Digital Personal Assistant for the Enterprise

IT@Intel White Paper Intel IT IT Best Practices Employee Productivity and Compute Continuum February 2013

Executive Overview Virtual Assistant gives employees Intel IT is developing an enterprise-oriented digital personal assistant—Virtual the power to automate routine Assistant1—which takes into account where employees are and what they tasks—using user profiles to are doing, as well as the specific capabilities of the device being used. Virtual provide a personalized experience, Assistant gives employees the power to automate routine tasks—using user anticipating the employee’s profiles to provide a personalized experience, anticipating the employee’s needs, and filtering distractions so employees can focus on their most important tasks. needs, and filtering distractions As one employee stated: “Virtual Assistant will free me to do my job.” so employees can focus on their most important tasks. Digital personal assistants already exist in the We plan to deploy the first version of Virtual consumer environment; however, consumer Assistant in the first half of 2013 and are products do not meet Intel’s enterprise needs: already working on subsequent releases that will incorporate more functionality • Intel employees need workplace-related and use additional Compute Continuum information and services. capabilities such as speech recognition, natural • Digital personal assistants must meet language processing, touch, eye tracking, and Intel’s information security standards and gesture recognition. privacy principles. Through our efforts, Intel IT is providing • Intel employees need an assistant a significant proof point for the benefits that runs on all form factors including Intel’s Compute Continuum can bring to the business Ultrabook™ devices, laptops, enterprise. and desktop PCs.

1 In previous white papers, Virtual Assistant was referred to as Business Assistant.

John Dunlop Enterprise Architect, Intel IT Kraig Finstad Human Factors Engineer, Intel IT Rajeev Nanda Program Manager, Intel IT IT@Intel White Paper Digital Personal Assistant for the Enterprise

Contents Background and platforms, including notebooks, business Ultrabook™ devices, tablets, smartphones, and Emerging trends are driving a transition Executive Overview...... 1 mobile business PCs. from traditional client computing Background...... 2 models toward one in which employees Intel is developing a set of capabilities are increasingly using an expanding that will make it easier for developers and Virtual Assistant...... 2 continuum of devices—many of them ISVs to create applications that anticipate A Phased Implementation...... 4 personally owned—at work. Employees users’ needs and that work seamlessly Developing a Task-based expect these devices to enable them and collaboratively across all devices and User Interface...... 5 to access information anywhere, at any platforms. Many of these capabilities may Establishing the time. Based on their experiences with eventually lead to the development of new Underlying Architecture...... 6 such devices in the consumer world, Intel® services. Next Steps...... 7 Intel employees expect the same As a result of our efforts, Intel IT is providing level of interactivity and service to be Use Cases and Usage Models...... 7 significant evidence for the benefits Intel’s available in the corporate setting. In Compute Continuum (see sidebar) can Context Awareness and response to these expectations, Intel IT Perceptual Modalities...... 7 bring to the enterprise. Our work is helping studied emerging user experiences employees perform their jobs more efficiently Acronyms...... 8 and identified three for further and can help define enterprise requirements investigation.2 and use cases for Intel product groups as Conclusion...... 8 they develop products for the marketplace. One of these emerging user experiences is For More Information...... 8 Virtual Assistant, an enterprise-oriented digital personal assistant. Digital personal assistants are popular in the consumer marketplace for Virtual Assistant their ability to deliver information to the user Virtual Assistant3 is an enterprise- and perform tasks on their behalf. However, oriented digital personal assistant consumer-oriented digital personal assistants that provides Intel employees with do not provide the type of information Intel indoor navigation, resource location, employees need in the workplace, and they information relevant to their context are not secure enough to meet our security and preferences, and services when standards. Also, in the consumer marketplace they need them—just-in-time and voice modality is emphasized on these on-the-go. applications, whereas in an enterprise setting the availability of other modalities, such as Intel’s Virtual Assistant will allow employees touch and gesture, are also important. to automate routine tasks by recognizing the Consumer-oriented digital personal assistants individual employee to provide a personalized are primarily limited to use on small form factor experience, anticipating needs, and filtering IT@Intel (SFF) devices, such as smartphones. However, distractions so employees can focus on the The IT@Intel program connects IT in the corporate environment, this type of most important things they need to do—while professionals around the world with their application must run on all supported OSs respecting their privacy preferences. peers inside our organization – sharing lessons learned, methods and strategies. 2 Our goal is simple: Share Intel IT best For more information, refer to the white paper, “Enabling Emerging Enterprise Usages with 3 In previous white papers, Virtual Assistant was referred practices that create business value and Client-Aware Technologies,” February 2012. to as Business Assistant. make IT a competitive advantage. Visit us today at www.intel.com/IT or contact your local Intel representative if you’d like to learn more.

