Week 2 – MBA6101 – Surfing the Tsunami

Chapter 2 of Surfing the Tsunami talks about the many ways AI is all around us, e.g., drones, self-driving cars, computers, digital assistants, and automation. I was a little too hesitant to immerse myself in the AI space; however, it's all around me--unavoidable.

My client at Bank of America, recently posted a great article on LinkedIn and complemented the info with his own commentary, "Tools like Bank of America’s own Erica have helped to transform the banking experience. It’s one example of AI‘s positive impact. #AI is helping personalize client experiences (like Erica is doing), make better lending decisions, respond faster to cyberattacks, and more."

A friend of mine and her husband wrote a book called Voice Strategy and it goes to great lengths to demystify "voice" tech and provide a methodology for identifying use cases that improve the customer experience and complement a brand's eco-system.

My car has a voice assistant that is not as well-integrated with the tools on the dashboard's "infotainment system". I am encouraged that they've made improvements, outlined in this article, but today, I am frustrated by the lack of understanding what I am asking or wanting to do. It does simple tasks like adjusting the temperature, volume, and calling someone. It fails miserably at more complex tasks like looking up an address if providing name and city/state, for example. Arggggh! Takes me back to when Microsoft came up with their paper clip assistant, Clippy, that was eventually discontinued because he was so hated. Money quote at the 2:32 mark.

I have more hope in Amazon's Echo. My kids asked me to get one of their devices which I love to use as a Bluetooth speaker, TBH, and I noticed more and more that my daughter would interact with it more and more. To get the weather, set a timer, listen to a Spotify playlist while doing chores...the list goes on. Why? Because it's easy and accurate. It even allows to set up each voice, i.e., me, my son, my daughter, which it recognizes and uses to personalize the info--AMAZING.