Interactive Brokers adds IBot voice recognition on TWS for desktop
Several months after the functionality became available on iOS devices, users of TWS for desktop can make use of IBot voice recognition capabilities.
Talking to a trading platform is not weird. Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR) continues to push into the world of artificial intelligence, as exhibited by the rapid development of the capabilities of IBot, a language interface to trading that can be used by traders utilizing the TWS platform.
IBot has been available since the fall of 2016, with previous updates introducing functions such as adding tickers to watchlists – that is, traders got the ability to ask IBot to add a certain ticker to a certain watchlist.
The latest beta version of the TWS platform for desktop adds IBot Voice Recognition.
TWS for Desktop users can now use voice commands with IBot in case they have a microphone. In order to use a voice command, one may either click the microphone icon in the text entry box, or use the keyboard shortcut “ctrl + spacebar.” When IBot is in listening mode, traders can speak their command, which appears in text in the text entry box. To submit the verbal command, one has to hit the space bar. To exit listening mode and cancel the command, pressing the ESC key suffices.
This functionality was initially introduced on mobile gadgets last year. In November 2016, IBot became available on iOS devices, with the speech recognition support for the application improved in December.
IBot “understands” commands from various areas of interest to traders, including account information, charts and quotes. A typical Chart command, to provide at least one example, would be “Show me 2 days price of AAPL”, which will result in IBot delivering a chart based on an educated guess. Even if traders omit bar sizes or time ranges, IBot will display “the most reasonable chart” based on what they entered.
There are non-supported and misunderstood commands. In case a trader enters a non-supported command, or one that IBot cannot accurately interpret, IBot will provide her best efforts result accompanied with a “Potentially misunderstood” warning message and an icon.
