What Siri And Alexa Will Never Do

For years now, Siri, Alexa and Google Home have been portrayed as just the beginning of a pathway to virtual assistants that will give each of us a J.A.R.V.I.S., the voice-activated software used by Iron Man to handle, well, just about everything.

But the wave of layoffs happening at Amazon’s Echo unit tells a different story.

That story will govern for the foreseeable future, and insurers should heed it as they consider how to incorporate natural language processing technologies into their operations.

While many futurists have claimed that voice is such a natural means of communication that it will soon take over all customer/corporate interactions, Amazon’s experience proves otherwise.

Here’s the core of the issue for Amazon and for any insurer implementing natural language processing technologies: I love my Echo and use it all the time, but I’ve never bought anything with it and am unlikely to ever do so.