I’m going to do something I rarely do and make a straight-up prediction – I think we are close to having AI apps that will function as our all-purpose digital assistants. That’s not really a tough call, we already have digital assistants and they are progressing rapidly. So I am just extending an existing trend a little bit into the future. My real prediction is that they will become popular and people will use them. Predicting technology is often easier than predicting public acceptance and use (see the Segway and many other examples.) So this is more of a risky prediction.

I know, for those who lived through the early days of personal computers, if you mention “personal digital assistant” the specter of “Clippy” immediately comes to mind. Such assistants can be intrusive and annoying. That has something to do with the fact that they are intrusive and annoying, coupled with the fact that they are not that useful. Siri and similar apps are great for a few things – acting as a verbal interface for Google searchers or serving up music, or basic functions like setting an alarm on your phone. But I am talking next level. Siri is to the AI-fueled assistants I am talking about as the PDAs of the 80s and 90s are to the smartphones of today.

With that analogy I am getting into real tricky prediction territory – predicting a transformative or disruptive technology. This is the kind of technology that, shortly after using it regularly you lose the ability to conceive of life without it. Nor would you want to go back to the dark days before your life was transformed. Think microwave, the ability to record and play pre-recorded content for TV, the web, GPS, and the smartphone. This is what Segway wanted to be.

Clearly I am thinking of some idealized version of a personal AI assistant, and I am. But there is no reason we can’t get there. All the elements are already there, someone just has to put it all together in a functional and pretty package (like the iPhone). Microsoft thinks we are one year away from such an application, and clearly they are planning on being the ones to bring it to market. They will likely have competition.

Let’s think first about what a personal AI assistant can be in that idealized form, and then consider the potential downsides. I am envisioning an app that lives on multiple of your electronic devices – your phone, tablet, laptop and desktop. It uses all the devices you do and is always there for you. You can interact with it by voice or text. It has access to whatever information you give it access to, such as your calendar, contact list, accounts, passwords, and digital assets. And essentially it can do anything you want within those digital contents at a command. It can manage your schedule, take the initiate to remind you about upcoming appointments or deadlines, and schedule new events.

Further, it can sift through your e-mail, getting rid of spam, warning about dangerous e-mails, organizing the rest by priority or whatever scheme you wish, even respond to some e-mails automatically or by your command. It can interact with all your other apps – “Find the quickest route to my destination, load it up into GPS, and remind me 10 minutes before I have to leave.” Or you can tell it to prepare a summary for you on some topic, after searching the web for the latest information. It can manage your computer hygiene – “Your anti-spyware software is out of date, and there is a notice of a virus coming you are not protected from. Shall I download and install the update?” You can tell it to always download and install security updates without asking first. Yes – Windows can already to this, for Windows, but not third party apps.

A feature I would love to see – find me flights with these parameters, or you could tell it to book you a hotel, rental car, or anything. It knows your preferences, your frequent flyer numbers, your seating preferences, and which airports you prefer. Or you could ask it to find 20 gift options for Mother’s Day.

What will make an AI assistant better than anything that has come before (using the new AI tech) is that it can remember all of its interactions with you and learn. Over time, it becomes more and more personalized. It will know when not to disturb you, for example. It will learn to become less annoying and more helpful, as you learn how best to leverage this technology. This kind of tech has the potential to relieve a significant amount of the digital drudgery that we have foisted upon ourselves. I know some people will say – just disconnect. But that is not a viable option for many people, and we should not have to surrender all the benefits of computers simply to avoid that drudgery.

What about the downsides? The biggest potential weakness is that such apps will just suck. They won’t do their jobs well enough to reduce your digital burden. They can also be a security risk, if they have access to all your personal information. Security would need to be an iron-clad feature of such apps. They can also just get information wrong. This is a universal problem with the latest crop of AI, the so-called hallucinations. But this is something the industry is working on and it is getting better. It’s also less of a problem with focused (rather than open-ended) tasks.

There will eventually also be some optional features that some people will want in such an app, such as personal AI counseling or life-coaching. This can have different levels. At its most basic level, the AI can be just a rational friend who is a good listener, and gives really basic time-tested and expert-approved advice. It can function as a first-level counselor who is always there for you, and remembers all your previous conversations. You can select its personality, and level of intrusiveness. You may be able to have certain optional “nag” settings, such as keeping you on that diet, or reminding you not to be too sarcastic. It could make you more thoughtful, reminding you of all the social niceties that often slip through the cracks of our busy lives.

Then there will be those features that I am not thinking of, but that someone will think of when you have hundreds or even thousands of companies competing with each other and using feedback from billions of users. There may also be negative unintended consequences, and culture wars about social engineering. We will have to see how it all shakes out.

But I stick by my prediction – the potential of relieving us of digital drudgery and all the potential value-added of such an AI assistant – when it works really well – is just too great. I do think this will be like the next smartphone. We will probably know soon enough.

Note: I suspect the comments will fill with people giving examples of how the various pieces of this functionality already exists. I know, and I use a lot of them. You can cobble together password managers, an app to go through your photos, a schedule reminder, and e-mail sorters. Individual applications of a smartphone also predated the smartphone. The power was having everything in one device. Same here – one AI to bring it all together and add new functionality.