Cortana, Alexa and Google assistant technology explained
We are now very familiar with the voice assistant on our phones. We really wonder how the smartphone answers our questions via voice commands. How a smartphone can place a call to someone by simply speaking with it?. It’s only possible because of Voice Assistant. Here we have explained the technology behind virtual assistant.
We can say voice assistant is similar to a virtual assistant to a broader extent. The virtual assistant is a software agent that can perform tasks or run a service on the basis of verbal or textual commands. In recent years such software’s are called as chatbots.
What is a voice assistant?
The users can ask the voice assistant to do specific tasks like placing a phone call and more recently, booking an appointment. Even you can ask your assistant to book a table at a restaurant. These assistants can recognize human voice by speech synthesis and give feedback in a human understandable voice. This all works over the internet.
How does voice assistant work?
The assistant needs a keyword in order to begin the conversation. The assistant jumps into action when you say a specific keyword. In general, keyword includes an assistants name along with greeting.
In the case of Alexa, it’s simply ‘Alexa’. The google assistant receives command when we say ‘Ok Google’. In a similar fashion, these assistants need a keyword to begin listening.
The assistant then listens to what you say by the microphone (mic) in your smartphone. Furthermore, the assistant then interprets or understand what you said by natural language processing. In most of the cases, voice assistants are connected to neural networks via the internet. Neural networks and artificial intelligence together help assistant to understand the context of human language.
Furthermore, AI and neural networks then send answers to the query generated by the assistant. The voice assistants also use machine learning to learn users and their behavior to give correct answers to their questions. It also helps to understand different tasks a user often asks to perform. Voice assistant then answers to the query correctly via smartphones speaker.
Where we find voice assistant?
We find voice assistant mostly on smartphones. In recent times, windows also incorporated its assistant Cortana into windows 10. The use of voice will become incredibly common in the coming years.
The smart speakers like amazon echo also have a voice assistant that understands human language. Now they also come bundled with instant messaging apps. In recent years, cars and wearable technology also offer an assistant.
The internet companies bundle an assistant with the websites. Few companies also offer voice assistant extensions into the browser for various services.
Voice assistant and services
The voice assistant can provide day today information we need such as the weather forecast, to do list and set up an alarm. Even it can tell you the facts from Wikipedia.
It can also play songs from internet streaming services. It can also read books if you want. The assistant can also play video from video streaming services. Furthermore, various governments around the world are integrating voice assistants to answers the basic question of the citizens. Even for the first interaction, various banks, and car dealers are now integrating assistant into websites.
In addition, few companies are replacing humans with an assistant to assist in basic services and customer support. The call centers are also increasingly opting for an assistant as it reduces the workload and operating cost.
In conclusion, voice assistant technology is changing the way we interact with various services. It also reduces operating expenses and reduces the workload on various customer support services.
