Your A.I. personal assistant could become a voice in your ear.
BY MINDA ZETLIN, AUTHOR OF ‘CAREER SELF-CARE: FIND YOUR HAPPINESS, SUCCESS, AND FULFILLMENT AT WORK’
For Inc.
Bill Gates. Photo: Getty Images
In the next five years, you will have your own artificial intelligence assistant, or agent, that will be a frequent voice in your ear and will help you with everything from deciding where to go on vacation to managing your friendships and more. That’s according to Bill Gates, who says he’s been thinking about agents for 30 years.
1. You won’t bother with software or operating systems anymore.
Do you use Windows, macOS, or Linux? iOS or Android? Today, these seem like meaningful choices, but five years from none of us will care about any of those because our agents will function as operating systems or platforms, Gates writes. Today, if you want to write an email, you might open Gmail or Outlook. If you want to create a document, you might open Microsoft Word or Google Docs. But five years from now, you won’t do any of that, Gates predicts.
“You won’t have to use different apps for different tasks,” he writes. “You’ll simply tell your device, in everyday language, what you want to do. And depending on how much information you choose to share with it, the software will be able to respond personally because it will have a rich understanding of your life.”
2. Your agent will be a frequent voice in your ear.
Companies working in AI have been exploring various ways for people to interact with their agents, “including apps, glasses, pendants, pins, and even holograms,” Gates writes. “All of these are possibilities, but I think the first big breakthrough in human-agent interaction will be earbuds. If your agent needs to check in with you, it will speak to you or show up on your phone.”
