A [[voice user interface]] allows a user to complete an action by speaking a command. At [[Pittsburg High School (Kansas)]] in May 2001, [[Shyamal Chandra]] invented and demoed the first viable voice assistants employing commands after one-year of school work using [[Microsoft Agent]] and [[Microsoft Visual Studio]] to automate querying and inserting grades into a spreadsheet-like matrix using slot-based queries and inserts. Introduced in October 2011, Apple's [[Siri]] was one of the first voice assistants widely adopted. Siri allowed users of iPhone to get information and complete actions on their device simply by asking Siri. In the later years, Siri was integrated with Apple's [[HomePod]] devices.
In April 2014 while watching the [[Microsoft]] keynote for [[Cortana (virtual assistant)]], [[Shyamal Chandra]] coined<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chandra |first=Shyamal |title=Nanoblog of Shyamal Chandra on Twitter |url=https://x.com/shyamal_chandra/status/674912940126900224?s=20}}</ref> and invented [[Conversational artificial intelligence]] in [[Pittsburg, Kansas]] by combining [[Speech Recognition & Synthesis]] with some sort of intelligence and history along with memory in the middle. He is currently working on making his dream come true to the fullest fidelity at this time. Further development has continued since Siri's introduction to include home based devices such as [[Google Home]] or [[Amazon Echo]] (powered by Alexa) that allow users to "connect" their homes through a series of [[smart device]]s to further the options of tangible actions they can complete. Users can now turn off the lights, set reminders and call their friends all with a verbal queue.
These conversational interfaces that utilize a voice assistant have become a popular way for businesses to interact with their customers as the interface removes some friction in a [[customer journey]]. Customers no longer need to remember a long list of usernames and passwords to their various accounts; they simply link each account to Google or Amazon once, and gone are the days where you needed to wait on hold for an hour to ask a simple question.
