The recruitment market is big business -- worth some $554 billion annually according to the most recent report from the World Employment Confederation. In the tech world, that translates into a big opportunity to build tools to make a recruiter's work easier, faster and more likely of success in finding the right people for the job. Now Google is stepping up its own efforts in the space: today it is expanding Hire, its G Suite-based recruitment management platform, to the UK and Canada, its first international markets outside the US. Google is a somewhat late entrant into the market, launching Hire only in 2017 with the basic ability to use apps like Gmail, Calendar, Spreadsheets and Google Voice to help people manage and track candidates through the recruiting process and doing so by integrating with third-party job boards. In the interim, it has supercharged the service with bells and whistles that draw on the company's formidable IP in areas like AI and search.

LG's deep collaboration with Google continues, as it just announced that Google Assistant is coming to ThinQ smart TVs in seven more markets and five languages. LG will also expand Amazon Alexa support to Australia and Canada. Google Assistant first arrived to ThinQ AI TVs in the US earlier this year. Google Assistant on LG ThinQ TVs lets you control smart lights, appliances, robotic vacuums and other home devices, check the weather, make a restaurant reservation and more. You can also shout at the TV (via the "mic" button on the remote) or Google Home devices to pause ThinQ TV programming, change channels, lower the volume, etc. Google Home support for ThinQ TVs works now in Canada, Australia and the UK, and non-English language support for France, Spain, South Korea and Germany will arrive by the end of 2018.

Artificial Intelligence is booming in Montréal, and Canada more broadly. Computer algorithms can analyse vast quantities of data and establish patterns, with a myriad of potential applications. From voice recognition, translation services and directing autonomous vehicles to informing policing through crime analysis and diagnostics in healthcare, the potential is enormous. Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Facebook have already made huge investments in Montreal's AI cluster, which is bidding for super-cluster status from the Canadian Federal government. They are drawn by the pool of talent, anchored by the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, at Université de Montréal whose director is one of the foremost thinkers in machine learning, Professor Yoshua Bengio.