Ubiquitous digital assistants: Are we now completely reliant on intelligent assistants?

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  Quantumrun Foresight
• February 23, 2023

Ubiquitous digital assistants are software programs that assist with various tasks using artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) technologies. These virtual assistants are becoming increasingly popular and used in multiple industries, including healthcare, finance, and customer service.

Ubiquitous digital assistants context

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic drove the growth of ubiquitous digital assistants as businesses scrambled to migrate to the cloud to enable remote access. The customer service industry, in particular, found machine learning intelligent assistants (IAs) as lifesavers, able to take on millions of calls and perform basic tasks, such as answering questions or checking account balances. However, it is really in the smart home/personal assistant space that digital assistants have become embedded in daily life. 

Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Google Assistant have become staples in modern living, acting as organizers, schedulers, and consultants in an increasingly real-time lifestyle. One of the key features of these digital assistants is their ability to increasingly understand and respond to human language naturally and intuitively. This feature enables them to assist with scheduling appointments, answering questions, and completing transactions. Ubiquitous digital assistants are being used through voice-activated devices, such as smart speakers and smartphones, and are also being integrated into other technology, such as cars and home appliances. 

Machine learning (ML) algorithms, including deep learning and neural networks, are being utilized to enhance the capabilities of IAs. These technologies enable these tools to learn and adapt to their users over time, become more efficient and accurate, and understand and respond to more complex tasks and requests.

Disruptive impact

With automated speech processing (ASP) and NLP, chatbots and IAs have become more accurate in detecting intent and sentiment. For digital assistants to continuously improve, they have to be fed millions of training data harvested from daily interactions with digital assistants. There have been data breaches where conversations were recorded without knowledge and sent to phone contacts. 

Data privacy experts argue that as digital assistants become more commonplace and crucial for online tools and services, the more that clear data policies should be established. For example, the EU created the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) precisely to outline how data storage and management should be handled. Consent will become more essential than ever, as ethics dictate that anyone entering a smart home filled with interconnected tools must be made fully aware that their movements, faces, and voices are being stored and analyzed. 

Nonetheless, the potential for IAs is immense. In the healthcare industry, for example, virtual assistants could assist with scheduling appointments and managing patient records, freeing up doctors and nurses to focus on more complex and critical tasks. Virtual assistants could handle routine inquiries in the customer service sector, routing cases to human agents only when it becomes highly technical or complicated. Finally, in e-commerce, IAs can assist customers in finding products, making purchases, and tracking orders.

Implications of ubiquitous digital assistants

Wider implications of ubiquitous digital assistants may include:

• Smart home digital hosts that can manage visitors and provide services based on their preferences and online behavior (preferred coffee, music, and TV channel).
• The hospitality industry relying heavily on IAs to manage guests, bookings, and travel logistics.
• Businesses using digital assistants for customer service, relationship management, fraud prevention, and customized marketing campaigns. Since the breakout popularity of Open AI’s ChatGPT platform in 2022, many industry analysts see future scenarios where digital assistants become digital workers that automate low complexity white collar work (and workers).
• Emerging cultural norms and habits formed by prolonged exposure and interaction with digital assistants.
• IAs helping people track their workouts, set fitness goals, and receive personalized training plans.
• Governments creating regulations to oversee how personal information is utilized and managed by digital assistants.

Questions to consider

• Do you rely on digital assistants for your daily activities/chores?
• How do you think digital assistants will continue to change modern living?