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virtual assistant (AI assistant)

By Kinza Yasar

What is a virtual assistant (AI assistant)?

A virtual assistant, also called an AI assistant or digital assistant, is an application program that understands natural language voice commands and completes tasks for the user.

Such tasks -- historically performed by a human personal assistant or secretary -- include taking dictation, reading text or email messages aloud, looking up phone numbers, scheduling, placing phone calls and reminding the user about appointments. Popular virtual assistants include Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Assistant and Microsoft Cortana.

Types of virtual assistants

Though this definition focuses on the digital form of virtual assistants, the terms virtual assistant and virtual personal assistant are also commonly used to describe contract workers who work from home doing administrative tasks typically performed by executive assistants or secretaries.

With the evolution of chatbots and generative AI, various types of virtual assistants have gained popularity. However, they serve different purposes for customers and provide different levels of assistance.

Common types of virtual AI assistants include the following:

Virtual assistant devices and technology

Virtual assistants are typically cloud-based programs that require internet-connected devices and applications to work. Most AI virtual assistants can be found on devices such as smartphones, smart speakers or other platforms, including instant messaging apps.

AI chatbots that use generative AI, such as ChatGPT, are also gaining popularity for their ability to generate human-like responses to text-based conversations.

Common virtual assistant technologies and devices include the following:

The technologies that power virtual assistants require massive amounts of data, which feed AI platforms, including machine learning, NLP and speech recognition platforms. As the end user interacts with a virtual assistant, the AI programming uses sophisticated algorithms to learn from data input and become better at predicting the end user's needs.

Capabilities of virtual assistants

Virtual assistants typically perform simple jobs for end users, including the following:

Privacy concerns

Some consumers have expressed privacy concerns about virtual assistants, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home. These virtual assistants require large amounts of personal data and are always listening in order to respond to voice commands, also known as wake words or phrases. Although voice assistants are only intended to begin recording when given the wake command by a user, they may accidentally capture voice exchanges and private information without the user's knowledge.

Cortana, for example, works best by using data from a user's device, including emails and other communications, a user's contacts, location data, search history and data from other Microsoft services and skills -- third-party applications -- that users choose to connect with. Users can choose not to sign in and share this data with Cortana and can adjust permissions to prevent certain data from being collected, though these actions limit the virtual assistant's usefulness.

Virtual assistant providers also maintain privacy policies, which define how each company uses and shares personal information. In most cases, companies don't share customer-identifiable information without a customer's consent but there have been concerns regarding how voice assistant providers use and handle user data.

Besides privacy policies practiced by providers, end users can also take the following security precautions:

Separating business and personal voice assistant profiles can also improve privacy. The majority of assistants -- including Alexa and Google Assistant -- support multiple accounts, enabling users to segregate their personal voice assistants from their professional ones.

For more on artificial intelligence in the enterprise, read the following articles:

Artificial intelligence vs. human intelligence: How are they different?

AI vs. machine learning vs. deep learning: Key differences

Main types of artificial intelligence: Explained

What is trustworthy AI and why is it important?

The future of AI: What to expect in the next 5 years

AI regulation: What businesses need to know

Steps to achieve AI implementation in your business

How businesses can measure AI success with KPIs

The role of AI parameters in the enterprise

AI transparency: What is it and why do we need it?

The future of virtual assistants

Virtual assistants are quickly evolving to provide more capabilities to users. As speech recognition and NLP have advanced, so too has the virtual assistant's ability to understand and perform requests. And as voice recognition technology continues to improve, virtual assistant use will move deeper into business workflows.

Experts predict that AI assistants will continue to become humanistic and able to provide more personalized experiences as AI technology advances. According to Gartner, by 2025, these AI assistants will become more ubiquitous with about 50% of knowledge workers using a virtual assistant on a daily basis. However, the widespread use of AI assistants doesn't obscure the growing worries about the privacy and security risks associated with them. Companies are being urged to address these concerns transparently in their policies to build trust with users. The future of virtual assistants might also be tied to the metaverse, with companies exploring new ways of integrating these assistants into virtual reality environments.

The emergence of ChatGPT, an intelligent virtual assistant and AI-powered language model developed by OpenAI, has also raised discussions about the future of virtual assistants. While there has been some speculation about the potential influence of ChatGPT on the virtual assistant market, it's not yet clear how it will ultimately affect the future and direction of the industry.

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02 Oct 2023

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