They get most excited about opportunities to interact with consumers via their mobile phones and even consumers’ own IoT devices (think wearables). Think “operating system for the smart home”, even though it’s a little higher-level than that. Beyond the convenience of seeing who is knocking at your door whether you’re home or not, many of the use-cases of the smart home lead back to retail. Your smart lamp might predict when your light bulb is about to die – or certainly warn you when the light goes out. And right now there are three main companies capable of carrying on a conversation with such smart devices: Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Source: Forbes February 23, 2017 14:37 UTC