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Siri, Bixby, Cortana, Oh My!

Forbes Technology Council
POST WRITTEN BY
Silvio Tavares

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Any mention of artificial intelligence (AI) these days elicits the names of digital assistants or the large tech companies behind them, including Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana. In a CardLinx Card-Linking and O2O Industry Survey, leading tech companies selected AI assistants as the next big platform for digital commerce. And according to eMarketer (via Ad Week), there will be 67 million voice-assisted devices in the U.S. by 2019.

But these digital assistants only scratch the surface of what the future with AI might look like. Advances in AI will be an iteration of the convergence of today’s buzzwords: big data, cloud computing, biometric verification, contactless payments and geo-location.

From payment networks to digital advertisers and retailers, every industry in the online-to-offline (O2O) ecosystem is using AI to enhance their real-time data analysis for greater consumer engagement. But despite the great promise of AI, we are not quite in the golden age. So how can today’s digital assistants give us a glimpse into what the future of AI holds?

Fun Matters

Past AI successes include the moment in 1997 when IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer defeated the world’s best chess player. And today’s digital assistants can do some basic things like play a requested song, tell you the weather forecast or entertain your toddler. Today’s novelty commands like controlling the lights or thermostat will be seen as rudimentary in the future. The success of AI will hinge upon not only how useful it is but how much fun and how easy it is for everyone in the family to use.

Use Your Voice

The introduction of the iPhone 10 years ago kicked off a visual revolution in mobile and computing technology. The addition of iPads and other tablets revealed a future filled with screens of all kinds. TV screens got larger, then curved. Smartphones got larger and curved and then went back to being flat but larger still. But the unexpected quick consumer adoption of Amazon’s Alexa has redirected Silicon Valley’s focus to voice as the preferred platform for AI. We will continue to see development in the refinement of voice-activated commands in not only digital assistants and smartphones but in appliances, wearables and cars as well.

Seamless Payments

Today, digital assistants can be linked to a verified payment card to streamline purchases. These payments by AI will only continue and portend a future that bypasses digital wallets, loyalty cards and cash. What today’s AI assistants show is that consumers will use cutting-edge technology for payments if the system is intuitive and on a trusted platform.

But What Happens When The AI Assistants Behave Badly?

As the digital commerce ecosystem plunges headfirst into this new form of AI, this key question remains unanswered. It may seem that the unpleasantness caused by an unintended digital assistant purchase or the shocking surprise of your digital assistant laughing is not very important compared to something like a car crash involving automated driving.

However, if you consider that over 70% of the U.S. economy is made up of consumer spending, then chatbots and AI for shopping don't seem so insignificant. Here is a striking analogy: If we look back just a couple decades ago, the majority of stock market trades were likely initiated by humans. But today, over 80% of stock market trades are done by algorithms. If shopping takes the same course as stock trading, in as little as 20 years, most of our personal shopping could be done by chatbots or via digital assistants. And as the robots go, our economy will likely follow.

Now don’t get me wrong; there is a huge positive upside to automating our shopping. I, for one, will not miss my weekly Saturday morning trek to Costco with my kids in tow to purchase almost exactly the same things I purchased last week. There is so much potential that can be unlocked by liberating us from mundane shopping tasks -- not to mention realizing significant pricing efficiencies by enabling robots to precisely match our needs with the best available prices.

To unlock that potential, the issue that we must all come to terms with is, "How do we make chatbots and AI safe for consumers?" There are many potential ways to do that. AI shopping could include failsafe functions like the stock market to prevent us from ordering 100 pizzas at a time or embed risk management algorithms that scan for fraud or mistakes. For years, banks have provided guarantees that the consumer will not be held accountable for fraudulent charges. That model could work for AI-based shopping, too.

Technology associations like Partnership for AI and CardLinx Association, where I serve as president and CEO, are researching standards that will make automated shopping safer and easier for everyone.

As consumers, we are an integral part of the digital commerce ecosystem and have a great opportunity before us. With some forethought and collaboration, the future looks appealing. However, unloading our weekly shopping errands to chatbots or digital assistants will take careful management and credible industry standards around accountability for AI commerce. This is definitely not an opportunity that will be realized by putting the digital industry on autopilot.

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