As AI changes the world, people turn to smart assistants for… the same stuff as always?

Google, Amazon, and Apple have all touted improvements to their digital assistants — Assistant, Alexa, and Siri, respectively — to use more advanced generative-AI technology. The problem has been that even as they promise new and better capabilities, these tools have lost some of their initial functionality, and companies are struggling to make everything work as advertised.

A new survey from YouGov shed a little light on what exactly people want out of their digital assistants. The surprising thing? It’s all boring stuff that you can do with normal computers and don’t really need AI for.

The three most popular uses for digital assistants were checking the weather (59%), playing music (51%), and searching the web for an answer (47%).

Lots of the other top uses were just sending basic telecommunications: 39% of respondents use them to call hands-free, 27% to send or receive messages, and 11% to control other media devices.

These digital assistants are not exactly doing rocket science — 40% of people use them to set a timer, while half that number uses them for smart home functions.

It’s a reminder that while the titans of tech envision a future where AI systems can be our friends, our colleagues, our servants, and our second brains, a lot of people basically just need something that can read off a to-do list without having to use their thumbs.

The Takeaway

Where can AI help? Some 27% of smart assistant users said their main problem with the technology is that it doesn’t understand their requests, while another 12% cited a lack of accuracy and the final complaint was that digital assistants aren’t as smart as expected. Maybe generative AI and LLMs can sand those edges a bit.