Human to Machine Communications: Year in Review and Look Into the Future
In 2019, conversational user experiences, in the form of chatbots and voice interfaces, began overtaking many of the “traditional” ways in which we interact with machines.
Since the rise of computers, human-machine interfaces have typically had some form of Graphical User Interface (GUI) which has enabled direct (if limited) interaction with devices and their programs. No matter how “elegant” the visual interface, this GUI is being replaced by a Conversational User Interface (CUI).
The 2019 Year in Review: Three Big Trends
Messaging as a Platform
Smart Speakers and Privacy
The market leader in voice-based conversational messaging, Alexa has been embedded into more devices in 2019 than any other smart speaker. Amazon’s strategy is clear – be in every kitchen, living room, and bedroom of consumers globally – and they have extended their Echo product range significantly by creating multiple new form factors and partnering with unlikely allies to realize that goal. But Amazon has problems:
- Most of Alexa’s skills remain unused and discoverability is hard when the user interface is voice and there is no way to effectively “browse” skills.
- Compared with Apple’s Siri (21 languages) and Google’s Home (13 languages), Amazon’s Echo supports the fewest (7 languages) and also appears to be least aggressive in adding new language capabilities (which could impact its global user adoption in different segments such as smart hospitality, hotels, travel, tourism, etc.).
- Alexa’s geographic stronghold is the US market and the IoT space, particularly smart homes, where smart appliance and device manufacturers (especially white goods) have flocked to Amazon to offer their consumers an Alexa integration this year. While Amazon outsold its competitors in Q3, Alibaba, Baidu, Google, and Xiaomi sell more speakers than Amazon.
What happens when key Amazon industry partners – major consumer electronics brands and global appliance manufacturers such as Bosch, Siemens, Samsung, Electrolux, Miele, Honeywell, GE, Haier, LG, Fisher-Paykel, Whirlpool, and others – realize that their own customers’ conversational data can be used to grow their new biggest competitors?
Security and Encryption
The biggest overall concern with digital assistants is consumer privacy. It’s only a matter of time before we see more breaches of consumer confidence and trust, as we did in 2019 when we learned that Alexa and Google’s default settings are to “listen in.” This is not an Amazon-specific problem, all voice-activated devices have it. Contrary to messaging apps, smart speakers are designed to be “always listening,” and anything else would simply make them, well, less smart.
Chat apps offer strong encryption and security features. The most popular consumer messaging app, WhatsApp, is by default encrypted end-to-end and is using protocols and technology which was developed by Open Whisper Systems (the parent company behind Signal).
The real question behind the security angle, however, isn’t just consumer privacy rights. It’s when, not if, those consumer channels will enter enterprise software and replace the GUIs of enterprise software and apps with CUIs.
2020 and Beyond: H2M of the Future
Enterprise Software
The world’s production, logistics, and supply chains are powered by – and people’s operational, marketing and sales productivity is accelerated by – enterprise software from leading providers such as SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Workday, IBM, Oracle, and others.
Technically, they are focusing on deep tech Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) services such as understanding voice (e.g., Microsoft’s Cortana and Nuance’s speech recognition), text via Natural Language Processing (NLP), such as IBM’s Watson and images using visual recognition engines in the form of Vision API’s from Google, SAP, and others.
Companies Must be Where Their Customers Are
Looking at companies’ rapidly increasing use of messaging as an enterprise communications channel, it’s become obvious that enterprise software will adopt the success of consumer-related conversational user interfaces as well. Why? It’s faster to tell a digital assistant or a chatbot to create a purchase order via a quick message or voice, rather than having to click through a bunch of screens.
The answer to which of the most popular consumer channels enterprise software will adopt is one of policy. Today, iMessage, Slack, and Microsoft Teams are most often “officially” allowed in enterprises, but there is little (or no) doubt that this is changing quickly. In Asia for instance, the dominance of chat apps at work is simply overwhelming. Ever try to do business in China without WeChat or DingTalk? In Japan and Thailand without LINE? In Korea without Kakao, in the Philippines without Viber, and in Singapore without WhatsApp?
Companies have to be where their customers are, not the other way around. People use messaging, everywhere, all the time. Therefore enterprise software – in addition to incorporating elements of CUIs – will adopt consumer-friendly messaging channels to inspire employees with new, innovative ideas, better productivity, customer loyalty, and critically, to discover powerful new use cases and business opportunities which traditional enterprise software doesn’t reveal as easily.
Conclusion
Messaging as a platform, and CUIs in particular, reached an inflection point in 2019 where they’ve become relevant across consumer and enterprise channels and have provided tangible results to businesses and end-users, especially now that the hype cycle has moved on. In 2020, they will continue their rapid growth both in B2C as well as in B2B environments and form a basic framework of collaborative innovation between humans and machines – “when the interface disappears, ideas are born.”
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
This post was authored by Toby Ruckert. If you want to get featured on our website please reach us at advertising@alltechevent.com
Author Details:
Toby Ruckert
CEO- UIB
