Are Smart Speakers Really Smart?
The term “smart speaker” is really a misnomer. Read Ronald Schmelzer’s article in Forbes for more insight into virtual assistants and their real strengths:
The popular media calls them “smart speakers” or “voice assistants” or “intelligent personal assistants”, but these words aren’t exactly analogous. A smart speaker conjures up a primarily output oriented device that aims to replace keyboard or button interaction with voice commands. Yet, that’s a particularly trivial application for the billions of dollars invested by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Alibaba, Tencent, Samsung, Baidu, and others which are seeing this as a critical market to try to dominate. After all, why are all these vendors so aggressively marketing and promoting these devices if all they do is allow you to play Taylor Swift on vocal demand or let you ask about the weather?
