The Surprising Repercussions of Making AI Assistants Sound Human

But striking a balance between these two extremes remains a significant challenge for voice interaction designers, and raises important questions about what people really want from a virtual assistant. The ability to intonate will make digital assistants capable of similarly nuanced expression. You've probably heard the design maxim form should follow function. Amazon's efforts to make Alexa sound as human as possible suggest that users expect their artificially intelligent sidekicks to do more than turn on their lights or provide a weather forecast.