[ghaff]

Even a digital assistant is really hard. For me, I'd love something that could handle a lot of my administrivia like booking travel. But the thing is that, if it's straightforward, it's really not a big deal. And if it's not straightforward, that's because there are a bunch of tradeoffs and decisions that would be hard for all but a good personal human assistant who knows your preferences well.

And, of course, that's not even talking about tasks that require moving around and manipulating things in the physical world.

TBH, things like auto bill pay and direct deposit save me more time and distraction than any of my (few) home automation devices.

[jakear]

I wonder what a “good personal human assistant” As A Service would look like. A real human that knows all about you (and 100 other clients) and can book appointments, plan vacations, or who knows what.

[ghaff]

100 is probably a big number. Consider that would only get you their services for about 30 minutes/week on average. They're also not going to know you and your preferences very well at that point or be immediately on call.

That's certainly far more than an admin at a company covers for anything beyond very cursory attention.

Travel agents can still help you a fair bit within their area of expertise. My experience is that for a very long time, most largely just booked flights, hotels, and cruises before the days of self-service. However, there are specialty companies that can help handle a lot of details for certain types of trips.

There are also companies that offer virtual assistants but, going by past experiences with not so good admins, I'm a bit skeptical how much value you'd get in general.