The Rise of Artificial Assistants in Business

May 15, 2018May 17, 2018last updated on May 17, 2018 at 12:55 Business

businessman using an artificial assistant

Some of us are old enough to remember The Jetsons–or maybe we just remember the reruns. A fantastical, futuristic cartoon, one prominent character on the show was Rosie the robot maid, a cyborg personal assistant to the Jetson family.

Though most of the futuristic predictions of this cartoon never came true, there are a few elements that did. Virtual or artificial assistants like Alexa (Amazon), Siri (Apple), and Bixby (Samsung) live in your house, and they can help you with daily tasks. But instead of doing housekeeping like Rosie, artificial assistants do something far more important: they help you organize your schedule, goals, and to-do list. Artificial assistants can even help you streamline your business, and there’s no doubt that they are one of many technologies that businesses will come to rely on.

What Can Artificial Assistants Do?

Artificial assistants are fairly new to the game, but they’re having a huge impact on businesses and individuals. For entrepreneurs, artificial assistants can help streamline the daily chatter and guide productivity in a variety of tasks, including the following:

Scheduling meetings. Because these assistants are synced with your calendar, they can handle simple email exchanges. Artificial assistants can determine a time for a meeting and communicate these plans with a colleague.
Retrieving information. By now, most of us are familiar with Siri’s ability to Google any phrase we throw at her verbally. Virtual assistants are now also programmed to do things like retrieve analytics info (“How is my website doing?”) and identify selected info (“What are the hours at my favorite lunch place?”).
Coordinating details. Via voice command, artificial assistants can order food, play music, schedule transportation plans, and more. Business professionals have found a lot of value in these features as they spend less time on minutiae and more time on the big picture.

How Virtual Assistants Deliver

Although iPhones have come with a Siri feature for quite some time now, most people who are really taking advantage of what a virtual assistant has to offer are using in-office or in-home speakers. These speakers allow you to activate them with a “wake word” (“Alexa, when is my next meeting today?”). They also have some other valuable features:

Personalized programming. Virtual assistants are programmable, meaning that you can customize them to meet your needs. You can also program these assistants to work differently for each person in the office, which means that your whole team can enjoy the benefits of one device.
Sophisticated language recognition. Artificial assistants function in many different languages and have a low error rate. Assistants like Alexa are programmed for voice recognition of up to 10 team members. Instead of working with websites or text, users can speak naturally to artificial assistants to get the answers they need. This has revolutionized the day-to-day processes of many businesses.
The promising possibilities of connectivity. Artificial assistants are a burgeoning area of tech. Each year, more devices, apps, and programs offer features that are highly integrated with the artificial assistants on the market. Entrepreneurs who use virtual assistants are excited at the possibilities.

Artificial Assistants: The Bottom Line

In a short time, programmers and engineers have taken what was once a pie-in-the-sky idea and, essentially, put voice-activated robots in businesses and homes. With the advanced levels of tech that these assistants use already, the public is poised with excitement to see what will come next in the realm of artificial assistants.

For business owners, productivity is key. Without a productive team, most efforts are useless. This is why using new technologies like virtual assistants helps businesses move beyond their plateaus and operate as well-oiled machines.

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