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The Butler Economy—Convenience Beats Branding

 Traditionally, by the word butler, we understand a personal servant who

is available all of the time and fulfils our wishes. A conscientious butler

knows us so well that he can even foresee needs and make recommendations. With bots that are adaptive and that can thus be described as intelligent, the step towards the personal butler, the digital personal assistant is

no longer far away. The large technology companies Amazon and Google

have had digital butlers for home use on the market since 2016: Echo and

Home are standalone devices that remind of loudspeakers and which regulate the lights, temperature and music as well as weather queries, alarm

function and requests for information. In addition, Google Home can

send e-mails and text messages as well as sort out photographs and use card

services.



Examples of personal assistants that can be integrated into a telephone

or computer are Siri (Apple), Now and Allo (Google) as well as Cortana

(Windows). Siri, a digital assistant that does have a sense of humour but has

difficulties with speech recognition, will be replaced by his big sister Viv in

the near future. Dag AIttlaus, managing director of Viv, announced during

the official demonstration of the personal assistant in May that Viv “bring

the dead smartphone back to life by way of conversation”. The name of

the algorithm is the Latin root of the word life. Even Facebook is currently

experimenting with their own personal assistant called “M” and which will

soon be available worldwide.

A personal butler, also called personal assistant or digital servant, is a program that is integrated in a technical device, an operating system or an app,

and which can take over daily tasks such as shopping, bookings, bank transactions, planning or regulating light and temperature. With time, the personal butler gets more familiar with his owners and can predict their wishes

and needs.

What is the same with all virtual assistants is that they are meant to take

over everyday tasks such as booking hotels or taxis, ordering clothes, food

or flowers, or even bank transactions or writing to-do lists. Instead of comparing offers for hours on end, entering account details or finding the right

app for notes, these frequently cumbersome tasks can be done in the time

it takes to say a sentence. And when humans are no longer needed for these

tasks, the human resources could put to use in a different way, for creative

tasks for example.

The following section will first explain why the comfort of the personal

butler will diminish the significance of the brand. Afterwards, the past and

present development process of digital butlers will be described and whether

verbal or written communication with the assistant will dominate in the

long term will be discussed. At the end of the section, the advantages and

disadvantages that could result for consumers will be illustrated.

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