How 18 cutting-edge AI assistants can make you superhuman and boost your productivity
AI helpers are already built into more than 4 billion smartphones. I think most of us didn’t even notice. Name for it: “Voice search”
Siri is on your phone. Often talking over people without permission. Then there are the Alexa and Google Assistant gadgets that you have sitting on your kitchen counter.
I’m just waiting for someone to answer.
At times, without being asked.
Like the imagined friend we had as kids who told us what to do and then we used as an excuse when we did something wrong.
Why it’s important
People use these AI apps every day. But you can’t see the technology that makes them work.
In the background, it does its thing. Apple and Amazon’s platforms are full of mazes and complicated systems that hide things. Working away in the corner like a good employee. The “Watson” from Sherlock Holmes.
An author named Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
And AI helpers are just now becoming a part of our daily lives.
What does a helper do?
As a child, I had a helper. It was my mum. My lovely human helper.
I asked her a question when I didn’t understand.
She hugged me when I needed love.
She had fresh orange juice ready for me when I was thirsty.
When it was time to punish me, she called my dad.
Living as a person is messy. What’s wrong with that, though?
So why do we need an AI helper?
Well…
They work all the time.
Don’t get tired.
They remember everything perfectly.
But they’re not good at giving hugs.
How do you describe an AI personal assistant?
It is computer software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help people (sometimes called “grown ups”) with different jobs.
A lot of different things can be done by these helpers, such as
- Putting in reminders
- Setting up schedules
- Responding to questions
- Making suggestions that are specific
- And a lot more…
Smartphones, computers, and smart home devices can all be used to reach them, and voice recognition technology lets you use them without using your hands.
Going further
The Wild West of AI is here now. It also brings up some philosophical questions.
- Is the place we’re going towards the promise land or a wasteland?
- What are the rules for taking part?
- What rules are there?
- How are we going to play?
- Is it hell or heaven?
- Will AI take my job?
Also, we don’t know if we’re going towards utopia or disaster.
Three main types of AI helpers
There are a few main types of AI helpers. This isn’t the final word; it’s just a way to break down a world of complexity into something simple.
- There is an AI helper that you can use in your very own life. What about a “AI Personal Assistant”?
- Then there are AI helpers that can help you with work and business. “AI Business Assistant” is another name for it.
- Let’s look at one more possible group last. What is the “Personal Intelligence Assistant”? This is more of a friend that helps and improves. The company Infection AI and its robot PI were some of the first to work in this area. Mustafa Suleyman, who helped start the company DeepMind, made this app.
Learn more about AI to help with work
Business is hard, and there are lots of ways to use AI to do dull jobs so people can have more time to play and make things. Or just do more bad things.
First, let’s look at the mind-numbing job of dealing with people who are angry and unhappy.
Customer Service AI Helpers
Business use these AI helpers, which are often called chatbots, to help customers, answer frequently asked questions, and show users how to use their websites or services. Zendesk’s Answer Bot and Intercom’s Resolution Bot are two examples.
Why it’s important: They offer fast customer service, cut down on wait times for help, and can handle a lot of questions at once, which makes the experience of customers better.
AI assistants for businesses
These assistants are designed to work in business settings and help with things like setting up meetings, handling emails, and making it easier for teams to work together. Microsoft’s Cortana and IBM’s Watson Assistant are two examples.
Why it’s important: They make the workplace more productive, make communication easier, and automate boring administrative chores so that workers can focus on more important tasks.
AI assistants for healthcare
These are specific AI tools that are used in healthcare to sort patients, give them medical knowledge, and help with diagnosis and planning treatments. Ada Health and Babylon Health are two examples.
What we should care: about is that they make health care easier to get, offer basic medical help, and help doctors diagnose and manage treatments more effectively.
AI assistants for schools
When used in education, AI can make learning more personalised, help with teaching, and grade and give feedback. The robots on Carnegie Learning and Duolingo are two examples.
Why We Should Care: They allow for more personalised learning, make school more available, and can improve student outcomes by giving extra help outside of school.
