Voice Assistants as Gatekeepers for Consumption? - How Information Intermediaries Shape Competition

Abstract

In December 2020, new regulation of digital markets was proposed by European Commission.It specifically addresses main concerns raised by business behavior of operators of core services in their gatekeeping positions. However, voice assistants (or digital personal assistants, DPAs, e.g. Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant) are not included into this regulation. In contrast, the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee of European Parliament suggested to include them. This paper argues that (i) voice assistants as gatekeepers for consumption should be listed among core services, (ii) some Digital Market Act's obligations need to be adopted to fit specifics of voice assistants, (iii) two relevant dimensions of power should be included into rebuttable presumptions used for competition policy and regulation: market power on voice assistants' market and ecosystem of related markets (cross-market integration criterion), (iv) growth of new gatekeepers should be prevented, among other means by stricter merger control.

A Bibliometric Exploration of Voice Assistants in HR and Marketing

“…Furthermore, it has been found that the role of voice assistants is important in the function of a better healthcare system during the global pandemic of COVID-19 globally. Therefore, it can be forwarded that voice assistants are important in the process of the market-based economy and human resources management in the post scenario of the pandemic of COVID-19 [26]. Because the effects of globalization provide a technical challenge for managing the function of a firm in a market-based economy, it has been discovered that the role of voice assistants in marketing and HR is facing many obstacles in the context of mergers and acquisitions [27].…”