Taking voice interaction to the next level - Information Age

Beyond all that, primary significance of course sits with the AI engine that underpins the interaction. Roughly half of the considerations listed above will not be resolved wholly satisfactorily until the AI can do the heavy lifting necessary to, for example, autonomously resolve an ambiguity in the stated input. This is starting to happen, for example, using Google Home (unlike with the Echo), it is possible (subject to the usual tally of hit'n' miss attempts) to ask for something, then ask a contextual follow-up, in what can legitimately be labelled a (basic) conversational interaction. See also: Voice recognition: has AI just beaten a human? The interesting thing for anyone observing the emergence of voice user interfaces in mass-market products, is the relationship between that form of interaction and the more conventional screen-based interactions. Screen-based interfaces are an abstraction in a way that voice interaction arguably is not. Yet the nascent nature of voice interaction still necessitates a screen for effective'long-form" interaction – by which we mean detailed immersion in complex content. For now, voice augments, rather than displaces the screen-based outcome: witness the regularity with which the Echo will resolve a query by sending some links to the Alexa app, a mode of behaviour also more than familiar to anyone persisting with Siri.