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CoverStory

Software integrators work with hardware vendors and are being transitioned and what to expect upon ar-
APIs to incorporate products and services into retail and rival. These messages must be designed according
IT enterprises and make them available for commercial to the mode of interaction; ears receive information
use. differently than eyes. Multimodal messages are rec-
ommended. In the future, users may communicate
The report summarizes cybersecurity objectives as with VoiceAIs by text, voice, touch or all of them.
restricting data access to authorized users, effectively
screening data and maintaining continuity of service. Automating homes
These controls promote data integrity and service Home automation, also known as smart home, enables
availability, researchers noted. However, security analysts consumers to establish nodes on the IoT and manage
question how to implement these controls in a voice first personal infrastructures from anywhere. Shamoun
world. Glover proposed that multifactor authentication said home automation simplifies routine tasks, such
would provide voice users with safer ways to enter their as managing music playlists, lighting and reordering
PINs and confirm their identities. household items.

Advancing interoperability
Pete Philomey, national sales manager at South Seas Data
Interoperability is a key consideration in multilayered LLC, recalled when Amazon promoted placing smart
ecosystems. Consumers do not always understand when buttons strategically around the house. Press your kitchen
their digital voice assistants redirect them to secure button to reorder eggs; press the laundry room button
checkout pages. Lin Nie, research scientist at Dataminr when you're getting low on detergent. The buttons failed
and user experience specialist, urged developers and to generate enough reorders or meet expectations; Amazon
OEMs to close gaps between platforms to improve voice- eventually pulled the project.
to-screen transitions.
"Who wants buttons all over the place?" Philomey said.
"When a single experience is distributed across devices, "Subscription models make it easy to manage everyday
comprehensiveness and consistency of messaging across products, and VoiceAI is taking home automation to the
touchpoints is crucial," Nie said. "A frictionless hand-off next level."
should not require users to continue interacting with the
first device after passing control to the second. Hand-off Philomey said his digital voice assistants are always on
instructions from one device to another should also be and always connected. They play music in one room or all
written consistently on both ends. A user should not have over the house, dim the dining room lights to 50 percent,
to think if different words, data, controls, or situations remind him of upcoming calls and even tell him when it's
mean the same thing." time to leave for a meeting.

Nie proposed the following approaches to creating Can you say screen-less?
seamless voice-to-screen transitions: "Amazon has a conference every year," Shamoun said. "At

• Map transition points to customer journey. The the last one, AWS CEO Andy Jassy was talking about voice
shopping journey typically involves four stages: as the next evolution. He mentioned that in Asia, voice has
browse, find, compare and purchase. While voice replaced text as a primary communication method. This is
simplifies reordering household items, it is not an literally a voice message that you record and send."
ideal medium for evaluating or comparing prod-
ucts. With this in mind, the point of the customer In a March 2019 post in TechRadar, titled "Finding your voice
journey that involves product reviews, comparisons in this fast-moving digital world," Mastercard's Rajamannar
and value judgments would be an ideal place to highlighted how digital assistants are changing consumer
transition from voice to screen-enabled devices. and brand relationships. Acknowledging the ubiquitous
presence of screens in everyday life, he suggested
• Transition to familiar, context-appropriate plat- tomorrow may have a different look, feel and sound. "An
forms. Service providers must consider a user's army of virtual assistants, marching into our homes and
preferred platform when transitioning from voice lives in the form of smart speakers, bots and much, much
to screen. Desktop users would be redirected from more is beginning to challenge the status quo [by] doing
voice assistants to their desktops to manage complex away with screens entirely," he wrote.
tasks. User environments and contexts are equally
important. For example, safety concerns would pre- Dale S. Laszig, senior staff writer at The Green Sheet and managing
clude sending critical, timely information from an director at DSL Direct LLC, is a payments industry journalist and content
in-car voice device to a smartphone. Drivers need development specialist. She can be reached at dale@dsldirectllc.com
their hands on the wheel at all times.
and on Twitter at @DSLdirect.
• Carefully craft hand-off messages. Hand-off mes-
sages ideally convey two things to users: why they
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