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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.