Devices that run intelligent assistants locally

The intelligent assistants we’re currently using — think Siri, Cortana, and Google Now — need an Internet connection and a lot of data to answer your questions and respond to your requests. But in the future, we’ll have smartphones, tablets, and wearables equipped with intelligent assistants that perform deep learning tasks locally. As Alex Brokaw reported recently for The Verge, MIT researchers have developed a computer chip that would enable your smartphone to complete complex AI tasks, like natural language processing and facial recognition, without being connected to the Internet.

In the latest attempt to fulfill sci-fi movie fantasies, tech firms have been lining up to provide you with a virtual assistant. From well-known voice-powered AIs such as Apple’s Siri to upstarts like Viv, the goal is to quicken the actions you already take on your phone and other devices, growing ever-more efficient at the job by learning from your behavior. But like any hired help, each of these AI assistants has different skills, blind spots, and quirks. Here’s a rundown of the contenders, including some intriguing newcomers.

That would not only save your battery, but also alleviate some of the privacy concerns inherent with assistants, which have so far sent data to remote servers to parse and respond to your requests. Improving speech recognition technology will make it easier to get things done with AI and chatbots, and enable our devices to better understand what we’re saying and what we want to do.