Word of the Day: virtual assistant

Word of the Day: Daily updates on the latest technology terms

Word of the Day Daily updates on the latest technology terms | April 13, 2020 virtual assistant A virtual assistant, also called a voice assistant, is an application program that understands natural language and can complete a task for the user. If a virtual assistant is subject-oriented rather than task-oriented, it may be referred to as an intelligent virtual agent (IVA). Virtual assistants typically perform simple jobs for end users, such as adding entries to a calendar, completing voice searches, or controlling and checking the status of smart home devices such as lights and thermostats. Users can also use virtual assistants to: Make and receive phone calls. Create or read text and email messages. Place online orders. Listen to news, weather reports and books. Play games.   Today's most popular virtual assistants, including Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana and Google Assistant are cloud-based programs that require an internet connection to work. An open source virtual assistant called Mycroft will work offline and Amazon and Google are both working on creating offline versions of their virtual assistants to serve people around the world who do not have access to smart phones or internet service. It's expected that users will access the offline version through a phone call. As speech recognition and natural language processing advances, virtual assistants will be able to understand more complex queries and perform more than one task at a time. Until artificial intelligence (AI) technology can successfully chain individual queries and responses into an actual conversation, however, it's expected that virtual assistants will move slowly into business workflows. Continue reading... Today's Takeaway "The ability to handle multiple conversational interactions may seem like a simple problem to solve for advanced NLP technology, but figuring out how to get machines to understand spoken words and generate understanding of the communicator's intent is actually quite hard. " -- Kathleen Walch Related Terms You Should Know natural language processing natural language generation natual language understanding language modeling voice search wake word Bixby Alexa Voice Services Alexa Blueprints artificial personality voice squatting Buzzword Alert IVA The U.S. Army's SGT Star and the Citizenship and Immigration Services' Emma are popular examples of intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) services.   Oracle Digital Assistant Oracle announced plans to integrate its virtual assistant with Microsoft Teams so users can access Oracle apps through voice commands. CERi CERi is an English and Welsh-speaking virtual assistant that will provide information about the Covid-19 coronavirus for healthcare workers and the general public. Quiz Yourself An __________ is a visual image that represents a specific person. a. icon b. avatar Answer Stay in Touch Thank you for reading! For feedback about any of our definitions or to suggest a new definition (or learning resource) please contact us at: editor@whatIs.com FOLLOW US About This E-Newsletter The Word of the Day is published by TechTarget, Inc., 275 Grove Street, Newton, Massachusetts, 02466 US. Click to: Unsubscribe. You are receiving this email because you are a member of TechTarget. When you access content from this email, your information may be shared with the sponsors or future sponsors of that content and with our Partners, see up-to-date Partners List, as described in our Privacy Policy. For additional information, please contact: webmaster@techtarget.com. © 2020 TechTarget, Inc. all rights reserved. Designated trademarks, brands, logos, and service marks are the property of their respective owners. Privacy Policy | Partners List