For those of you who don’t know what the Siri Personal Assistant is, you may not believe me when I tell you. Siri is the first widespread commercial artificial intelligence application. It was just released for the iPhone and can book flights, hail taxes, suggest restaurants to eat at, and so much more.
I decided to give Siri a try. Okay, maybe I HAVE been anticipating this for about a year. Anxiously opening the application on my iPhone, I found Siri to be very impressive. I asked it to tell me a joke. It did. I asked it to suggest some nice Italian restaurants, it did – plus a Chinese one (not sure why). One co-worker asked Siri why it was slow (I disagree), it replied, “Because that’s just the way I am.” Very funny.
The whole idea behind Siri is that it will help you do things. Instead of going on the web to search for information, Siri helps people narrow information down to the essentials. That’s helpful, but will it be more of a spending temptation for those of us who are trying to keep expenses down? If Siri makes it easier for us to buy, will we buy more? Or will it help us save money by finding the best price for an item or service?
Overall, I think the team at Siri did a great job of leaving that choice up to the user. Siri is very unobtrusive and allows you to ask questions that don’t necessarily push you towards a transaction. For example, you can check the weather, find the distance to a city, or ask it just plain fun questions!
I’m excited about Siri. I think it represents a new domain in search that understands intent rather than just heaping a bunch of results on a page.
For those who are financially disciplined, Siri can help you with your frugality. For those of you who are quick to whip out your array of cards, maybe you should skip this one.
Give Siri a try, and tell me what you think in the comments!
! John wrote two articles for the book: "Budgeting for Groceries" and "How Grocery Stores Work."
