In the modern world, people have busier lives than ever before – that much is a given. Even with all of the advanced tech capabilities, we have in our computers and smartphones; at times you may be busy enough that you don’t have time to navigate apps and traverse menus by hand. Perhaps you need to get out an urgent text message while you’re driving your car, or you want to put on a podcast or music while you’re cooking, but your hands aren’t clean enough to touch your phone?
All of these tasks, from the banal to the professional, can be more easily completed with the help of digital assistants. Often enough, you won’t have to touch a single button in order to get something done. Also referred to as “virtual assistants”, these digital helpers are actually voice-operated pieces of software that you can converse with.
And they can simplify or completely perform certain tasks instead of you. Want to access an app without touching any device? A digital assistant will do it for you on voice command. There are plenty of things digital assistants are good for, and we’ll explore some of the most popular options below!
Making Lists
If you’ve ever done shopping on your own, you know just how much of a pain those shopping lists can be. But if you find a virtual assistant that’s easy enough to use, you’ll find such tasks to be far more benign. For instance, home assistants that work on voice command can craft the list for you through conversation. You can just tell them to put eggs on the shopping list – and an assistant like Alexa or Google Home will memorize it.
Later on, you can take a look at the connected app on your laptop or smartphone; the items you’ve dictated to your digital assistant will be there. Once you get to the store and start putting items in your cart or basket; a simple swipe of your finger will cross them off your list. And if anyone who’s at home remembers any last-minute additions they want; the virtual assistant will oblige.
Heck, there are even voice assistants like Alexa that have shopping capabilities of their own; you can just tell them to reorder the items you need online – and you’ll even save yourself a trip to the store!
Smart Office or Home
For decades, smart homes were things you saw rich tycoons enjoying in sci-fi movies and literature. However, this revolutionary technology is looking to be more of an evolution; as we’re slowly creeping towards such a standard in our modern society. These days, there are incredibly cheap “smart plugs” that you can connect with ordinary, non-smart devices. Suddenly, you’ll be able to control your household using nothing more than a digital assistant and a smartphone!
If you really want to go full-smart-home, you can invest in smart appliances and smaller additions to your household; like smart light bulbs! These allow you for more fine-tuning, like having your light dimmed just the way you want; or even change colors on a whim! Not to mention the ability to voice-control your oven or your thermostat; with the right hardware and digital assistant, all of that is a real possibility.
Using virtual assistants, you can further automatize parts of your household by creating routines that don’t require anything more than the initial interaction from you. In the end, you can automatically turn off all the lights and lock all of your doors by simply telling your AI assistant that you’re going to bed.
Smart Work and Fun
With digital assistants, you’ll find every aspect of your life becoming quite improved – from watching movies and TV shows to your office work. With a virtual assistant, you can browse through movies and even get recommendations via voice command. Also, if you enable the right capabilities in your office, assistants like Cortana or Google Assistant will print the documents you want if you just ask them verbally.
Managing Your Time
If you want to get the most out of your digital assistant, though; you shouldn’t use it just for the novelty factor or because of laziness. You should make use of them to increase your daily productivity, and save as much time on menial tasks as possible. For example, voice assistants are great if you need to set a lot of different timers that help you keep track of your schedule. That’s not just useful for your work, but for stuff like meal prep as well.
Are you tired of your usual alarm sounds? Just give your digital assistant the command to mix it up a bit. Plus, you can interact with your schedule more easily and less fiddly, setting a couple of nap and sleep alarms. On top of that, you will also be able to improve the quality of your sleep, not just the timing. During a sleepless night, there’s nothing easier than asking your digital assistant to play some soothing music or ASMR sounds.
One of the best parts about having a digital assistant is that it acts as a never-forgetful secretary as well. There’s no need to rely on a human assistant or your own memory when it comes to calendar reminders. Just tell your digital assistant to make the necessary appointment, and it will be done.
Conclusion
Of course, the level at which AI chatbots and digital assistants operate is not quite at the level of some famous sci-fi franchises; after all, we don’t have actual artificial intelligence just yet. However, rudimentary AI solutions are gaining mass-market applications as well at an astounding pace.
So, you may find that the simple digital assistants of today will become far more useful through machine learning and incremental improvement. And let’s not forget, they’re quite useful for menial tasks even today. We hope this brief guide was useful to you and that you’ve learned more about how digital assistants work. Thanks for stopping by!
