As much as the online giants seem to squeeze brick-and-mortar retailers, when you need milk at 10 o’clock at night, they can’t beat the convenience of stopping in at the local grocery store. …And the brick-and-mortar stores are taking advantage of this competitive edge. Using advances in AI, the brick-and-mortar retailers are finding ways to make the most profit from your 10-minute trip to their store for milk.

A year and a half ago, there were a few websites that offered online chat, but only during business hours. Now, almost every retail, cell phone, or travel site has a bot that’s always ready to chat. Do they really have someone standing by just for a chat? The answer is, of course, “No.” Instead of an employee typing to you in the wee hours of the morning, there is an artificial intelligence on the other end of the line. You’ve reached a Chatbot.

The evolution of robots continues to delight and surprise as machines grow closer and closer to human form and function. What used to be science fiction in 1921 may soon be a reality in 2021 if robots that already exist like Alexa and Roomba merge into one humanoid bot that can learn to think independently and vacuum. But the recent explosion of robotics is deceptive, making it seem like they just came to fruition. In fact, Robotics has had a much longer history; in fact, the first known example of a functioning robotic device dates to a water clock somewhere around 1500 BCE found in an Egyptian burial tomb.