Echos from the Past
Aug 18, 2023
I visited a Staples for the first time in awhile and checked out the different smart speakers. It was a bit of a step back in time. Despite so much work to develop an ecosystem of smart speakers, only Google or Amazon made hardware were being sold.
On Amazon, you can still purchase many “Alexa Built-In” devices. You can also find many devices with Google Assistant included. Many years on, we’re now at a point where voice assistant is a normal, non-differentiating feature.
The next breakthrough for these devices may come from the ability to project or provide analysis of the environment around them. There is still an opportunity here, but it’s not in voice control.
