Facebook seems ready to come up with its own voice assistant, based on AI, it seems. That seems like the next logical step after a product like Portal, that truly needs the assistant in order to compete with Google or Amazon.
After all, Alexa and Google Assistant are the selling points of the Echo and Home devices. After many rumors about Facebook’s plans, the social networking giant admitted that they’re currently working on voice and AI assistant technologies. They are going to be used across products from the Oculus and Portal series.
Future products may include more smart speakers and smart displays, like those shown above. Seeing the current trends they may also integrate the assistant on household items, headphones and maybe even smartphones. It’s been very hard to compete with Google Assistant and Alexa. Cortana, Bixby and Siri can’t do it, even if they come from some of the biggest companies in the world.
What’s interesting for me is the promise of a pairing between AR/VR and AI with this assistant, which is something that hasn’t been done before. In the meantime Amazon dominates the smart speaker area, with 63.3% market share and they look like they can’t be stopped.
