Five years ago, Apple gave voice to iPhone 4s -- through Siri, the digital assistant to whom you could talk, when in need of some information. Since then the Intelligent Personal Assistant or IPA has evolved across multiple platforms.
When Microsoft launched the Windows 10 operating system last year, it came with its own speaking assistant, Cortana, in the US. By now it has been extended to India and on desktop, tablet or Windows phone, you can wake up Cortana while searching and ask her questions rather than typing them in the search box. We can understand why Microsoft took an extra year to activate Cortana in India: she had to learn the many accents of Indian English -- and as I found, she is a good learner. She could figure out almost all of what I spoke, as long as I did it in a slow and deliberate voice. And they have trained her to react like a true Bharati: Asked if she liked Sachin, she responds “He’s the God of Cricket who’s bowled me over.” And she says her favourites are kabbadi and golgappa.
If your phone or tablet runs on Android 4.1 or later version, you can click on the microphone symbol in the Google search box to bring up the voice assistant. Or you can get the voice search function by installing the Google Now app, if you have a non Android phone.
Amazon has just joined the voice-based business -- with a slightly different focus. It has developed a hand-free 20 cm-high, cylindrical speaker called Echo which you can control through voice, courtesy Alexa. Thanks to seven microphones and beam forming technology, she can hear you from anywhere in the room, even while she is playing the music of your choice. If your home is smart enough, you can even have Alexa turn lights or microwave or air conditioning on or off. Not yet available in India, Echo-Alexa can be ordered in the US for delivery in June, for the equivalent of Rs 12,000. Eventually Amazon might integrate Alexa with its website.
Alexa, Cortana, Google Now and Siri are being called the Fab Four of Voice-based assistance -- and all of them have to grapple with one big tech hurdle: how naturally can users speak to be understood. The Web is replete with jokes of Siri offering bizarre, cheeky answers when she has doubts. As developers refine the voice products, they will get better at the job of processing natural language.
All these efforts are concentrated in a few languages, including English -- which touches only a small fraction of India's one billion plus mobile phone subscribers. There is a huge opportunity for innovation here: giving voice to desi language avatars of Cortana and company. That will also address the huge challenge that so many Indian users face -- using a language keypad. Software wizards—the time to do it has come — because, like it or not, Voice is the next big wave of the future. Bol, Radhaa, bol!
Coming: Viv, the AI assistant:
For all their efficient answer-back, the Big Four digital chat assistants can go thus far and no further when you want to buy or book something on the web. They can point you at available travel options or open a buy site. They can't -- yet-- do the deal.
That is not how it should be feels Dag Kittlaus, the man who created Siri. Four years ago, he left Apple, with many of his team and went into stealth mode to develop a new speaking product that would be assisted by large doses of Artificial Intelligence. That means you can buy things just by talking. If that sounds familiar, you're right. It is also the pitch made on behalf of chat bots.
At a tech conference in New York on May 9, Kittlaus and his team unveiled their new AI-enhanced voice assistant, Viv. It did something Americans related to: it took multiple orders shouted by different people for pizzas, with different toppings and sizes -- and 40 minutes later, the pizza guy had arrived. This is seen as a tectonic shift to a new age of conversational commerce. What's more, when launched, it will be the industry's first independent voice assistant -- any one can download it and use it with any device. As they say, that'll be the day!
