What is a Digital Assistant? How does it work?
Digital assistant
Digital assistant is a kind of software that can communicate with users through voice and respond to verbal commands. This technology is similar to Google Home, Siri, and Alexa, which can be used for real conversations with computers, smartphones, or other devices.
Agenda
In this article, we'll cover the following topics:
- How to interact with Digital Assistants?
- How does Digital Assistant work?
- What Can a Digital Assistant Do?
- Future of Digital Assistants
Today, people are familiar with digital assistants like Siri for iPhone, Google Assistant for Android, and Samsung has Bixby. Microsoft introduced Cortana in Windows 10. Maybe you are familiar with it. These assistants do the following tasks for you;
- schedule calendar events
- set up events and reminders
- open apps on your computer
- Answering the questions
- Get information about weather
- Read audiobooks to perform calculations
1. How to interact with Digital Assistants?
To interact with a digital assistant, you must use a wake word. The wake word is a word or group of words that activate your assistant. Some examples of wake words are Alexa, Hey Siri, Ok Google, and Hey Cortana. Once your digital assistant is activated, then you can ask questions or perform tasks. For example, with Cortana, you activated it using the wake word ‘Hey Cortana’; now it’s ready for a question. You can ask current temperature of your city.
2. How do digital assistants work?
All digital assistants don’t have the same abilities. Natural Language Understanding (NLU) can understand complex sentences and return accurate answers. Natural Language Processing (NLP) gives it the ability to understand what a user says and generate results. The most advanced digital assistants can perform multiple tasks and converse with users. These digital assistants use AI and machine learning to understand your past actions. These digital assistants use their predictions and make recommendations based on the previous history.
3. What Can a Digital Assistant Do?
For individuals, digital assistants like Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana just answering general questions. If you are a student, the digital assistants can help create timetables and set up reminders for specific tasks. If you are going to visit some places, it can tell you the weather forecast at home. In the IT field, digital assistants automate employee services and making them accessible to more people. With the use of them, common tasks, such as account management, resetting passwords, knowledge management, status update, and alerts, are easily automated.
The services provided by digital assistants depending on Natural Language Understanding, Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, and other technologies used. For example, digital assistants can send text messages on Whatsapp, Set up alarms and reminders, tell jokes, sing songs, or do whatever user commands.
4. Future of Digital Assistants
Today, digital assistants are part of most people’s lives. They interact with them at home, workplaces, or wherever they go. Advancements in AI, NLP, and Machine Learning make them more proficient and efficient in the future_ providing natural conversations, understanding complex sentences, and solve the most complex problems. They can free us to be more creative, spend more time on complex activities, and less time on redundant tasks. Digital assistants combined with 5G technology to make recommendations and predictions will come faster.