• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, December 2, 2021

Artificial intelligence continues to infiltrate mobile devices. But expect this trend to get more personal in all kind of ways. Technology research consultant Gartner says this year nearly 50% of businesses will start spending on AI and chatbot technology for mobile apps.

But the more interesting part is, Gartner expects chatbots to shift into more “emotional intelligence” efforts through AI technology.

This means businesses can build more “soft skills" into chatbots. Imagine, any hesitancy among potential consumers looking to buy a product or service -- something a computer/algorithm based chatbot may be able to read -- can be addressed.

When digesting this information via a mobile device, all this could move -- some might say manipulate -- consumers to purchase or at least engage with a product.

The focus is on some companies here: Microsoft has a leading number of AI-related patents -- almost 18,300. IBM, Samsung, Qualcomm, and Google are other big AI patent owners.

Executives call the latest AI efforts “Ethical AI," which could be controversial in itself. Can an emotional-intelligence-fueled AI also have “ethical” status?

How can businesses market this to consumers? What kind of disclosure would that mean? And more importantly, how can businesses juggle the obvious privacy-compliant issues?

All this can be a touchy situation when trying to drill down to what consumers need, want, and expect, in an iffy cookie-less future, supplanted with more first-party data.

So watch out for those different degrees of encouragement mobile apps can use while pitching products and services. Is that what mobile consumers want -- and from a warmer, chat bot entry point?

Netflix continues to offer up emails suggesting movies and television shows based on the data it already has. How much more close and personal can it get?

Recently, the movie chosen for me was  “A Castle For Christmas," which Netflix tells me is “charming, heartfelt, and feel-good.”

Then again the next day, Netflix tells me I should consider a new limited TV series, “True Story.”  It's “offbeat, provocative and dark.”

Guessing that covers all bases for me emotionally.