How virtual assistants are driving business value

The rise of virtual or artificial intelligence (AI) assistants has been underway for some time now with the growing popularity of products such as Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and Google's Assistant The technology -- which has been trained to understand voice commands and complete tasks for users -- is also making headway in business as organizations look to leverage AI assistants (including chatbots) for a variety of use cases, including voice-to-text dictation, team collaboration tasks, email management, customer service, help desk management, and data analysis. Get the latest insights with our CIO Daily newsletter. According to a 2018 report from online IT community Spiceworks, 40 percent of businesses with more than 500 employees expect to implement one or more intelligent assistants or AI chatbots on company-owned devices in 2019. For its research, Spiceworks surveyed 529 technology buyers from North America and Europe in March 2018. Among organizations that have implemented the technology on company-owned devices and services, 49 percent are using Microsoft Cortana for work-related tasks, followed by Apple Siri at 47 percent.