AI Voice-Based UX and APIs for Everything

A long, long time ago (like 30-40 years) we would design software around the idea that storage was expensive and compute was slow.? As things progressed, forward-thinking software architects were suggesting that we should start designing with the idea that storage is free and compute is infinitely fast, because eventually that will be true.? And that was still in the context of servers in private data centers and monitors on your desk.? They didn't even consider that everyone in the world would carry a monitor in their pocket, type with their thumbs on a virtual keyboard, and have global wireless networking, cloud storage, and ubiquitous "rental" computing to power it.

So today we have some amazing cloud native software "systems of record" (financial, healthcare, retail, etc.) with graphical User Interfaces (UI's) that can run on your phone or PC.? And we're just at the beginning of this age of AI, where we've started adding some fancy AI-based functionality inside these "static systems" to get better suggestions or help us draw conclusions from the data stored inside.? However, I don't think we've even gotten a sense of where AI is truly taking us from a UI/UX (User Experience) perspective.

Let's take a quick diversion into something that happened recently that slipped by mostly unnoticed.? On October 22nd, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) finalized the Open Banking (Section 1033) Rule.? This requires banks to provide standard API's (Application Programming Interfaces) that will allow consumers to grant permission to third parties to access their private banking data in a way that is seamless and efficient for the third parties.? For example, you can have your budget app connect to your checking account and credit cards to bring in all your transaction data, and it will always work and always be accurate.? Every bank will be required to play along, at their expense.

I say "at their expense", because it is actually takes network bandwidth and compute power (which is not free) for a bank to provide such an API that can be called any time by anyone a customer gives permission to, without providing much (if any) benefit in return -- although they will certainly do the same in reverse and call the APIs of other financial institutions if given the chance.? If a bank has millions of customers, and each person is doing this with multiple third parties, the volume of incoming API calls is going to be massive.? This will probably require a replicated copy of the "system of record" data inside the bank (also not free), so they protect the transactional performance of that core system to do its "normal job".

But it won't stop with banking.? Consumers will demand APIs for everything in their life.? Why will they do this?? Because they will want the AI in their pocket to be able to access it to provide everything from investment advice to best prices on hot items to getting a ride (in an AI robotaxi, of course).? Every business needs to be planning for this now.? If you don't have a robust API layer that can do everything your business does, you will be left behind.

And how will consumers interact with this powerful AI that can access everything and execute everything through APIs?? They will speak to their device.? Why type when speaking is so much faster and will be even more accurate… since the AI will ask you clarifying questions or reliably infer what you meant based on how well it knows you.

When you ask the AI to arrange a ride to the airport, it could just tell you the answer, but you will likely want to see something to help you make a decision between multiple options.? And the AI will create a new visual UI from scratch, on the fly, to display the options with the data (and language and fonts and colors) that you prefer… what you see on your screen will be unique to you, and a person will not have coded it.? And then it will be gone, a transient display that was useful for a brief point in time.? (Sidenote: what will this do to branding?)

Someday we'll tell our grandchildren about a time when we downloaded "apps" (that people wrote!) from companies to our device.? And we had to type with our thumbs and figure stuff out based on how well we could phrase our search terms.?? And how we had to struggle to fill out forms online and sometimes they wouldn't work right.? And how we'd be frustrated with how a screen would show us data we didn’t care about while leaving out stuff we did care about.? And if we ever tried to call a company for help, how the automated system drove us nuts, and then the person who we finally reached (usually after getting disconnected at least once) still didn't know the answer.? And there were no humanoid robots around.? They will wonder how we ever survived.

And I'm sure I'm still thinking too small on this.

#AI, #UI/UX, #APIs, #OpenBanking, #Technology, #Leadership, #FutureTech