AI Assistants: What’s New and What’s Next

I’ve had moments where I’ve asked Alexa to dim the lights and, minutes later, turned to ChatGPT for help untangling an idea I couldn’t quite articulate. One moment, it’s a tool. The next, it feels eerily like a conversation. And that shift—that blurry space between AI assistants and AI companions—is where things get fascinating, and […]

Sometimes I catch myself asking Siri the most trivial things—like what the weather’s going to be tomorrow, when I could just glance outside or check an app. Or I’ll ask ChatGPT to draft a first line for an email, even though I could easily write one myself. And afterward, I wonder: is this making me

Customer service has always been a double-edged sword. When it’s done well, it builds loyalty so strong that people stay with a brand for life. When it’s done poorly, it leaves scars—frustrated customers walking away, telling friends never to go near that company again. For decades, the field has relied heavily on humans: call center

I’ll admit something upfront: I spend way too much time staring at screens. Phone, laptop, tablet—sometimes all three at once. It’s exhausting, and I know I’m not alone. Which is why voice-first AI assistants feel like both a relief and a revelation. Just say what you want, and it happens. No scrolling, no typing, no

It’s a funny thing: a decade ago, if someone said, “I asked my assistant to turn off the lights,” you’d picture a human being walking over to a switch. Now? You assume they mean Alexa, Siri, or Google. And lately, maybe even ChatGPT. That shift in language tells us everything about how deeply AI assistants

I have to admit—sometimes I find myself glancing at my phone or smart speaker and wondering, are you listening right now? It’s an oddly unsettling feeling. One minute you’re chatting with a friend about booking a trip to Denver, and the next, an ad for flights to Denver pops up on your screen. Coincidence? Maybe.

It’s a question I’ve heard whispered in hallways, asked nervously over coffee, and debated heatedly in executive meetings: Can AI really replace personal secretaries? At first glance, the idea feels almost absurd. Secretaries—or executive assistants, as many prefer to be called—are not just schedulers. They’re confidants, organizers, protectors of time, and often the quiet glue

The first time I saw a colleague casually ask a chatbot to draft an email that would’ve taken me twenty minutes, I felt two things at once: envy and unease. Envy because, wow, that was fast. Unease because if a machine could handle this so easily, what did that mean for people like me? This

Do you remember Clippy? That wide-eyed, bendy paperclip that would pop up in Microsoft Word and cheerfully (sometimes annoyingly) ask, “It looks like you’re writing a letter. Would you like some help?” For many of us, Clippy was the first brush with what we’d later call an AI assistant. Back then, it was quirky, rudimentary,