We seem to be totally missing the point on the power of Voice Technology.

Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home et al seem to be fuelling a particularly interesting technological revolution, which at times doesn’t seem to resonate with people as being significant. To me, this marks the historic moment where humans no-longer need to touch their environment to affect it. Imagine the power of this technology only a few years from now.

Ubiquity in technology is a rare thing. Many people don’t have smartphones. Some don’t even have internet access. But it would be a very special moment if instead of having to push buttons, all we had to do was to give a voice command for our everyday tasks. As long as you have a voice, in the future, you’ll have access to voice technology.

As this technology is generally only prevalent in things like Siri, Alexa and Home, I’ll give some examples as to why I think Voice technology is much bigger than these.

In the movie “Her”, the lead character falls in love with an A.I. The A.I. doesn’t have any physical features to make it seem any more appealing than an actual human, but what it does have are a brain, and a voice. If we were to distil what makes a person unique, or friendly, it would have to be these two features. A person also responds in a way that is emotionally appropriate to the other person they are interacting with. With only a few short technological cycles, voice technology could make every-day tasks such as getting coffee, online shopping and even just browsing, graced with a friendly voice instead of buttons.

As I mentioned earlier, the beauty of Voice technology is that it does not require touch. This represents an important milestone in human history. Many of the fantasy heroes we grew up with, such as X-Men’s Magneto, The Force in Star Wars, or Harry Potter’s many spells, all stem from the same concept that the people in these worlds have a distinct connection to their environment. This is all the more prevalent when you see that voice technology is in a way no different to a Harry Potter spell: “You say something, and then something happens”. Harry Potter is really just Siri in Latin.

The Smart Home is not too far away. Our homes will be increasingly managed by Robot vacuum cleaners and other smart autonomous appliances. We’re only a few steps away from the Sorcerers Apprentice. It’s not too far away that we could see our smart home hubs being akin to our Mary Poppins, able to answer any question, able to clean the house and fly off when the job is done.

We’re not there yet as far as the technology is concerned. The fact of the matter is that our computer chip speeds can’t withstand the sheer amount of computing power required to make something like voice technology appear as seamless and ubiquitous as what the future could be. Soon though, we might just see it become practical magic.