Google is making significant strides in the race to create advanced voice assistants. In a recent announcement, the tech giant revealed its plans to integrate its Bard artificial intelligence chatbot into its widely-used voice assistant product on mobile phones. This move comes just two weeks after Amazon announced its own addition of a more capable conversational chatbot into Alexa devices, while OpenAI has been busy adding voice capabilities to their own ChatGPT.
Big Tech companies have been eager to design and produce new “generative” AI products ever since OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT last November. However, the question of how to effectively engage and monetize this expensive technology has loomed over the industry. Fortunately, companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple already have millions of existing customers who regularly interact with their voice assistants. These customers, who rely on voice assistants for tasks like setting alarms, checking the weather, and making notes, present the perfect audience to test out the new AI chatbots.
Despite the huge potential, it is important to acknowledge that this technology is still in its early stages. The companies are actively working on resolving bugs and issues that have been identified since the launch of these tools to millions of people. For example, Google integrated Bard into Gmail, YouTube, and Google Docs in September, but users quickly discovered flaws such as the bot fabricating non-existent emails when asked to summarize important ones. Similarly, during a recent company event, Amazon showcased its new “let’s talk” conversational mode for Alexa speakers, but the bot’s speech was disrupted by long and awkward pauses.
During Google’s recent hardware event, where they unveiled two new Pixel phones, they announced Assistant with Bard as an “early experiment.” Initially, the product will only be available to a select test group, with access rolling out to other users on mobile devices in the coming months. However, the spokesperson for Google did not provide any details about when the chatbot might be introduced to Google’s home devices, which directly compete with Amazon’s Alexa.
The integration of the new chatbot AI into Google Assistant aims to enhance the user experience by making it more intuitive, intelligent, and personalized. According to Sissie Hsiao, Vice President of Assistant and Bard, this advancement is the next step in creating a seamless voice assistant experience.
(Source: Gerrit De Vynck | Washington Post)
