Apps that proactively help people with their lives represent a significant departure from earlier approaches to software.

A new type of mobile app is departing from a long-standing practice in computing. Typically, computers have just dumbly waited for their human operators to ask for help. But now applications based on machine learning software can speak up with timely information even without being directly asked for it. They might automatically pull up a boarding pass for your flight just as you arrive at the airport, or tell you that current traffic conditions require you to leave for your next meeting within 10 minutes.

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These apps benefit from improved data mining techniques, but they’re also succeeding partly because of how they are presented to users. They are not cast as artificial butlers, a staple of science fiction that Apple tried to mimic with the voice-operated app Siri in 2010. Instead, Apps like Google Now are intentionally made without personality and don’t pretend to be people.

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But still, it represents a milestone in computing, she adds: “Google Now is kind of a sucky product, but I use it anyway. It’s important because it’s the first time Google has taken all they know about us to make a product that makes our lives better.”