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Automated Virtual Assistants

In this article, we will discuss about Automated Virtual Assistant technology. We will give brief introduction about some of the most popularly used virtual assistants across various platforms. The article discusses about their features, supported devices and their applications. By Sudarshan Paul Last updated : March 28, 2024

The automated virtual assistant or commonly called personal assistants, are developed to serve its users by performing some tasks, setting reminders and much more based on the input is given and local awareness. It is integrated with a large variety of other online resources available such as weather information, news, schedules, and prices. The assistants can be very simple that performs only some specified task and has the particular scope of areas to work, but they can also be very complex programs which can perform a wide variety of tasks as desired by the user using it. Here in this article, we discuss such smart assistants which have been very well incorporated in the devices ranging from your smartphone to smart devices such as Google home, echo etc.

1) Google Assistant

Google Assistant tops the list because of its user-friendly interface and a large number of supported devices. You can anytime enquire about anything be it about latest movies released, latest happenings around the globe, control your device to play music for you, set alarms or perform some task for you. The thing that makes it so much acceptable by users all over the globe is that it supports a large number of languages with more numbers getting added after each update. You can use it handsfree through the voice recognition technology and give commands to control your device or smart home.

2) Siri

Siri is the personal virtual assistant developed exclusively for Apple devices. The software allows you to manage your daily tasks by creating reminders. Siri has inbuilt option to change the voice to choose either from a male or female voice based on your preference. With Siri, you can effectively communicate with other applications in your device such as WhatsApp, Skype or any local messaging app, music app, search engines etc. Siri can track the type of songs, their genres, artists that you generally listen and can make a playlist of your choice without the need of creating one manually. Thus the more you use the assistant, the smarter it becomes.

3) Cortana

Cortana is a virtual assistant technology developed by the Microsoft Corporations for the windows platform. Cortana provides Cortana notebook which takes account of your individual requirements such as your favorites, interests, preference and among others. Cortana utilizes the built-in the browser called the Microsoft edge for all your search related queries. The Cortana can fetch you a good amount of discounts by suggesting offers based on your online shopping preference. So you no longer have to spend hours searching for discounts for your favorite products.

4) Alexa

Alexa is the intelligent personal assistant developed by Amazon for hands-free speaker Amazon echo that can be controlled by your voice with a connection to Alexa voice service. Amazon echo has the ability to manage smarter homes by controlling the devices linked, such as automatically turning lights off in absence of inmates, regulation of room temperature, refrigeration of products in the refrigerator. The device is built considering the important handsfree aspect, which gives users the freedom to use any speech patterns, vocabularies from any direction and the device will collect it and respond. You just have to know your requirements and use Alexa enabled Amazon Echo to perform it for you.

5) Blackberry Assistant

Blackberry personal digital assistant is developed to support the platform of blackberry devices. The assistant allows users to perform multitasking operations in an efficient way. Since the main target users of Blackberry devices are business people, during any meeting or no phone call case the assistant replies with some predefined texts or information which is sent directly without the need for any user intervention. Thus no interruption is caused during the meeting. The assistant proves to be of great use to everyday users by providing directions, address, weather forecast, stock market rates etc. Thus, proving to be an ideal assistant for businesspersons.

Next we provide a list of other virtual assistant which are not so frequently used as the above mentioned ones but are still serving many users across the globe.

• Nina
• Viv
• Jibo
• Hey Athena
• Mycroft
• Braina Virtual Assistant
• SILVIA
• Cubic
• Lucida
• Bixby
• Dragon Go
• Hound
• Ubi kit
• Aido
• Maluuba
• Vlinga