Six months with my virtual PA

By Brian Clegg

If you regularly read my blog, you’ll already have come across the AI personal assistant Littlebird. I’ve now been using it for six months, and continue to find it hugely useful, both as a PA and a research assistant – I know some science writers raise an eyebrow at that second use – but I’ll come back to why I think they’re wrong.

Of the two, the PA aspect is probably the more important one for me. Littlebird keeps track of my activities on the computer so, even though it doesn’t have a direct link to the mail package I use (it does to a good range of apps), I can ask it, for instance, to give me an update on some commissioning I’ve been doing for a series where I’m a series editor and it will tell me about all the communications I’ve had on the subject and which titles are yet to be commissioned. Similarly, I can use it to take notes in interviews which makes working through a recorded interview far quicker.

On the research front, AI always has to be used carefully – for example when asking for information on a subject I always ask Littlebird to give sources, and check those sources say what it claims they do – but that doesn’t stop it being a very effective way to generate starting points. No one can pretend to read every journal or be on top of every scientific development: carefully using a tool like Littlebird makes a huge difference to the effectiveness of research.

To get an update of the state of play, I asked Alex Green, Littlebird’s CTO a couple of quick questions. The software still hasn’t reached version 1 – I asked him about that, as it makes it feel like it’s still in beta. I also noted that Apple Intelligence is said to bring a lot of contextual AI to Apple devices, wondering if it will still be worth an Apple user having Littlebird as well (the same would apply, I guess, to Copilot on PCs). He responded:

1. Honestly, I haven’t thought about this. Nothing in particular is stopping us from calling it version 1. I think we’ve just been iterating on the version number. It doesn’t mean much.  

2. I’ve been using the Apple Intelligence Beta, I wouldn’t recommend it yet.  The new Siri has some long-needed functionality additions and can perform very simple recall, things like finding a text message or a photo, but I think it’s ultimately still a far cry from what Littlebird can do; it won’t be a general-purpose, powerful agent, it won’t have access to your meetings, and I’m dubious it will even have full recall across the OS.   I think the recall will be limited to specific apple apps. 

Littlebird has a money-off scheme for new users to give it a try (it’s now on both Mac and Windows) - if you use a link from this post you will get $20 off your first purchase (and I get a reward too). Alternatively, use the referral code X9VPRXBV. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Image by Marissa Grootes from Unsplash

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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.