks are leading the AI trend, but wealth management firms, too, can benefit from incorporating the technology, particularly when it comes to automating mundane tasks that can be performed as well--or better--by an automated system. The idea is not to replace advisors or advisory staff with technology, but to use technology to free people to perform higher-value functions. Thirty-two percent of companies in the financial-services space are using AI for predictive analytics, voice recognition and response and recommendations, Financial Advisor IQ reports, citing a study by the National Business Research Institute and Narrative Science.

This Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016, photo shows a damaged Samsung Galaxy Note 7 on a table in Richmond, Va., after it caught fire earlier in the day. Samsung Electronics said Tuesday, Oct. 11, that it is discontinuing production of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones permanently, a day after stopping global sales of the ill-fated devices. LOS ANGELES -- What's worse, a phone that explodes in your face or a drone that falls from the skies? It's a question worth pondering as we embark on our annual list of the top tech turkeys of the year. The Samsung Galaxy Note 7. The Samsung Note 7 received rave reviews for wireless charging, water resistant design and the ability to unlock the phone with your iris.

Bill Gates calls this market the "holy grail" of computer science. There are currently 1,031 AI start-ups listed on AngelList, with an average valuation of $5.2 million -- which equals nearly $5.4 billion in venture capital investments. The three most-followed companies on that list are robotics company Autonomous, team productivity software maker Crux, and AI social news aggregator Zero Slant. Leo is a Tech and Consumer Goods Specialist who has covered the crossroads of Wall Street and Silicon Valley since 2012. His wheelhouse includes cloud, IoT, analytics, telecom, and gaming related businesses.

Amazon is launching a paid streaming music service, the latest entry in an increasingly crowded field. Amazon Music Unlimited is being positioned to compete against existing services such as Spotify and Apple Music. It will cost 8 per month, or 80 a year, for members of Amazon's 99-a-year Prime loyalty program. Non-Prime members will pay 10 a month, the same monthly fee charged by Spotify and Apple Music. Owners of Amazon's Echo smart speaker, meanwhile, will be able to get the unlimited music service on one device for 4 per month.

Original or replacement, power down your Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone. Samsung plans to make its range of smartphones smarter with its acquisition of Viv, an AI virtual assistant platform started by the man who created Siri. LOS ANGELES -- Just how bad is the situation with Samsung and its Galaxy Note 7 woes? Samsung has halted production and sales of its water-resistant, high-end smartphone as the company and U.S. regulators investigate reports of overheating replacement Note 7s. These are the devices that Note 7 buyers swapped for the first run of the large, high-powered phones after a massive consumer recall, also linked to overheating batteries. Some 2.5 million worldwide of the Note 7, Samsung's "phablet," with a 5.7 inch LCD, as of early September when Samsung said it would exchange the 850 phones.

For the past two days, Samsung has been talking about its Galaxy Note 7's iris scanner on its online newsroom, highlighting the reasons why this new mobile security feature could be a big game changer in the mobile industry. Just yesterday, the South Korean-headquartered company discussed how the iris scanning technology is making Samsung Pass even more secure. Samsung Pass is part of Knox, the comprehensive security platform of Samsung's recent handsets. Pass previously centered on fingerprint recognition via the fingerprint scanner as a means of enhancing the identity verification process of the phone itself and certain apps. With the addition of the iris scanner, Samsung claims that the Note 7's security has reached the ultimate level thanks to this advanced biometric authentication that does not require IDs or passwords for identity authentication.