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Virtual Assistant features are based on the Virtual Assistant’s integrated capabilities and Table 1. Virtual Assistant capabilities following principles: task-oriented interface offer the following People-based Capabilities attributes: • Technology must work for and adapt to the • Check scheduled meetings employee, instead of the other way around. • A consistent and seamless user experience • Schedule an instant meeting • Today’s devices must be easy to use across devices in the Compute Continuum, • Look up information about a colleague in the corporate directory and manage. working independently and in tandem • Create a watch list of people, places, and • An employee’s devices must be able • A set of reusable capabilities, such as words to alert the employee, based on to communicate with each other, mapping or scheduling, that multiple specific rules to synchronize preferences and applications can access • Find a contact’s location personalization, and to share the content. • A way for capabilities to interact with • Find an expert one another • Integrate with other enterprise applications • Devices and applications must continue to to enhance the user experience (for example, learn, based on the employees’ behavior, • Application, email, text, speech, and initiate a voice call or an instant message selections, and preferences. camera-based interface methods session) • Spontaneous collaboration by inviting one or • Employees must be able to locate the Virtual Assistant takes into account where more people into a chat or voice session information they need when they need it. employees are and what they are doing, as Information-based Capabilities well as the specific capabilities of the device • Employees need more time to concentrate • Read Intel news in a magazine format being used. For example, Virtual Assistant on the task at hand. • Share information through a blog, micro-blog, provides turn-by-turn indoor navigation to and Twitter* Similar to a human professional assistant, help a business traveler find the conference Location-based Capabilities Virtual Assistant acts as a trusted advisor, room for his or her next meeting. reliably helping employees manage their • Browse information about a selected Intel campus complex work lives. Virtual Assistant allows Table 1 describes Virtual Assistant’s employees to automate routine tasks—using capabilities. Some of these capabilities are user profiles to provide a personalized not currently available and are planned for experience, anticipating the employee’s future releases. Specific form factors, such needs, and filtering distractions so employees as a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, and can focus on their most important tasks. specific use cases will include additional tasks and capabilities.

Intel’s Compute Continuum Most of the application-development industry is focused on consumer solutions. Intel IT’s Compute Continuum team is chartered with piloting solutions that provide similar efficiencies and user experiences in an enterprise setting. With more and more users bringing their consumer devices into the enterprise, these solutions must work seamlessly and coexist with consumer applications and services on the same device. Developing these applications is an opportunity to showcase Intel’s Compute Continuum and encourage the ecosystem to develop services focused on the enterprise. Intel’s Compute Continuum is a two-pronged initiative. It promotes on-platform silicon and firmware capabilities, embedded in Intel® architecture-based devices, as well as device-level capabilities that enable seamless access to information across a wide variety of devices. Intel’s Compute Continuum initiative also promotes a cloud services platform that provides services accessed through RESTful (representational state transfer) APIs. This platform enables developers to use Intel architecture to create solutions that work seamlessly and collaboratively across operating systems and devices. For example, the cloud services platform supports federated identity, user profiles, personalization, and recommendation engines, while providing the level of privacy that employees expect.

