I was at a voice Meetup this week and the discussion was about what was next for voice as a platform. Interestingly most of the discussion was centered around the home the use cases around home. No AirPods! No enterprise!
Surprisingly the most common use case was weather!
That’s when it struck me, tech tends to forget the folks that came before them — use cases like these for voice was done by TellMe (that Microsoft acquired almost 15+ years ago). I remember calling a toll free number and asking either for weather or movie timings/tickets. Was a staple service for me given mobile internet used to minimal to non-existent (we used to print directions on Yahoo Maps or MapQuest those days)
After 15+ years if the best use case we can come up with then we have some ways to go!Especially given what these powerful trends
- almost always ON internet
- over 300M+ phones that are to be shipped in 2017 that will have onboard ML capable processors
- API-fication of a large number of services & actions
- large amounts of data/information
The combination of these trends in powerful.
Enterprise on the other hand is approaching this with bots on platforms like Slack. Conversational UI that is display based.
While the home certainly is interesting, there are way too many devices (phone/tablet/TV/speakers/laptops & family ;) ) competing for our attention at home. I don’t believe people are going to move completely away from displays. Commerce and shopping have moved to eCommerce so amazon is bound to do well.
Meanwhile it feels like a sleeper might be the enterprise (may be beginning with conference rooms). I wouldn’t be surprised if both these trends meet at some point.
Voice feels a lot like 2007 pre mobile app days. No one knows where it’s headed but interesting days ahead for sure. We would do well dig deeper.
Some developer out there is working on combining these trends that makes it magical!
Eagerly awaiting the mobile app moment for voice. It certainly isn’t here yet!
I was at a voice Meetup this week and the discussion was about what was next for voice as a platform. Interestingly most of the discussion was centered around the home the use cases around home. No AirPods! No enterprise!
Surprisingly the most common use case was weather!
That’s when it struck me, tech tends to forget the folks that came before them — use cases like these for voice was done by TellMe (that Microsoft acquired almost 15+ years ago). I remember calling a toll free number and asking either for weather or movie timings/tickets. Was a staple service for me given mobile internet used to minimal to non-existent (we used to print directions on Yahoo Maps or MapQuest those days)
After 15+ years if the best use case we can come up with then we have some ways to go!Especially given what these powerful trends
- almost always ON internet
- over 300M+ phones that are to be shipped in 2017 that will have onboard ML capable processors
- API-fication of a large number of services & actions
- large amounts of data/information
The combination of these trends in powerful.
Enterprise on the other hand is approaching this with bots on platforms like Slack. Conversational UI that is display based.
While the home certainly is interesting, there are way too many devices (phone/tablet/TV/speakers/laptops & family ;) ) competing for our attention at home. I don’t believe people are going to move completely away from displays. Commerce and shopping have moved to eCommerce so amazon is bound to do well.
Meanwhile it feels like a sleeper might be the enterprise (may be beginning with conference rooms). I wouldn’t be surprised if both these trends meet at some point.
Voice feels a lot like 2007 pre mobile app days. No one knows where it’s headed but interesting days ahead for sure. We would do well dig deeper.
Some developer out there is working on combining these trends that makes it magical!
Eagerly awaiting the mobile app moment for voice. It certainly isn’t here yet!
