The World of Virtual Assistants

How many ways can we order a Domino’s Pizza today -

·         Traditional way by visiting in person or order by phone.

·         Common way through Web or app on mobile or Digital TV.

·         Latest way by ordering through chat bot.

·         Futuristic way by voice assistant.

Two decades ago digital revolution started with internet when businesses started to host Web sites. With the proliferation of smart phones in last decade, mobile applications became increasingly common. In last two years, chatbots have started to pick up. Its biggest advantage is that there is no need for users to open the web site or download the app on smart phone to reach out to businesses. Facebook provides bots on its Messenger platform which can take over sales and customer service functions like a virtual assistant. Order through chatbot just like you text to your friend. 

  

 We are now one step ahead with virtual voice assistants - Amazon echo and Google Home, with no need to even pick up the phone. For instance, ask Amazon echo – ‘Alexa, tell Dominos to get me a Pizza’ and Alexa will open up the dialogue with Dominos. These virtual helpers use artificial intelligence to parse what users say and return useful information. Users could ask Google Home to throw a TV show from Netflix over Chromecast or ask Spotify to stream music. Amazon and Google seem to be winning the race to rule the growing market of voice assistants but it is still very young market so we can't predict who will be a top performer among big five –Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. Apple has Siri and Microsoft has Cortana as the voice recognition feature but they don't have home assistant yet and must be working on some form after the success of Amazon and Google offerings. 

It was anticipated that voice assistants would undermine Google’s core business as people will go less frequently to website that specialize in online search and advertisements. A deep dive into the framework behind ‘Alexa’ and ‘Home’ reveals that Amazon and Google have much bigger reach as they go from a novelty to a whole ecosystem. You can delight your customers with a completely new way to interact with your business as they don't need to pick up phone or laptop; all they have to do is ask the voice assistant. Here is an overview of amazon voice echo system:

To provide voice enabled service on Alexa, you need to build a skill interface and publish it on Amazon cloud, just like you develop a mobile app and publish it on play store. Amazon Skill is a third party functionality which can be integrated into voice assistant that is accessible to users who have Amazon Echo. There are now more than 12,000 skills from companies like Starbucks, Uber, Spotify, Dominos and from other early birds in this space. End users can enable these skills on Alexa application and Alexa will then allow it to connect with that business service. Similarly, Google Home allows you to define an ‘action’ on its cloud. An ‘action’ is to Google Home assistant what a ‘skill’ is to Amazon Alexa. Market for virtual assistants is expected to grow faster. Voice controlled solutions are also being developed for IOT in AV residential and corporate market. Natural user interfaces, such as those based on gesture and speech, will represent the next major disruption in the digital world.

But every beautiful innovation has a flip side, so does the convenience of virtual voice assistant. Your queries are recorded on cloud for interpretation and continuous improvement of artificial intelligence engine. Though all the queries are encrypted before storing on cloud but it raises the concern of security and privacy. What if all your confidential conversation is recorded even if you didn’t intend to lend your voice to the ears of Alexa or Home. We need a better way than to just tap the “Mute” button on the device to not let it listen to our conversation. These are the concerns that should be addressed soon as the concept becomes mature with connected technologies in our surroundings. While security is hardened, it is time to embrace the power of voice assistants.