Our willingness to do a task depends on the task’s innate complexity and novelty. Humans are more interested in doing stuff that they haven’t tried before or tasks that are complex enough to require a specific skill-set to perform. Menial tasks like reading emails, updating calendars, scheduling meetings, and finding restaurants tend to consume a big part of our valuable time. Unless you have a Donna to your Harvey, you have to waste your time on doing these tasks. However, hiring a personal assistant may not be economically viable for everyone. Besides, it takes a lot of time to develop an understanding with your assistant, before your life becomes easy. Now, you can experience having a personal assistant without going through any hassle and most importantly, without burning a hole in your pocket. How? The answer is, a personal chatbot.

Can a personal chatbot match a personal assistant?

A personal chatbot is a piece of software on your digital devices, powered by Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks, which you can interact with like a friend. It offers, but is not limited to, the experience of chatting with a friend on an instant messaging platform. Almost all personal chatbots are capable of recognizing voice commands, thereby eliminating the trouble of typing out an entire task. This feature makes it more like an actual personal assistant listening to your commands. But wait, there’s more to it. An assistant has a set number of working hours and limitations to geographical relocation. A personal chatbot, on the other hand, is always with you, wherever you go, at any time of the day or the night. Personal assistants have limited knowledge or expertise over a topic, but a personal chatbot can access and process the vast ocean of information on Internet within seconds, and provide you with the relevant insights. Bonus feature – Unlike with a personal assistant, you do not have to worry about your chatbot judging you for the commands you send or the content you deal with. So, personal chatbots aren’t just matching personal assistants but in fact, exceling against them in most fields.

Privacy, Privacy, Privacy!

Now that you have a personal chatbot that can help you with everything, you suddenly realize that in the process it will know everything about you. The fact that its ultimately a software means that all your information will be stored remotely on a server. A security compromise on this server may eventually make so much information about you vulnerable to hackers, isn’t it?. Furthermore, not everyone wants a chatbot to be around all the time. Some people just need bots to sort emails and schedule meetings. To tackle such issues around privacy and security, chatbots can be designed to have customized involvement and access to personal data. Customizations can range from basic tasks, like email sorting and arranging meetings, to a fully immersive personal chatbot experience. With standard encryptions and security protocols in place, one can ensure that her data will remain secure even in the event of a security compromise.

Now, that the privacy concerns are dealt with and that we know how much better personal chatbots are, as compared to personal assistants, we can confidently assert that the days of having a personal assistant are over. It’s time for personal chatbots to take over!