Prior to Parks Associates’ 22nd-annual CONNECTIONS: The Premier Connected Home Conference, Manar Alazma, Vice President of Product Management, Nuance Communications spoke with analyst team to discuss AI, VR, and connected entertainment landscapes.

Manar participated on the Connected Ecosystems: Entertainment and Smart Home panel on Wednesday, May 23, at 4:00 PM. Panelists who joined him on this session include:

Rob Conant, CEO, Cirrent
John Driver, CEO, Lynx Technology
Scott Hancock, VP of Marketing, Plex
Arsham Hatambeiki, VP Corporate Product & Strategy, Universal Electronics Inc.

Given the continual increase in the number of connected products, how can providers ease consumer concerns associated with data security and privacy?

Data security and privacy concerns of connected products are one of the most important questions for the modern consumer. The modern home is filled with a countless number of connected products, virtual assistant platforms and online services, each with their own different levels of security and privacy considerations.

AI-powered voice biometrics, which relies on a user’s unique voice print, has emerged to offer consumers key safeguards and personalization capabilities for the devices and services they interact with every day. As more and more services like banking, e-commerce, and other customer service interactions become accessible through smart home devices like smart TVs and speakers, users will need a secure way to quickly authenticate themselves across their home.

By integrating voice biometrics into the smart home, providers can not only offer personalized access to content and services but can also enable secure transactions like bill pay and bank account management with the necessary level of security.

How will artificial intelligence (AI) impact the smart home, IoT, and connected entertainment landscapes in 2018 and beyond?

The entire entertainment industry is at a major inflection point as new technologies and connectivity options emerge that fundamentally change how people consume content. To differentiate, entertainment and service providers need to rethink the way they interact with their subscribers. Many have responded by embracing digital transformation strategies to build subscriber relationships through increased contextual, relevant, timely and personalized interactions.

Additionally, new streaming providers are bringing interactive digital engagement into the home, and are utilizing technologies like AI, augmented and virtual reality (AR & VR), and machine learning to create more personalized and engaging entertainment experiences for the modern media consumer.

Conversational AI is already at the cusp of providing groundbreaking interactive capabilities between digital entertainment and consumers, especially in connected gaming. For example, by integrating intelligent voice interactions, AR and VR into a video game, entertainment providers can open up an entirely new paradigm for players, and how they interact with characters, missions and overall experience throughout the game.

Furthermore, conversational AI is bringing value to interactive entertainment experiences, including new personalization and customization capabilities that further enable the possibility of life-like, two-way interactions that truly immerse a player within the gaming environment.

Have you seen any new cutting-edge innovations that could tip the smart home scale from early adopter to mass market adoption?

The modern smart home currently suffers from a fragmented and disjointed landscape of platforms, services, virtual assistants and IoT devices. The lack of interoperability is one of the most pressing issues currently affecting the consumer entertainment and smart home market.

Each virtual assistants has its own strengths and specialties, but today, they rarely communicate with each other or work together across devices – and it’s the consumer who loses out. This is primarily a result of consumers preferring one assistant over another for certain skills or strengths, brand preferences, and a distinct lack of interoperability among these platforms. Additionally, most major brands don’t want to be beholden to a proprietary platform of one of the tech giants, like Amazon or Google.

From across the smart home to services in the enterprise and beyond, today’s consumers connect with an expanding variety of IoT devices and voice-enabled assistants. That is why the need for a white-label, third-party virtual assistant has emerged that can seamlessly fold users’ preferred third-party AI into each interaction without compromising privacy, security, or the integrity of a branded user experience.

Nuance has introduced a technology like this called cognitive arbitration, which lets companies build their own platforms that are interoperable with Amazon, Google and other virtual assistants on the market. A solution like the cognitive arbitrator also solves one of the biggest consumer challenges of connected living: the hassle of choosing which device or virtual assistant to use and remembering its specific capabilities and vocabularies.

While there are privacy, listening, and data concerns around many of these services, this fundamental market shift around connected devices and virtual assistants in the smart home means that a whole new generation of smart home consumers will be able to better understand how to interact with these virtual assistants, and how their data is managed.

For more information on CONNECTIONS, visit: www.connectionsus.com.