For our human ancestors, as their brains evolved, so did their language, from signs and sounds to a more sophisticated form of oral speech, which made them capable of having complex conversations to form the social ties required for their survival. Unlike written communication, oral speech leaves no traces of its own, hence it was hard for historians to calculate an exact date for the origin of speech. However, using various methods, historians have speculated that speech was developed 300,000 years ago, symbols 30,000 and writing 7,000 years ago. Ever since then, humans have been putting speech and voice to various creative uses.

In this chapter, we shall explore one such use of our voice, the ability to command interactive voice-based personal assistants to perform specific tasks at will. Also before that, we will also understand what an intelligent voice-based personal assistant is, what needs it fulfills, and what voice-based personal assistants are available (including Alexa) in the current market by going through the following topics:

So, let's move on to our first topic.