The history of virtual assistants, as they are defined today, is only a few years old.  Though “work-at-home secretaries” existed in the 1980s, the technology was not available for the industry to be truly virtual.  The true virtual assistant began to emerge in 1995, after the explosive growth of the World Wide Web (WWW) in the mid-1990s.  Through the Internet, faxes, and the telephone, these pioneers  proved time and again that they could fully support their clientele virtually, from their home offices.