Financial AI Helpers
In the financial world, AI helps with managing personal finances, giving tips on investments, and finding fraud. Eno from Capital One and Cleo are two examples.
Why We Should Care: They help people better handle their money, make smarter investment choices, and make sure that financial transactions are safe.
AI assistants for research and development
These people work as assistants for researchers and help them collect data, look for trends, and even write study papers. Tools like Semantic Scholar and Arxiv Sanity Preserver are two examples.
Why We Should Care: They can speed up study, lead to new discoveries, and make scientific and academic work more efficient overall.
AI assistants are changing the way we live, work, and interact with the world around us by automating routine jobs, giving us personalised help, and making it easier to make choices.
As they grow and become more common in everyday life, they point to a trend towards faster, more personalised, and easier to access services across all fields.
These 18 AI helper apps are worth your time
The gun has gone off to begin the race. In the race to be the best AI helper, there will be winners and losers.
AI Helpers for Customer Service
Chatbots that are powered by AI can pretend to have a normal language conversation with a user through messaging apps, websites, mobile apps, or the phone, mostly for customer service reasons.
- Intercom: Through its messaging tool, lets a lot of customers talk to each other in a personalised way.
- Zendesk Chat: is a live chat and message app that can be added to business websites to help customers right away.
- Drift is an expert in talking sales and marketing that lets companies talk to customers right now.
AI Helpers for Health Care
These AI tools are designed to be used in healthcare for things like sorting patients into groups, keeping an eye on their health, and giving them medical knowledge.
- Babylon Health: provides medical advice using AI that is based on a person’s medical background and general medical knowledge.
- Ada Health: is a health guide driven by AI that helps people understand their symptoms and find the right care.
- Buoy Health: This app uses AI to help doctors figure out what’s wrong with people by asking them about their symptoms and giving them tips on what to do next.
AI Writing Helpers
AI writing helpers use natural language processing to help with writing, checking grammar, and making the style better.
- Grammarly: improves writing by checking for spelling, grammar, and style mistakes and suggesting ways to make things better.
- GPT-4 (OpenAI): is an advanced language generation model that can write text that sounds like it was written by a person. It can be used to create content, finish texts, and come up with creative writing ideas.
- Hemingway Editor: helps make writing easier to read by highlighting words and phrases that are hard to understand.
AI assistants for schools
These tools are meant to make learning and schooling easier by giving you personalised suggestions, helping you with your work, and letting you connect with your lessons.
- Duolingo: uses AI to make language learning paths that are unique for each user and take into account how they learn best.
- Quizlet: has study tools driven by AI, like flashcards, quizzes, and games, to help you learn better.
- Coursera: Uses AI to suggest courses and make learning more personalised based on users’ past and present hobbies.
AI assistants for automating your home
Smart home helpers work with a variety of devices so that you can use voice commands or mobile apps to control lights, thermostats, appliances, and more.
- Google Nest: This app works with Google Assistant to control smart home devices like thermostats, speakers, and screens.
- Amazon Echo: is a line of smart speakers and displays that work with Alexa to let you handle your home automation with your voice.
- Apple HomePod: is a smart speaker that lets you play music, get information, and handle smart home devices with Siri.
Business analytics and data analysis with AI helpers
These AI tools help businesses look at data, make reports, and get insights that help them make decisions.
- Tableau: is a powerful tool for visualising data and getting business information. It also has some AI-powered analytics features.
- Power BI: from Microsoft is a set of business analytics tools that offer AI-powered features and help you understand your data better.
- IBM Watson: is a set of AI tools and apps made for business use, such as data analysis and predictive modelling.
Ending it up
Everybody needs a little help. It’s hard to handle things by yourself.
That’s why we need AI, family, and friends. So how do we get along with technology that is both strange and familiar?
It has the intelligence and awareness of a person and a perfect memory.
Someone you know writes your articles for you.
A coworker who doesn’t ask for a free lunch. A beer or a glass of champagne.
We can play with it and see where it takes us.
I’m not sure where I’m going. You can’t get away from AI, though. We are already living in the future.
