Death By A Thousand Digital Assistants (Premium)

This week, in Las Vegas, the largest consumer electronics show of the year is happening and while we will see the latest drones, laptops, and refrigerators, there is one trend that is already clear; shoving a digital assistant into everything. This may not be a bad thing, in the end, but for now, there is going to be a fierce battle for superiority which is going to take us down a confusing road.

Amazon has Alexa, Microsoft has Cortana, Apple has Siri, Google has the Google Assistant and Samsung has Bixby. The problem is that all of these companies want their platform to be the winner of the AI assistant war and while competition is a good thing, every piece of tech you buy going forward will have one of these assistants baked in.

Samsung has already announced that they will ship a refrigerator with Bixby included, iDevices is going to sell a light switch with Alexa built in, and by the end of this week, you will be able to find every type of 'dumb' device connected with its own digital AI forced into a spot where it does not belong.

The problem becomes when you have a house with 5 different assistants in it and none of them can talk to each other. I actually find what Microsoft and Amazon are doing refreshing; putting down their competitive egos to build a better ecosystem for the users and the dividends may be enormous for both if the two can work together for the long-term.

That being said, we are still waiting for Microsoft and Amazon to release the functionality and only time will tell if the partnership makes any difference in the now crowded marketplace.

I am a firm believer that connected devices are making the workplace and our homes better but digital assistants are becoming over-extended. The goal is that companies hope to use these platforms to differentiate their products (like iDevices or you can bet that every new Samsung TV will come with Bixby) but it doesn't help anyone unless there is a common framework.

Having Siri on my phone, Bixby on my TV, Alexa in my kitchen (and now the PC too) and Cortana on my computer ads little value, which is why every company wants to have their assistant everywhere. Until the field is narrowed down, and I honestly believe that Google and Amazon will be the long-term winners in the consumer space, it's going to be messy for the consumer as I don't see Samsung, Microsoft, or Apple backing out in the near future.

There is nothing wrong with Cortana or Bixby but they are limited in where they are available which is significantly impacting their future. Microsoft missed the mobile market and Cortana has taken far too long to move from the desktop to anything other than an app and Bixby only lives on Samsung devices which sell well, but third-party integration is a tough battle when going up against Google and Amazon.

And then you have Apple with Siri and until Apple decides to let others play in the Siri waters, will always be hard-locked to its own hardware which limits ...

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