Issue link: https://resources.mouser.com/i/1442826
4 AI Cloud-based voice assistants are embedded in a multitude of devices, but by far the most common implementations are those in over a billion smartphones (e.g. Siri). However, probably the most frequently used voice assistants are those built into smart speakers, such as Amazon's Echo products, numbering over a hundred million shipped to date. We are also beginning to see voice assistant capability built into a variety of connected smart home devices, including light switches, thermostats, smoke detectors, and major kitchen appliances. Initially, voice assistants like Siri were only available as push- to-talk implementations, but today many designs offer hands- free capability using a wake word such as, "Hey Google," to activate the automatic speech recognition (ASR) engine. Most wake word activated designs, including all smart speakers, are By Rick Bye, Senior Marketing Manager, NXP IoT Solutions Voice, the UI of the Future is Finally Here O ver fifty years ago, science fiction writers imagined a future with the voice as the primary human-machine interface, but only recently, with the advent of voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa™, Google's Voice Assistant™, and Apple's Siri™, have such capabilities become almost ubiquitous. Artificial intelligence and machine learning, combined with big data, cloud computing, and high- performance edge computing, has made possible the reality of speaker independent voice-controlled virtual assistants with natural language understanding (NLU) capability. ❝ ❞ NXP MCUs and MPUs allows natural language understanding (NLU) for voice control implementation in the cloud or at the edge.