OK Google, Siri, Echo: the many voices of AI

Forget your smartphones and other accessories: voice communication underpinned by artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be the basis for our connected day-to-day lives. And the shift has already begun! Some pointers: a recent survey, which polled a representative sample of 500 US residents, revealed that only 2% of iPhone users have never used the virtual assistant Siri. Meanwhile Google revealed during the Google IO developer festival held in Mountain View in May just how much emphasis the Internet giant is now placing on voice technology. In the very near future, voice might well be used to direct Google searches, a prospect which could explain the firm's massive investment in Google Assistant. Another pointer: we can count on seeing increasingly high-performance and lower-cost artificial intelligence tools.