By , Head of Digital Marketing

As highlighted on Mashable, artificial intelligence (along with some truly remarkable voice recognition technology!) is coming to the iPhone 5 in the form of iPhone assistant and it’s going to mean big changes for businesses who aren’t already actively engaging in their wider web presence.

The iPhone Assistant has an eerily smart ability to take verbal, casually worded requests and turn them into search terms it then sorts and rates for you based on existing criteria. To see the old version in action, check out the YouTube video by Siri, a start-up acquired by Apple last year, who’s original app has been in development ever since in preparation for today’s iPhone 5 unveiling.

Because the assistant feature uses user generated web content to assess search results, whether or not someone liked your business on Facebook or put a favourable review for it on Qype will suddenly have the power to determine whether the assistant feature even bothers to show your listing to its human master.

For example, asking the assistant ‘where can I grab a quick lunch?’ will interpret your speech into text, use geolocation to determine where you are (or your calendar to determine where you’ll be at lunch!) and filter results according to restaurant sites, looking for the words ‘quick’ and ‘lunch’, and finally, ordering the results by ratings received, placing the best rated restaurants first. (If this works as promised, imagine how much easier finding holiday hotels and flights will be!)

But of course, for any of this to work, website owners will have to put a greater focus into what the web has to say about them and must less about what they say about themselves.

Users already put a great deal of stock in what other users have to say about a product or service online, but this new technology will actually change search results based on it. If your business is invisible beyond the boundaries of your own neat and tidy website, you’re essentially an invisible drop in the ever expanding online ocean.

Also worth noting is the expected uptake of the iPhone 5 is going to sound death knell for anyone dragging their heels on updating old technology and non-mobile friendly website layouts.

Providing today’s unveiling actually delivers to all this hype, the future is here, it’s social, it’s in the palms of our hands, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s got a big shiny Apple printed on the back.