In response to these issues, tech companies have taken some steps. To prevent data leakage and to enhance security, some have engineered generative A.I. products so they do not keep a company's data and have instructed the A.I. models to answer only questions based on the source of data. When Salesforce last month introduced AI Cloud, a service with nine generative A.I.-powered products for businesses, the company included a "trust layer" to help obfuscate sensitive corporate information and promised that what users typed into these products would not be used to retrain the underlying A.I. model. Similarly, Oracle said that customer data would be kept in a secure environment while training its A.I. model and added that it would not be able to see the information. Salesforce offers AI Cloud starting at $360,000 annually, with the cost rising depending on the amount of usage. Microsoft charges for Azure OpenAI Service based on the version of OpenAI technology that a customer chooses, as well as the amount of usage.

For the majority of its existence, home automation has been confined to fiction and the houses of the wealthy. But as more affordable smart-home technology trickles into the market, the demographics are shifting, and tech companies are jostling to get their virtual home assistants in the door. Many are even teaming up with home builders to develop connected homes from the ground up. In 2015, consumers bought 1.7 million voice-compatible devices, according to a report from analytics start-up VoiceLabs. Last year that number grew to 6.5 million.