Bringing Google Home To Work
By Holger Reisinger, SVP of Business Solutions, Jabra
While Amazon Echo has steadily gained popularity over the last two years, the upcoming launch of Google Home will likely propel the adoption of smart devices even further in the home. And why not?
My colleague, Peter Hartmann, recently shared his experiences with Amazon Echo and its voice-activated assistant, Alexa. It’s an enlightening and amusing take on how the power of intelligent devices can shape our personal lives.
With smart devices such as the Echo or Home, individuals can streamline a number of personal activities and tasks around the house — like play music, set reminders, and hail a ride on Uber, to name a few.
Peter’s personal experiences got me thinking about how we’ll soon be using intelligent tools in the workplace, and I’m pretty sure Alexa and Home will pale in comparison. We can already ask smart devices what’s next on our schedule. It’s only a matter of time before intelligent assistants can tackle tasks like expense reports.
If you think about it, the systems and tools we use in today’s office environment aren’t particularly smart. In fact, they’re pretty dumb. When we need them to perform a task, we have to instruct what, when, and how to do it. Plus, we have to adapt to how the tools and systems work, instead of them adapt to us.
Smart Devices Coming To An Office Near You
The intelligent office tools of tomorrow will be a massive improvement. By combining Big Data and the ability to learn using artificial intelligence (AI), our workplace tools will become smart — or at least a lot smarter than they are today. Rather than us adapting to them, they’ll learn to adapt to us. That means exciting things for employees — whether we work in an office, remotely from home or even from our cars.
Using smart tools, we’ll dedicate more time to the tasks we were hired to do and less to the ones that detract from our work. I don’t know about you, but I’m sure I wasn’t hired to spend an hour a week filling out expense reports. It’s a necessary part of my job, yes, but also a painstaking, time-consuming one.
Software powered by machine learning will relieve much of that burden for certain activities, making us more productive and satisfied in our jobs. For instance, new tools will know when I’m out of the office on business, recognize my travel and entertainment expenses, and automatically pull them into a monthly expense report it has already created for me. All I’ll need to do is review and sign.
And what about the thankless, time-consuming chore of scheduling meetings? Intelligent tools will determine who needs to attend, send out the invitations (including step-by-step instructions for getting there), book the conference room, and even arrange delivery of coffee and bagels.
Intelligent Equals Powerful
Of course, automating mundane tasks is just the beginning. The real power of intelligent workplace tools lies in helping us perform our vital duties quicker and more thoroughly. Because smart tools will continually learn about us, they’ll understand how we work and anticipate our needs, proactively provide the information we require, and automatically integrate it into our day-to-day activities. And do all that without any intervention on our part.
This isn’t science fiction. The capabilities are already emerging; it’s just a matter of integrating them into our workday, which we can do in an almost limitless number of ways.
New AI tools can streamline the sales process. After learning a sales rep’s calendar, it will automatically pull information about past sales calls and read back a summary while the rep drives to the meeting. It will choose the right marketing materials and product samples and have them forwarded to the meeting location. If the tools sense the rep is running late, it will send an apology note and updated ETA to the meeting participants.
In the finance department, the tools will know when analysts are working on financial reports, automatically pull information from databases around the organization, and instantly populate newly created reports with it. Using algorithms learned over time, it will even crunch the data and send alerts when vital trends are spotted.
These are just a few examples of how smart technology will soon revolutionize our jobs by freeing us from the mundane tasks and making the important ones more compelling. After all, intelligent tools that add excitement to our personal lives are great, but ones that make our work lives more productive and fulfilling are even better. I can’t wait to begin using both.