Virtual Assistants Are Still Vital to My Productivity But 2017 Was Ho-Hum
The Consumer Virtual Assistant landscape was pretty uneventful in 2017 but it felt more like business model stagnation than any limit in the longterm technologies. Humans are still involved in much of the supply-side fulfillment and, well, human labor is still expensive. In addition, I wonder if consumers will trust Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon AI assistants to truly represent their best interests given ongoing investigations into bias in algorithms, designing for addiction (err i mean engagement), and the regulatory conversations occurring around 2016 elections.
My Year One 2015 summary and my Year Two 2016 summary
What Virtual Assistants did I rely upon in Year Three 2017?
Facebook Messenger M: While M moves more towards auto-replies, I believe I still have access to the fuller version of M that more closely resembles the original virtual assistant beta (remember when you could ask M to do nearly anything?). I use M to make reservations for restaurants and such when there’s not an online booking option clearly available. Also light amounts of information retrieval (call XYZ and ask 123), but stay away from anything more complex.
Wonder: I use Wonder for b2b’ish research but they’re really good for any type of research question where you could imagine a subject expert needing 15–30 minutes to pull you together an answer. Think of it as someone who is really good at Googling. They’ve continued to tune their business model, now bifurcating into faster, subscription-based product and a slower a la carte. Quality can really vary but they’ll redo a project if you find the results insufficient. Use this URL to get yourself $15 off a task: https://askwonder.com/r/hunterwalk
Fancy Hands: Oh Fancy Hands, how I love you. FH isn’t great for work that needs real intelligence/decision making, but I find the timeliness and quality of execution to be great. Often my main purpose is time-shifting not just time-saving — ie having someone call a business during regular daytime hours where I don’t have a chance to prioritize getting it done between 9–5. If you want to use FancyHands, you get a discount using my referral code. Here’s a snapshot of some recent requests:
Are there other virtual assistant services you use that I should give a try?
Director Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan University Professor of Religion and Philosophy
6 年Scott Dennis
Content Manager at Handle.com
7 年Great resource. Thanks for sharing your 2017 VA-ish tech solutions, Hunter! I've used Wonder in the past when I needed research done on an extremely detailed level. What I like about the experience was the topic and market research were done by actual humans so not only do they deliver useful information, they provide career opportunities for people who prefer to pursue a remote career.
Processos UML/BPM | Requisito | Desenvolvedor BackEnd em forma??o| Java | Python | C#.Net | [My]SQL[Serve] | Metodologias ágeis | BI/BA
7 年Sometimes I think that civilization is moving towards a new model of capitalism. returning to slavery, where the robbery will be the slave and the man the lord. Great article.
Sales Development Representative at Tenfold
7 年It's great to see how fast technology is evolving and how it has and continue to change how we do things. I understand that there is a point in this that people think twice about how technology evolves, I just hope that people can keep their jobs in the process of modernization.