Virtual Assistants, over the decades, have several meanings. One – Personal assistants that provide their services remotely. Two – AI based assistance that helps with everyday work and life tasks Three – All tasks done manually that have now moved to the online space. These include any and every service such as virtual vehicle wrapping, virtual delivery of food, virtually driven cars, so on and so forth. This trend has, in turn, lead to the development of other surrogate services that develop and invest in these technologies such as – tech start-ups like Tesla, various online services providers such as – a digital marketing company, and internet marketing agencies, food delivery companies etc and technology giants such as Google and Apple. For the sake of the article, we will be looking at Virtual Assistants one and two. The third area is being changed as we speak and will warrant its own space. In this article, we will see how both virtual assistants – Remote and AI-based can help make your work life easier.
Virtual Assistants (PA who work remotely)
One search on freelance job sites such as Upwork, Freelance and numerous ads for virtual assistants will pop up. People employ them for numerous reasons – admin related tasks, tech-related tasks, photo-shop related and marketing related tasks. Whatever the requirement, they are willing to seek assistant virtually.
Virtual Assistants have numerous benefits
- Reduced costs of labour, as these services are charged per hour, the need to hire a full-time assistant is low. You can access their services for a short-term, or on an hourly basis and save a ton on labour costs. Another benefit, you don’t have to think about paid vacation or sick leaves, payroll taxes, employee benefits etc, which you would have to provide for a full-time employee.
- Increased Efficiency, since the virtual assistant can come in and handle smaller everyday tasks for you, you are free to focus on making better profits, coming up with growth strategies, developing wider sales channels etc. Basically undertaking tasks that help you expand and grow your business.
- No need for office space, this is ideal for individuals who work from home or from a common work-sharing space. They also help you save up on agency fees
- Saving Money, you don’t need to spend money on employee training or pay overtime.
- Better Services, since these individual work on a client to client basis, they depend on client referrals to get more work, this ensures they maintain the superior quality of services in order to keep their livelihood
- Improved Productivity amongst other employees, this translates into profit for smaller businesses as their main resources can concentrate on bigger tasks at hand and can delegate mundane, time-consuming tasks to the VAs, which helps them increase productivity which in turn benefits the organization.
Listed above are few of the benefits from virtual assistants, there are many more. Don’t believe us. Let 19 entrepreneurs tell you about their beneficial experience with virtual assistants.
Virtual Assistants (AI-based)
Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, Cortana, Bixby and Watson all six are AI virtual assistants that can make a phone call, search for any information on the net, tell you the weather, set reminders, make edits/activate your phone/PC settings, book cabs and much more. These are all new age artificial intelligence assistants that are available to us. Can they replace human assistance or they have advances to master before they match up to human intelligence? With NLP (Natural Language Processing) this reality may occur sooner than we anticipated. Let’s find out some of the benefits they serve for your work/business.
- Relevant Results, the AI tech adapts to the user’s natural speech and commands and over time develops a process to cull out and serve a few relevant options rather than flooding the search with numerous irrelevant options.
- Chatbots help better consumer experience on an e-commerce or service website. Also, the collected data allows it to familiarise with a users shopping pattern and make relevant suggestions based on that history. This article explores the benefits of chatbots against VAs.
- Increased connectivity. In this technology-driven world, any individual or organization relies on data/information transmission across various devices. The AI tech comes in handy, especially when syncing data sources across various devices such as smartphones, desktops, laptops, I-pads and other electronic devices.
- Enhanced productivity, AI assistants eliminate or improve certain repetitive mundane functions, for instance, Amy, a virtual assistant culls through the clutter of emails to set up meetings. Similarly, with the advent of technology, AI assistants will become better in extracting data from sources such as Slack, Alexa and We chat.
- Bridging the gap between, these assistants are helping individuals adjust or even prepare for a more tech-dependent eco-system, it helps them familiarise with advanced technology in their work environment and personal spaces.
- Deriving reports and insights, there are vast amounts of data available at our fingertips, however, there needs to be a system to cull through it and bring forth relevant analysis and reports, this process can be automated via virtual assistants.
It is quite evident from the information that both these forms of assistance have their merits. While human assistants at the moment have an edge over the virtual ones, the technology is soon catching up. As we speak advances are being made to recognize the natural pattern of human speech and to gather intelligence when served with a command and to serve better results when faced with the same or a similar command in the future. This ability to adapt can serve beneficial in the future when it comes to reducing human efforts to carry out mundane and repetitive tasks. While both methods operate at two different tangents, the result, in the end, is to improve the efficiency and productivity amongst the users. As of today, virtual human assistants steal the cake and provide their employers with a host of benefits. They can be the solution for small and medium-size businesses in improving their work without increasing the work staff.