FINAL TOPIC: I plan to research how machine learning is used in the speech recognition utilized by virtual assistants like Google's Assistant, Apple's Siri, and Amazon's Alexa. Machine learning is used prominently in helping these assistants recognize and interpret commands from the user, including a variety of different phrases and instructions.
Some sources:
https://towardsdatascience.com/conversational-ai-intelligent-virtual-assistants-and-the-road-ahead-6345db47d106
https://www.ttec.com/glossary/intelligent-virtual-assistant
https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/hey-siri