I to Alexa – “Alexa, what is the share price of IBM today,”
Alexa responds, “It’s 133.19 USD.”
I – “Ok, remind me today to call my stock broker.”
Alexa then asks me the date and time. I say – “Today 4:00 p.m.” and the reminder is set.
This is a classic yet simple example of how voice assistants work.
Welcome to the age of digital secretaries or assistants!
Who Is an Artificial Intelligence or Voice Assistant?
An artificial intelligence assistant is your virtual assistant which functions in the form of an application program that comprehends natural language voice commands to accomplish a specific task for user by providing the required information.
They are also referred to as
- Voice Assistants
- Intelligent Personal Assistants
- Smart Assistant
- Automated Personal Assistants
- Virtual Digital Assistants
Throughout this post I will refer to them by different names to keep things interesting. After all, we are humans and not some artificial intelligence powered machines.
What Tasks Can a Voice Assistant Perform?
Siri, Alexa, Watson, Bixby, Cortana, Dragon, etc. are some of digital voice assistants who can make everyday tasks simple. From fixing reminders, screening phone calls to transcribing conversations and looking up emails and appointments, voice assistants can do it all. They perform lots of tasks which could otherwise be monotonous or cumbersome yet important. It is like a personal assistant assisting with you with the things which can be automated. It can suggest you fine places of dining, remind you of that coveted appointment with your esteemed client, play your favorite audio whenever you want, set reminders for birthdays, etc. Making things simple and faster!
Right from waking up in the morning till you doze off in the bed at the end of the day, voice assistants can be at your side to answer your question or follow your instructions.
The only things your artificial intelligence assistant cannot do is come and do laundry for you or clean up your place. But, yes, it can suggest you companies or individuals offering this service in your vicinity. How amazing! Isn’t it?
Take a look at what degree voice assistants are used to perform different tasks on a monthly and daily basis. It will also give a peep into what tasks these assistants usually perform.
Image Credits: https://voicebot.ai/
How Does it Work?
All you need to do to power up this assistant is shout out a key phrase or a wake word.
For instance, for Alexa it’s “Alexa”, for Siri it’s “Hey Siri”, and for Google its “Ok Google”. However, if you got a living partner named Alexa or Siri, you can customize or personalize the wakeup phrase of your digital assistant to some extent.
How Artificial Intelligence Assistants Are Useful in Our Daily Lives?
Powered by artificial intelligence, these voice assistants let you do tasks while your hands are engaged in other important tasks. It lets you accomplish what you want hands-free. Let’s take a look at how these digital voice assistants can impact our daily lives.
- At Home:
- You are cooking a meal for your guests and you run out of some ingredients. Your voice assistant can suggest you a recipe with the existing ingredients.
- You want to buy a Bluetooth speaker to gift it to your best friend. Your intelligent assistant can find you list of electronic stores near you.
- You have already jogged for 40 minutes and want to push your body for 10 minutes more, your smart assistant can play your favorite exercise track from the audio list.
- You plan to spend your weekend at the beach only if the weather is sunny, your voice assistant can pull up the weather forecast for that specific day so that you can go ahead with your plans.
In short, voice assistants can accomplish a number of tasks which do not require them to do physical effort.
- At Work:
- You have completed interviewing a candidate for an important post and want to call him back for a demo job next week, your voice assistant can set a reminder to inform you about the prospective engagement.
- You are busy having your breakfast at work and suddenly remember that urgent follow-up phone call with the supplier, just command your voice assistant to place a call with “Mr. Supplier”. To take it further, it can even send a message to your supplier.
- Your vendor informs you about a quotation sent on your email ID, you can ask your voice assistant to pull up all the emails of that specific day.
- You are at work and want to finish that assignment as soon as possible and at the same time have the temptation to check cricket scores. Worried if you will keep lingering on the score board on the sports website? Just ask your virtual digital assistant and get informed about the latest scores of both the teams.
The Tomorrow of Artificial Intelligence Assistance
With AI assistants getting smarter than before, there is no doubt that their use will become as common as the use of smartphones. These voice assistants will be able to predict needs based on past records and the way you used it. As their language processing capabilities will improve, they will be able to perform more complicated tasks. Their usage is surely going to increase in business arenas. By giving access to business database, they will be used to generate reports and compile statistics.
There have been increasing concerns about the amount of screen time people are spending. With almost half of the tasks being taken over by voice, people can be expected to spend more time with a person and less with a machine. In short, on-screen time is certainly going to reduce. This game changing technology will have to offer more with increased artificial intelligence.
Ok, bye for now, Siri just reminded me to buy groceries for the weekend party and pick up my friend’s child for baby sitting on the way back to home. Which tasks do you use your voice assistant mostly for? Was there a time when it proved to be a life-saving tool? Share your experiences in the comment section below.
About the Author
Ankit Patel is a Project/Marketing Manager at XongoLab Technologies LLP, which is providing top-notch mobile app development solutions worldwide. Depicts his multi-talented personality, He is also manager of a content marketing department with the same company where he writes about new & upcoming technology, mobile app, web development, programming tools, and more.
