When you think of all that we are able to accomplish in today’s world, it should come as no surprise that many of us have been getting help along the way. Cortana, Alexa, and other AI personal assistants help us shave time off of our days, giving us more space to just do what we do best (whatever that may be).
This is especially true for people who have a lot to do and not enough hours to do it in…aka all of us.
The below personal assistant skills grant added value for every day productivity, helping you save time, effort, and ease some of your tedious tasks. With them, you can become more productive day-to-day and appropriate your time to battle information overload accordingly. Even more, thanks to Artificial Intelligence, the personalized experience will become heaven sent, and perhaps with the benefits we will finally end up trusting our assistants.
Alexa Productivity Skills
Amazon’s Alexa is making its way into your home, car, iphone, and more with its growing offering of peripherals and skills offering.
While there are so many different skills, below you will find a few quick additions to help you with some day-to-day tasks…helping your productivity without missing a beat.
Calendar
This one goes without saying. Connect your Google or Outlook calendar to Alexa, enabling an assistant to let you know what’s coming up.
Just imagine getting a verbal list of your daily appointments and events as you brush your teeth or toast your slice of bread, a little extra help when your hands are busy with other things.
Send a Text
We’re busy doing many things, so having the ability to send a text by voice with Alexa around grants quick returns. As we’re getting ready in the morning tying our tie, we can simply ask Alexa to send a text and get an extra step ahead in the day.
Conference Call
While it isn’t anything new, conference calls aren’t as productive as they can be, a lot is due to the pain of trying to connect.
With this skill, Alexa will look for the conference meeting in your calendar, find the dial in info including the meeting and participant ID, and then call for you once it’s connecting. All you will have to do is answer the call and voila, you’re in the conference.
Leave a Voice Mail with Bulletin Board
A neat way to communicate with other Alexa users, leaving them voice messages they will hear once checking their “Bulletin Board”.
Cortana Productivity Skills
Microsoft’s Cortana aims to become your productivity bot. While it doesn’t have the plethora of skills just yet, it does grant added value by being offered across devices, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet (and speakers) and helps us stay in sync whether at our desk or on-the-go.
MyTime
During our day, we have a lot of work packed on our desk, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have any personal errands and appointment.
To help save us time from such tedious tasks there is MyTime, which checks availability in real-time from local businesses, as well as books and manages such appointments. With it, you can get things done while still staying focused at work.
Knowmail
Knowmail for Cortana uses Artificial Intelligence to learn your email habits and behaviors, and with it show you only your most urgent of emails so you don’t have to dig through your inbox for the one email that needs your attention right now.
Personal Shopping Assistant
Admit it, but even though you’re at work, you’re still browsing around for things to buy. If you’re anything like me, a lot of your time is spent finding the right product as well as the best place, price, and time to make the purchase.
With Cortana’s Personal Shopping Assistant, your browsed products are automatically remembered, and it finds best places to buy it along with automatic price alerts…so you don’t have to keep visiting the product page again and again in hopes you don’t miss the deal you’ve waited for.
TalkLocal
We’ve all been there, we need to get a plumber or another service professional, and we end up searching, calling, and wasting precious time just to find the one that’s right for us.
Now more assistance is granted thanks to TalkLocal, who browse for local service professionals to generate estimates. Talk about removing a huge time-consuming headache from your daily tasks.
Read more tips on increasing your productivity at TechCo
