CIOs Prepare To Work With Virtual Assistants

CIOs need help and perhaps a virtual assistant is the person to help them out
CIOs need help and perhaps a virtual assistant is the person to help them out
Image Credit: Eden, Janine and Jim

There is no question that CIOs need help. There is just too much to do during a day as we deal with the `importance of information technology and there are too many people asking for a piece of the CIOs time. We all need someone to step into our lives and lend us a helping hand. I have some good news for you. That person may be preparing to start to help you out. However, you may not recognize them when they show up. It turns out that what every CIOs needs may be a virtual assistant.


What Is A Virtual Assistant?

So if the person with the CIO job does not have enough time to get everything done, then just exactly what is this thing that we call a virtual assistant that might be able to help him or her out? It turns out that there are currently a lot of different virtual assistants out there right now: Google’s Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Samsung’s Bixby, and Microsoft’s Cortana. These virtual assistants can do a lot of different things. They also have the ability to learn how to do new things all the time.

These virtual assistants can be very useful for the person in the CIO position who is trying to accomplish more things. When you start to use them, you’ll quickly discover that they are probably more useful than you would have initially expected them to be. However, you’ll also probably run into a number of different frustrations when you go to use them. There is a certain collection of tasks that just about everyone uses these virtual assistants for: playing music, checking the weather, and setting both timers and alarms.


How Can Virtual Assistants Help CIOs?

Virtual assistants can help CIOs by looking things up for them. The things that they can look up the best include facts and trivia. Each one of the available assistants can perform this task; however, studies have shown that Google’s Assistant does it the best. This tool almost always has the correct answer to the question that you have asked it.

One of the most popular tasks that CIOs can use their virtual assistants for is to control devices. What this means that you can use a virtual assistant to control smart-home gadgets like locks and lights. In order to be able to do this, you will first have to go out and purchase and install compatible products. Once again studies have been conducted to determine which virtual assistant performs this task the best and this time around the winner was Apple’s Siri.

Once you have ordered something, you have created a task that your virtual assistant will be able to repeat in the future. CIOs have discovered that virtual assistant-guided shopping generally does not work out all that well. The reason for this is because it requires too much explaining from you. There is an exception to this rule. If you order the same item over and over again then your assistant should be able to help you out. Your digital assistant should be able to place this type of order in just seconds. The virtual assistant that performs this task the best is Alexa.

One of the tasks that CIOs do repeatedly during a day is to place phone calls and send text messages. It turns out that this is a task that virtual assistants are very good at helping CIOs perform. In order to send a text message, all you have to do is to dictate it. Additionally, you can use your digital assistant to add things to your to-do list or to your calendar. The virtual assistant who does this the best is Apple’s Siri.


What All Of This Means For You

CIOs are very busy people. What this means is that there never seems to be enough time in the day for us to get everything that we need to get done accomplished. What we need is some help and digital assistants are one way that we can accomplish more during a day. There are many to choose from, but we also have to determine how best to make use of them.

CIOs can use their digital assistants to look things up. Facts and trivia research are among the best things to use a digital assistant to do. Digital assistants can be used to control devices. In order to allow this to happen, smart-home gadgets will first have to be bought and installed. Orders that you place over and over again are good candidates to have your digital assistant take over doing. Placing phone calls and sending text messages are also things that a virtual assistant can do very well.

CIOs need to find ways to rely on their virtual assistants for more than just setting timers and playing music. What they do very well are the small repetitive things that we all do every day. These can be delegated to your virtual assistant. You just might be impressed at what your virtual assistant is able to do for you. However, this technology is still new and so you need to make sure that you don’t ask it to do too much for you.


– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Department Leadership Skills™


Question For You: Can you think of anything that you should not ask a virtual assistant to do for you?


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