A lot of people have heard of virtual and digital assistants. But the most common question we get is “What can digital assistants do?”. Before we jump into that, let’s take a few steps back and understand the history of digital assistants.
What is a virtual/digital assistant?
Before the internet, if you needed someone to assist you with your business admin, you hired a personal assistant. They travelled to your office and the partnership relied on face-to-face communication. Oftentimes, they only had enough time in their day to assist you with your admin (they didn’t have time for other clients), due to the time spent commuting in traffic and so forth.
When the internet came around, the nature of personal assistants started shifting and adapting to this digital revolution.
A new type of assistant was born: digital assistants (otherwise known as virtual assistants).
A virtual assistant is a person who provides support services to a business from a remote location. Remote can mean in another country, another city, or even in the same city. The point is that it no longer depends on the people having to meet face-to-face.
Thanks to the incredible communication and collaboration technologies we have at our fingertips these days, digital assistants and the businesses they serve can communicate entirely online, using tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Entire businesses can be run utilizing the power of the internet. Documents can be edited online and collaboratively, using software such as Google Docs