At CES this week, marketers were buzzing about the potential of virtual assistants.
“Marketing is much more about providing a great experience or a product that makes a consumer’s life easier and one of the most interesting developments for our business is the virtual assistant,” said Kristin Lemkau, CMO of J.P. Morgan Chase.
Most of the attention at was on Alexa, the voice-activated assistant for Amazon’s Echo. Alexa is being described as a potential operating system for the Internet of Things, in competition with Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri.
LG announced a smart fridge partnership with Alexa that will let consumers buy groceries via voice. A flurry of Alexa-enabled applications are on the way, with one pundit predicting a launch of 700 new applications in the next week alone....
Having recently installed Amazon Echo, I can attest to the marketing potential, the fun and the limitations. One thing for sure, your virtual assistant will argue with you and will always have the last word. Not much different than living with a teenager!