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A Phased Implementation Travel Guide uses indoor navigation to provide will filter incoming communications so that Ultimately, Virtual Assistant will support four walking directions using a visual map. the employee can be interrupted only by project team members and others that the primary usage models (Figure 1): In addition, the Business Travel Guide employee identifies. • Business Travel Guide can alert employees to the proximity of co-workers, based on their expressed Virtual Admin roams across an employee’s • Virtual Admin privacy preferences, and can check for devices, either assisting an employee on • Executive Admin mutual availability and the nearest available the current device or providing support • Collaboration Assistant conference room. With this technology, from a companion device, such as a employees can navigate confidently inside smartphone while the employee is working Our first release of Virtual Assistant is unfamiliar buildings and reach a destination on a laptop. Virtual Admin can analyze focused on the Business Travel Guide. on time—spending more time solving the activities occurring on all devices, Subsequent releases will add the Virtual Admin business problems and less time managing automatically ensuring access to the latest and Executive Admin usage models, as well travel logistics. file versions. This service will use Intel’s as further capabilities. On traditional PCs and Compute Continuum APIs and established business Ultrabook devices, we anticipate Subsequent Releases: connectivity and will be able to support that our work will be consistent with the Virtual Admin and Executive Admin device-to-device or device-to-cloud paths. Microsoft Windows* 8 user experience on Building on our first release, subsequent Intel® architecture. releases of Virtual Assistant will add Executive Admin capabilities (see “Next Steps”), which The Executive Admin understands the user’s Release 1: Business Travel Guide include providing three new usage models. goals and preferences and can use that When traveling for business, smartphone knowledge to gather the information the applications can help employees find Virtual Admin employee needs at the appropriate time, restaurants, hotels, shopping, and other Virtual Admin enables the employee providing visibility into layers of information non-work related services. But when in to sort requests from co-workers and across the enterprise. The Executive Admin unfamiliar surroundings on other Intel sites, people outside the company, services, and uses the employee’s current context to help employees may find it difficult to locate devices, according to defined and observed him or her decide what can be shared. This an available conference room, the nearest preferences, calendar availability, and the usage model also anticipates an employee’s printer, or even another employee. context of the work being performed at needs and is allowed to take action without The Business Travel Guide automatically the time. For example, if Virtual Admin being told every step. detects onsite resources and allows an senses that an employee might not get employee to select resources from a list. to his or her next meeting on time, it Collaboration Assistant These resources can include cafeterias, automatically notifies the meeting organizer The Collaboration Assistant usage model printers, available and unoccupied conference and optionally negotiates a new time to includes features such as the wireless use of rooms, ATMs, and emergency exits. Once the meet. Or if it recognizes the employee is in projectors and virtual whiteboards and the employee selects a resource, the Business “deep problem-solving mode” Virtual Admin ability to identify a participant in a meeting or conference call.

Business Travel Guide Virtual Admin Executive Admin Collaboration Assistant Locates available work and Recognizes work being performed Understands and anticipates Recognizes the employee's environment non-work-related services and and prioritizes requests; syncs employee goals and takes action and connects to usable tools; identiﬁes resources on and off campus documents across devices without being told every step participants in a meeting

Figure 1. Virtual Assistant will support four primary usage models.

