Whether the virtual assistant on your smartphone is Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana or Google Now, you can expect it to become even more proactive and useful in the future, a Google director has suggested.
In comments made at the Web Summit tech conference in Ireland last month, but only published by Business Insider today, Google Now head Aparna Chennapragada told the news site that she expects technology to do “a lot more of the heavy lifting” in future.
She clarified that phone users “want quick answers on the go” and “don’t have time to wade through screens” – meaning that “you want the information to find you, not just for you to find the information. And that’s a big shift.”
Chennapragada also emphasised the importance of accuracy in proactively-provided data on mobile devices. By way of example, she explained: “if you get the wrong answer [when] you search for Donald Trump — you get the second best article, it’s not a big deal right? But if we told you ‘hey, your flight is delayed, don’t worry about it,’ and the goddamn thing is on time … W-T-F, right?”
