Voice technology such as Amazon’s Alexa is continuing to peak interests in the commercial world as the idea of simply requesting an action and immediately and reliably having that action take place can significantly simplify workflows, reduce technical difficulties, increase safety and make meetings more effective.
Earlier this month, Crestron announced that they will be expanding their partnership with Amazon to include the voice-activated automation of Alexa to the commercial market. Crestron has been working with Amazon for over a year in the residential market providing homeowners with the power to simply voice a request and automatically close blinds, turn on the TV, turn on lighting or bring up a specific song. Now this new expansion will bring the same power to conference rooms. Users can ask Alexa to dial into a voice or video conference, bring up presentation materials onscreen, and adjust AV, lighting and HVAC using simple commands such as “Alexa, tell Crestron it’s too cold in this room.”
The healthcare industry has also been investigating ways to utilize voice technology in hospitals, clinics and doctors offices. From using voice technology to deliver medical information to patients at home to helping surgeons complete a list of tasks or even transcribing a doctors notes and documenting patient interactions, the applications are many and could be potentially life saving in some cases. Alexa is currently not HIPAA-compliant, which puts limits on some applications, but this could change, as Amazon is continually expanding its’ HIPAA compliance program.