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Developing a Task-based interfaces. Our standard nomenclature is based Table 2. Examples of object names on object and task description pairings. User Interface Task-based with In the consumer environment, most users Problematic Standard Nomenclature Nomenclature start an application by selecting the icon that Objects represents that application. Although this Every task must be associated with Find a Phone Number Campus Phone Numbers action becomes second nature for experienced an object, which serves as a form of Show Maps Campus Map users, the actual thought process behind the shorthand for the task itself. Objects can action involves an initial series of steps before make the process of searching for and Get Directions Walking Directions or a user can accomplish any work-related tasks. sorting information more meaningful for Driving Directions the employee. When defining an object, In contrast to an application-centric Locate Printers Printer Locations we avoid the use of common verbs such as environment, we found that a task-centric user “Get,” “Show,” or “Display, which might Set Preferences User Preferences interface offers more efficiency and provides make it difficult for an employee to easily a better user experience in an enterprise identify a task. So, for example, we use List Available Conference Room setting. By focusing on tasks, employees do Conference Rooms Availability Campus Map” instead of “Show Map,” and not have to deal with application names that “Walking Directions” or “Driving Directions” may be unrelated to the application’s purpose, instead of “Get Directions.” supplier names that dictate a folder structure that can make navigation difficult, and internal Using a task-centric system makes achieving project names that may not be meaningful in a goal easy and transparent to the user. a released product. Figure 2 shows how the Therefore, when defining objects, we avoid steps to start an application differ between idiosyncratic names; to that end, we do not an application-centric environment and a task- use application names or project names as centric environment. objects. Table 2 provides some examples of poorly constructed object names that rely Virtual Assistant groups application functions on verbs, compared to better constructed into tasks. To enable this capability, we have object names that clearly reveal the task’s established a standard nomenclature that functionality. enhances usability and lays the foundation for future voice and natural language processing

WalkingDirections or Driving Directions ShowShow directions walking to or location driving directions to location

CampusCampus Map Map DisplayDisplay campus campus map map Campus Phones CampusDisplay Phone phones Numbers for the current campus Display phones for the current campus Printer Locations PrinterShow Locations location of printers

Application-centric Environment Task-centric Environment 1 Learn the name of the application and the location of the 1 Find application quickly with easy-to-identify application, such as on the desktop, inside a particular folder, standard objects and nomeclature. or on a particular screen. 2 Start the application by selecting the task. 2 Recall the name and location of the application when it is needed. Search for the application, such as by browsing a folder, performing a keyword search, or by using favorites. 3 Recognize the application, often by its presentation as an icon. 4 Start the application by selecting the icon.

Figure 2. A task-centric user interface offers more efficiency and provides a better user experience in an enterprise setting.

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Task Descriptions of specific applications, the user is able to Campus Phones Display Phones for the current campus Beneath the name of each object we provide execute tasks based on a natural language a longer description of the task. In the task representation of them. Figure 3. A pairing of an object and a task description, we do use verbs such as “Get” description provides employees with detailed and “Show,” as the following examples show: Establishing the information about a task. • Display campus map Underlying Architecture We are using a mobile enterprise application • Find Intel employee platform (MEAP) to develop Virtual Assistant. • Display phones for the current campus This approach enables us to address specific Figure 3 shows an example of how an enterprise challenges associated with object/task pairing actually displays. security and privacy. For example, consumer- oriented digital personal assistants pose In Figure 3, the object “Campus Phones” is security and privacy risks because commands direct and avoids the use of verbs such as and searches performed by the user may “Show” or “Display.” The task description become publically available, consumer itself uses the verb “Display” and clarifies the applications may collect more information meaning of the object, without the use of an than the user wants them to, and consumer application or project name. application suppliers may use the collected Properly constructed, object-task pairings information for monetary gain. As shown in can provide a much more usable method of Figure 4, The MEAP enables Virtual Assistant, accessing system functions that minimizes running on an SFF device, to interface the cognitive load on the user. Instead of securely with our back-end services. having to remember locations and names

Virtual Assistant Middleware Server Access to Corporate Runtime Environment Data and Services

Query sent through Internet Secure response received Small Outer Inner Firewall Firewall Form Factor Demilitarized Zone Corporate Network Device Filters for privacy and secures access

Figure 4. Our mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) enables Virtual Assistant, running on a small form factor device, to interface securely with back-end services.

