Editing Introduction of Voice Assistants (section)

== Historical Context ==

=== Early stages of virtual assistants ===
The development of virtual assistants has come a long way since the early days of computer science. The very first voice recognition system was [[IBM Shoebox|Shoebox]], developed by IBM in the 1960s, which could only recognize 16 words and a few digits. Nonetheless, it was a real revolution for the field.

As ASR technology progressed, text-based virtual assistants were implemented. The first text-based virtual assistant, or “chatbot”, of the modern era was Clippy<sup>[[Introduction of Voice Assistants#Notes|2]]</sup>, the famous Microsoft paperclip assistant, released in late ‘90 for Microsoft Office on Windows computers, but in fact, chatbots have existed since Alan Turing’s first machine in 1950<ref>Turing, A.M. (2009). Computing Machinery and Intelligence. In: Epstein, R., Roberts, G., Beber, G. (eds) Parsing the Turing Test. Springer, Dordrecht. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6710-5_3</nowiki>.</ref>. The first chatbot ever created was ELIZA<ref>Weizenbaum, Joseph (1966). ELIZA—a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine. Commun. ACM 9, 1 (Jan. 1966), 36–45. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1145/365153.365168</nowiki>.</ref>. It was based on a pattern-matching algorithm and it simulated a psychotherapy session, and could only answer a limited set of questions.

Since the very beginning of Computer Science, there has been a keen interest in communicating with machines, particularly through voice. This is due to the significant role that voice and spoken language play in human communication and culture<ref>Humphrey, J., & Chesher, C. (2021). Preparing for smart voice assistants: Cultural histories and media innovations. ''New Media & Society'', ''23''(7), 1971–1988</ref>. The first consumer-oriented voice recognition system was [[Dragon Dictate]]. This program had some recognition difficulties but later on, these were overcome, which is where the first Voice Assistants were created.

The very first system of speech recognition, which enabled later Voice Assistants to work on a vast scale, was developed by Windows engineers around 2004 and released in 2007 alongside the Windows Vista operating system. Although not precisely a virtual assistant, the technology implemented made it possible to give simple spoken instructions to the system and dictate text to it<ref>Brown, Robert. "Exploring New Speech Recognition And Synthesis APIs In Windows Vista". MSDN Magazine. Microsoft. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008. Retrieved June 26, 2015.</ref>.

=== The advent of Siri ===
In October 2011, Apple Inc. introduced [https://www.apple.com/siri/ Siri]<ref>iPhone 4S launched by Apple, Charles Arthur, Juliette Garside and Josh Halliday, Tue 4 Oct 2011 20.58 BST. ''The Guardian'' (online).</ref> alongside the iPhone 4S<sup>[[Introduction of Voice Assistants#Notes|3]]</sup>, marking the emergence of what we now recognize as a voice assistant. Siri was a groundbreaking development, utilising advanced Machine Learning technology and Natural Language Processing, first developed as a research project at Stanford University's Center for Computation and Natural Language in 2003<ref>The history of Siri and its impact on today's technology. Victor Sanchez. Mar 17, 2023. ''RoutineHub Blog''.</ref>. Upon its release, Siri generated excitement and apprehension from the public<ref>Apple introduces Siri, Web freaks out, Doug Gross, published 6:19 PM EDT, Tue October 4, 2011. ''CNN.''</ref>, akin to the reception of LLM-based bots today. As the first natively implemented voice "personal assistant" in a phone, Siri was initially regarded as a source of amusement, but it has since become one of the most commonly used virtual assistants<ref>Siri Remains The Most Used Mobile Voice Assistant by Patrick Wagner, Jun 29, 2018. US data. ''Statista.com''</ref>.

=== The Era of Voice Assistants ===
Since Siri’s debut in 2011, many other tech companies have introduced their Voice Assistant (VA) systems, enhancing their speech recognition algorithms with the release of new voice bots nearly every year until 2017. The second VA to emerge in the marketplace was Google Now, introduced during the winter of 2012. Google Now was considered to have outperformed Siri<ref>Google Now wins ‘Innovation of the Year’ award, runs laps around ‘outdated’ Siri. Brad Reed. Updated Nov 15th, 2012 5:17 PM EST. ''BGR.com''</ref>, for its capacity to proactively meet user needs by accessing data such as calendar, location, and other user-specific information. 

Google Now was followed by Microsoft’s [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cortana Cortana]<sup>[[Introduction of Voice Assistants#Notes|4]]</sup>, presented at the BUILD developer conference on the 2nd of April 2014. Cortana not only was able to retrieve information from the user’s devices, as Google Now did, but it was also able to use Bing knowledge graph [https://searchengineland.com/bing-snapshots-people-places-things-satori-152460 Satori] to enhance online searches. The formal release of Cortana happened in 2015, together with the introduction of the new Windows 10 operating system.

In the meantime, in 2014 Amazon's [https://alexa.amazon.com/ Alexa] disrupted the market by becoming the first standalone voice assistant. Alexa not only had a better machine-learning algorithm, but when it was launched, Amazon announced that it would have its own separate device, namely Amazon Echo, which was released only one year later in the US, and two years later in the UK and Europe. Until this release, voice assistants were part of other, more complex products (e.g. PCs, smartphones), Alexa together with Amazon Echo was the first stand-alone VA<sup>[[Introduction of Voice Assistants#Notes|5]]</sup>.

In 2016, Google entered the VA arena with Google Assistant, initially accessible exclusively through the messaging app [https://allo.google.com/ Allo], followed by its release for Google smart devices, particularly Google Home, later that year.

The latest company to enter the VA market was Samsung, which released its assistant Bixby only in 2017. Probably as a consequence of this late arrival, Bixby never affirmed itself on the market, remaining in the back rows of Voice Assistants.