Apple’s iPhone 4S offers a tantalising glimpse of the future in the form of SIRI, which allows users to use normal conversation to send messages or ask questions.

But this is a very basic technology.

In a decade or so, probably less, you will be able to have a personal digital or avatar-based assistant available in a variety of forms (human, aliens, animals, fantasy characters, Jeremy Clarkson?) that are animated and have personalities. We will use them as secretaries, assistants, playthings and occasionally partners to help us navigate the world and get things done. Basic versions of this technology might also be called synthetic personalities, digital humans or digital ‘bots and some forms of this technology already exist in customer services roles or on websites, usually to save money or to deal with frequency asked questions or boring tasks.

In the future they will also be used in as assistants in education, especially younger years schooling where they will teach repetitive rules based tasks such as language or mathematics. They will also appear in aged care, reminding elderly people to take their medicine or simply acting as digital companions. It is also likely that they will form the interface – or just the face – between humans and robots in the future.

Avatars assistants will also be highly personalisable in the sense regional accents could be chosen or personality flaws and moods added. There may even be the option of getting the personality of an avatar assistant to mirror that of its ‘owner’ or an owner starting to adapt their own personality in line with that of their avatar – something referred to as the Proteus effect.

And don’t forget that they will be connected to the internet, which will itself be connected to virtually everything else. Therefore you will, be able to ask you avatar assistant to turn the oven on, run a bath, dim the lights or play computer games with you.

Click here to watch Dave Evans, Chief Futurist, Digital Assistants, from Cisco talk about some aspects of this.