A voice assistant is a digital assistant that uses voice recognition, language processing algorithms, and voice synthesis to listen to specific voice commands and return relevant information or perform specific functions as requested by the user.
Based on specific commands, sometimes called intents, spoken by the user, voice assistants can return relevant information by listening for specific keywords and filtering out the ambient noise.
Using a mixture of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the software behind the voice controlled digital assistants UI uses algorithms and previous examples to more accurately understand what the user is asking for.
Many talking assistants today combine both a task-oriented and knowledge-oriented workflow to carry out almost any task that a user can throw at it. A task-oriented workflow might include filling out a form, while a knowledge-oriented workflow includes answering what the capital of a state might be or specifying the technical specifications of a product.
Some examples of what a Voice Assistant can do include:
- Check the weather
- Turn on/off connected smart devices
- Search databases
One of the main reasons of the growing popularity of Voice User Interfaces (VUI) is due to the growing complexity within mobile software without an increase in screen size, leading to a huge disadvantage by using a GUI (Graphical User Interface). As more iterations of phones come out, the screen sizes stay relatively the same, leading for very cramped interfaces and creating frustrating user experiences, which is why more and more developers are switching to Voice User Interfaces.
Some examples of popular smart assistants today are Alan, Amazon Alexa, Siri by Apple, and Google Voice Assistant.
Check out these articles for more information:
https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/voice-assistant
https://www.smartsheet.com/voice-assistants-artificial-intelligence
Originally published at http://blogs.alan.app on September 20, 2019.