In Rosie We Trust...how are families using virtual assistants?

Screenshot from The Jetsons, with 'Rosie the Robot Maid' on the right - Virtual assistants, which use speech recognition to carry out a growing number of tasks, are becoming increasingly popular. We still do not know much about how families with young children are using this new type of smart software, and UvA communication scientists are now set to study this in greater depth. Virtual assistants (VA) are software programmes that use artificial intelligence (AI) to understand voice commands and carry out tasks for their users. These VAs are becoming more accessible to people all around the world. For many of us, the introduction of Apple's Siri smartphone interface will have marked the first time we interacted with a virtual assistant. However, the subsequent spread to physical devices such as the smart Google Home speaker helped achieve greater accessibility and adoption. According to current estimates, over 1.8 billion people will be using VA by the year 2021.