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We typically encourage developers to Next Steps a smartphone, tablet, PC (laptop, desktop, minimize native development because it or business Ultrabook device), or TV With Release 1 of Virtual Assistant requires multiple coding efforts for separate scheduled for release in the first • User awareness, which can identify the devices. Although our initial pilot uses a half of 2013, we are already looking employee using Virtual Assistant web portal, we are using a third-party MEAP ahead to Release 2 and beyond. In • Service discovery, which can determine product that allows us to create a hybrid web the second release, we plan to enable what services are available within the application container, which is a set of libraries new use cases and new usage models. employee’s vicinity Virtual Assistant uses to access services. We also expect to expand some of the This enables developers to take advantage • Connectivity and seamless transition other Compute Continuum solution of both native applications—and therefore between various form factors, which components, such as providing the capabilities of the underlying platform, includes user and session state capture more context awareness and more such as touch, voice, or sensors—and HTML5 and replay. The session state of the user perceptual modalities. applications. The hybrid container approach is transferred from one device to another enables developers to access Intel’s Compute seamlessly without losing any data, Continuum elements that would be difficult Use Cases and Usage Models content, or session state information to access using browser-based HTML5 only. Release 1 focuses on the Business Travel Context Awareness and The goal of our architecture is to make Virtual Guide usage model; Release 2 will add a Assistant simple to use for both developers blend of the Virtual Admin, Executive Admin, Perceptual Modalities and employees. In particular, it must be easy and Collaboration Assistant usage models. Over time Virtual Assistant will begin to use more components of Intel’s Compute for developers to add a new task in Virtual Release 2 will include the following capabilities: Assistant and integrate that task within the Continuum such as the context decision • Imitation of a human personal assistant, an Virtual Assistant framework so that the user framework, user and device profiles, ability to understand the user and perform experience is seamless. standardized location and navigation actions based on this understanding services, federated identity, and the We encourage developers to take advantage • Consistent experiences between Virtual connectivity framework. of underlying device capabilities through Assistant on PCs and Virtual Assistant on Virtual Assistant instead of building We plan to focus on building more context smartphones—a preference that Virtual capabilities from scratch. Also, we promote awareness into the platform and applications. Assistant learns on one system will be modular coding practices and functionally We will also expand the breadth of support remembered when the employee uses isolated sections of code. This approach for the OS and form factor, standardize more Virtual Assistant on another system results in reusable modules that can be of the underlying back-end services that will added or removed without impacting any • Improved location awareness, such as be developed, and incorporate additional user other code section. Finally, we prefer that knowing whether the employee is on or interface options such as voice recognition, developers use built-in Intel® technologies, off the Intel campus natural language processing, face and gesture recognition, eye tracking, and augmented reality. such as mapping capabilities, whenever • Device awareness, which can determine possible, instead of using third-party tools. whether Virtual Assistant is being used on

www.intel.com/IT 7 Conclusion We plan to release the first version of Virtual Assistant, which includes the Business Travel Traditional client computing models Contributors Guide usage model, in the first half of 2013. are giving way to a new Compute Sigeti Asi, Developer This release will provide employees with Continuum, where employees expect information about corporate resources, such as Samion Kuptiev, Developer to use a broad selection of devices printers or conference rooms; co-workers; and Ohayun Netanel, Developer at work, choosing a device based on other external points of interest, such as hotels Mark Reidman, Developer personal preference, work style, and or entertainment options. Future releases will the task to be accomplished. Employees expand the service offering to include other expect their devices to be interactive, to usage models such as Virtual Admin, Executive Acronyms work together, and to be able to access Admin, and Collaboration Assistant. MEAP mobile enterprise information anywhere, at any time— application platform similar to user experiences available SFF small form factor with consumer products. To support this trend, Intel IT is developing Virtual For More Information Assistant, an enterprise-oriented digital Visit www.intel.com/it to find white personal assistant that supports Intel’s papers on related topics: Compute Continuum initiative and uses many of its capabilities. • Companion white paper, “Enabling Emerging Enterprise Usages with Virtual Assistant will eventually, based on Client-aware Technologies” users’ privacy settings, be able to detect where employees are and what they are • Indoor navigation, “Getting a Headstart on doing, as well as the specific capabilities of Location-based Services in the Enterprise” the device being used. Intel’s Virtual Assistant empowers employees to automate routine tasks through the recognition of the individual user, anticipation of the user’s needs, and the filtering of distractions so employees can focus on their most important tasks.

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