Siri ushered in a new generation of chatbots when it entered the scene five years back. Roll on to today after every other company has caught up, the technology does not seem as much cutting edge as it did back then. So what is Apple doing about it?
Well, Apple is expected to debut an upgrade to Siri’s smarts when its annual conference for software is started. The conference is highly important because people are curious to see how the company will bounce back from the slowdown in iPhone sales. The AI field has also been toughened by its competitors who have created much-complicated technology.
Many companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Google have been trying to create digital services that will be used by customers in a way that they can’t get rid if the technology. They want to use the technology in many fields such as shopping, chatting, control of other appliances in a house or elsewhere and also to simply help people go on and get through with their lives.
Chris Monberg, co-founder of Boomtrain, which is a startup that creates AI software for the different online retailers said that Siri was lagging behind some other AI software, highlighting, in particular, the Google Now technology. He argued that Google Now could provide more useful reminders compared to Siri, had recommendations on various topics such as weather and traffic. This was all thanks to the fact that the AI read his phone contents including emails to bring him the best information possible.
Another Siri competitor is the Echo, Amazon’s home speaker. The technology can be used for informal voice commands and can be used to make flower orders, pizza orders or even get rides to the airport. Experts also believe that what Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are trying to do by incorporating the AI technology into our voice and text messaging services might just be what people want to chat with their friends.
However, other experts believe that Siri is still in the race. The technology has also been disadvantaged if compared to other products such as Google Now because it is also backed by the vast data that Google has collected from its search engines, Gmail, maps, and many other popular online services. Some of those services are still being used on iPhones.
Raj Singh of Tempo AI said that Apple had been collecting data from its users but had not been intelligent enough to connect everything to bring out a good product. Apple says that their software respects customers’ privacy because it anonymizes the information that is uploaded to its servers.
Apple has declined to comment about the plans they have in store for Siri.
