AI is being woven into almost every emerging technology on the near and long-term horizon – and one of the key areas that will impact people on an everyday basis will be voice interfaces.

Home assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, and voice activated interfaces like Siri, Google are Cortana can be so convenient - but what you may not realize is that in order to do these things, the software that's built into our smartphones, devices and these days even our computer systems is always on and is always listening. 

We’re going to see voice integrated into almost every gadget that we can think of – including our smartphones, computers, cars, and homes. And, more and more businesses will have voice activated chatbots and other apps. But what happens if we have a cold and the voice interface doesn’t recognise us? Or we’re travelling and the local voice interface doesn’t recognise our accent? There are some really funny videos that show where voice-activated AI can go wrong!

It's important to be aware of how technologies can assist us in our business and personal lives, as well as the flip side of having third parties that are always listening, always collecting data, and perhaps selling it to others.