Personal Assistants for Human Organizations

Intelligent software personal assistants are an acti ve research area with the potential to revolutionize the way that human organizations operate, b ut there has been little research quantifying how they will impact organizational performance or how organizations will or should adapt in response. In this chapter we develop a c omputational model of the organization to evaluate the impact different proposed ass ist nt abilities have on the behavior and performance of the organization. By varying t he organizational structures under consideration, we can identify which abilities are mo st beneficial, as well as explore how organizations may adapt to best leverage the new technology. The results indicate that the most beneficial abilities for hierar chical organizations are those that improve load balancing through task allocation and failure rec overy, while for horizontal organizations the most beneficial abilities are those t hat improve communication. The results also suggest that software personal assistant t echnology will facilitate more horizontal organizations.