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The software secretaries

2015-09-10 10:47:15

Technology firms are competing to become consumers personal secretaries, with

big implications for commerce and privacy

Sep 12th 2015 | SAN FRANCISCO

A PEPPY crowd poured into the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco on

September 9th. They had turned up at the venue, which usually hosts rock

concerts, to watch a show by Apple, a firm with a cult following of its own.

Executives took the stage to unveil updates to the Apple Watch, iPhone and

iPad, as well as a new television set-top box, which makes it easier to find TV

shows and play games.

The real star of the show, however, was Siri, Apple s personal-assistant

technology but never seen. Siri, which is already available on iPhones,

responds to voice commands and will be embedded in Apple s new TV remote

controls, so users will not have to lift a finger to change channel or find new

shows. If users want to know the weather or the results of a sporting event

they can ask Siri, and be met with a rapid reply.

Siri s migration to television exemplifies the rise of virtual-assistant

software that mimics some of the skills of human secretaries, creating

reminders for appointments, looking up information and completing other tasks.

Apple, which bought Siri in 2010 for an estimated $200m, has been a leader in

this area, but many tech firms have been working on rival products.

Google and Microsoft offer digital assistants on smartphones, called Google Now

and Cortana, respectively, which have deep knowledge of their users habits and

schedules. Amazon sells a stand-alone device that, among other things, plays

music, reads books aloud and can help buy items through Amazon. On September

8th Baidu, a Chinese internet giant, launched its digital assistant, Duer. And

recently Facebook announced that a concierge service, M, would be available

through its messaging app. To start with, tasks will be completed by humans,

but that could change over time.

All these firms still have kinks to work out, but the sophistication and range

of functions of their personal-assistant software are expanding (see table,

next page). The rise of Siri et al signals two important trends that will shape

the future of the consumer internet: the evolution of search , away from typed

search-engine queries towards a more personalised, interactive service, and a

gradual shift from individual apps to an ecosystem of services that is mediated

by a powerful software assistant.

According to Gartner, a research firm, around 38% of American consumers have

used virtual-assistant services on their smartphones recently; by the end of

2016 an estimated two-thirds of consumers in developed markets will use them

daily. Software robots are getting better at predicting what users need based

on past behaviour and their location.

The virtual secretaries offered by a variety of tech giants form part of their

wider efforts to master artificial intelligence and, in particular, machine

learning teaching computers to crunch vast amounts of data, recognise patterns

and get better at what they do. Firms are spending billions of dollars buying

startups in this area, and are rushing to hire specialists in artificial

intelligence. Apple alone is reportedly looking to hire around 90 experts, and

Facebook hired a star artificial-intelligence academic, Yann LeCun, to head its

research centre on the subject.

Voice recognition is quickly improving, although it remains imperfect. Two

years ago Google used to misinterpret around 25% of words spoken, but today it

only misses 8%, according to Aparna Chennapragada, head of Google Now. Firms

big focus has become how to use the information consumers store on their

devices to make proactive recommendations instead of just responding to

requests. Google is especially good/creepy at this. For example, it goes

through users e-mails to prompt them about when to leave for appointments or

flights. Microsoft s Cortana does this too but until recently it has been

limited to Windows devices. Global-positioning technology, already a standard

feature on smartphones, is helping virtual assistants to do their job better.

If a consumer wants to be reminded to buy milk when he next goes to the

supermarket, an alert will flash when the phone detects that he has arrived.

Technology is also making it possible to automate the headache of scheduling

meetings. A few startups, including Clara Labs and x.ai, offer virtual

scheduling assistants that employ a combination of algorithms and humans to

help set up appointments. Subscribers copy in the software robot on e-mails; it

scans their calendars and chooses a convenient slot on their behalf. On average

it takes humans around seven e-mails to set up a meeting, so virtual assistants

can save lots of time. People tend to be nice to virtual assistants, even when

they know they are corresponding with a robot, says Dennis Mortensen, the boss

of x.ai. In time, the software will become so good they may never know their

interlocutor is a machine.

Most real-life personal assistants do not need to worry about their jobs being

threatened by technology at least yet. Most digital assistants serve as a

hands-free way to search for information but struggle to complete actions that

require more complex steps, such as booking flights. Your correspondent spent

several days employing a variety of available digital assistants. Although

they can find nearby restaurants and book a table through OpenTable, they do

not yet know your correspondent well enough or have the judgment to tell her

which is the best Italian food. Echo, Amazon s product, can recite the

definition of personal assistant without hesitation, but had no idea how to

respond when your correspondent asked whether Echo was her personal assistant.

To please their masters, virtual assistants will need to do better at

connecting to outside services to fulfil requests. This is the vision of Viv, a

startup led by the founders of Siri, which is expected to debut a service in

this vein next year. Existing virtual assistants are also making steps to open

up. Cortana links to Uber, for example, to help its users book cars, and

recently started to show them relevant coupons when they go to shops or browse

online.

The rise of virtual assistants poses several challenges. One is privacy. The

best services will have access to troves of data, but how consumers

information will be shared with outside firms that fulfil requests has yet to

be ironed out. Unlike human secretaries who work for one person or firm,

virtual assistants have divided loyalties. For example, Google Now and Facebook

M may work on behalf of consumers, but their parent companies make money by

selling targeted ads and mining consumer data. Apple, in contrast, has made

privacy one of its main selling-points.

A similar dilemma is raised when it comes to commerce. As virtual assistants

help purchase more things online, they will have the power to boost certain

firms and deprive others of business. When asked to book a ticket from San

Francisco to London, will a virtual assistant select the cheapest fare, or a

ticket on an airline that has a promotional relationship with the company that

invented the assistant? As virtual secretaries become more powerful, the

question of who works for whom will become more pressing.