As consumers benefit from having voice-activated digital assistants for personal use, adoption of this technology in the enterprise has been slowly growing. A new tool crafted specifically for office workers could propel enterprise acceptance.

What Did JLL Announce This Week?

Commercial real estate firm JLL announced that it is launching a new Google-powered smartphone app (named JiLL) designed for enterprise use only. By accessing the artificial intelligence (AI) digital assistant app by voice or text, workers will be able to streamline tedious office tasks.

"Consumers feel empowered in centrally managing their digital experiences at home and on the go. However, at work, simple tasks are siloed and can be frustrating," said Vinay Goel, Chief Digital Product Officer, JLL. "JiLL leverages JLL's vast datasets about buildings, user interactions and transactions with physical spaces to provide a personalized and intelligent conversational interface that matches employees' consumer experiences. Over time, we expect JiLL to become an essential platform for hundreds of skills that help employees improve their daily productivity."

JiLL, which runs on the Google Cloud, is the first product launched by JLL’s new in-house software team called JLL Labs. The company worked closely with Google during the development of the app.

Unlike other digital assistants in the enterprise, JiLL will be able to capitalize off of the company’s vast commercial real estate knowledge. Over the years, JLL has collected data from all of the buildings that it operates. For example, JLL already knows the office layouts for its current tenants —right down to the floorplans, desks, and even the locations of printers.

By translating Google’s consumer-oriented technology, JLL will be able to provide enterprise customers with an app that essentially acts like an admin in a mobile device. JiLL can simplify tedious tasks, such as locating conference rooms, scheduling meetings, locating workers, or filing service requests. The tool integrates with Microsoft 365 and Google G’s Suite.

Later this summer, JLL will test out the new app with a group of selected enterprise customers. After the pilot, the company plans to roll it out across the enterprise later this year.

"We understand that our success is linked to attracting and retaining talent," said Jim Pazzaglia, Director-Global Business Services P&G, one of the companies participating in the pilot. "Providing digital technologies that reduce employee friction points and resemble the functionality our employees are accustomed to using outside of work helps grow our organizational productivity."

What Does This Mean For The Enterprise?

Virtual AI assistants are still rare in the enterprise. Although there are plenty of voice-activated assistants in the market — including Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, and the Google Assistant — these tools were not designed for office workers’ smartphones. JiLL stands out because it was built for workplace settings.

Demand for these solutions is on the rise, especially with more automation in the workplace. In order for tools, such as JiLL, to succeed, they must integrate with already existing enterprise applications and workplace devices.

Earlier in 2019, two reports suggested that the rise of these tools in the enterprise is inevitable. An ISG study concluded that every employee will someday have access to a personal digital assistant. Meanwhile, Gartner found that 25% of all digital workers will already have a digital assistant by 2021.