Many regulatory changes are being made, which will lead to more innovation for local customers. A great example is the voice-activated response system that was developed in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. Voice analytics will play a key role in most last-mile solutions, and this can be seen in China where AI technology has led to over four billion interactions a day.
Google leads the Voice Activated Future :
I am not a fan of Alexa. Or Google Assistant. Or, really, any Internet-connected camera or microphone which has a functionality based around being in my house and active all of the time. I don't use voice-activated systems, and while having a webcam is necessary, I make sure to physically unplug it from my computer when I'm not using it. Am I being overly paranoid? Probably. But I feel like having a little bit of concern is reasonable, and having that concern constantly at the back of my mind is just not worth what these assistants have so far had to offer.
The ability of voice-activated intelligent assistants to manage dialogue in a fluid manner is at the heart of the promotional discourse surrounding them. In reality, however, that ability is limited, producing the appearance of a natural conversation while actually generating interactional difficulties.
In addition to the identified limits of voice-activated home assistants, our studies also highlight their potential usefulness as a unified voice interface for accessing all domestic and multimedia appliances. In general, participants saw their potential benefits despite the sometimes erratic quality of speech recognition.
The adoption of voice-enabled technology for common use-cases by consumers at home, in their vehicles, at work, at the store, or in any setting that offers convenience, is contingent on consumers trusting the privacy of their data. Consumer trust is fragile and costly, and news of companies allowing employees to access and review personal consumer voice captured by Amazon Alexa44 and Google Assistant45 devices at homes of people does little to inspire any confidence. Controlled hacking tests by companies and researchers have shown vulnerability of the voice-activated devices, and by inserting hidden audio signals to secretly making the devices dial phone numbers or open malicious Websites.46
We have showcased why Voice AI and analytics matters, its impact, risks, and possible future directions. Voice AI can offer many advantages to society and business but requires careful attention to the associated risks. More broadly, Perception AI, which covers the gamut of sensory inputs including vision, smell, and touch in addition to voice, can lead to more humanized technology that brings dramatic changes in how businesses and consumers interact with products. Voice AI is the tip of the spear of Perception AI!
No wonder then that these three companies account for most of the voice assistant market. Amazon is the leading vendor in the global smart speaker market, holding a market share of 26.4% in the third quarter of 2021. Their closest competitor is Google, with a share of 20.5%. On the smartphone front, Siri leads with 45.1% of the market, followed by Google Assistant at 29.9%.
Impressive? Then take a look at this. Smart speakers and voice search statistics predict that global sales of smart speakers and voice-activated devices will surpass $30 billion by 2024. The US smart speaker market will play an important role in this, as projections are that 55% of American households will own a smart speaker by 2022.
In the near future, voice assistants are also expected to take a more proactive role. Rather than just waiting for user commands, assistants will collect context-specific information and then take the initiative by making helpful suggestions to the user. For example, people can interact with their in-car voice assistants to get information about fuel levels, diagnostics, and service needs or system settings that may need adjustment. So when fuel levels are low, the voice assistant may suggest going to the nearest gas station (with GPS directions if needed).
23. Phone calls convert to 10-15x more revenue than web leads. Calls are one of the most valuable conversions marketers can drive from voice searches. By tracking the calls driven by voice searches, you can measure your full ROI and optimize accordingly (Source: BIA/Kelsey).
Voice technology has become the most disruptive force to hit the world ever since the internet became a visual medium. As of today, more than 20% of all searches are voice-led. By 2020, over 50% of consumers will be using voice-activated technology daily, says BrightEdge.
Jon Stine, who leads the Open Voice Network, spoke with Lippincott partner David Mayer about AI-voice, the fast-moving software mash-up that will soon be the principal way we interact with the digital world. An edited version of the interview follows.
While AR and VR technologies bring visual richness, other developments suggest that the future of social media might also be more audible. A new player to the social media space, HearMeOut, recently introduced a platform that enables users to share and listen to 42-s audio posts (Perry 2018). Allowing users to use social media in a hands-free and eyes-free manner not only allows them to safely interact with social media when multitasking (particularly when driving), but voice is also said to add a certain richness and authenticity that is often missing from mere text-based posts (Katai 2018). Given that podcasts are more popular than ever before (Bhaskar 2018) and voice-based search queries are the fastest-growing mobile search type (Robbio 2018), it seems likely that this communication modality will accordingly show up more on social media use going forward.
Taxi companies like Uber are already offering voice-activated ordering systems. However, a new Alexa feature lets consumers ask for information on buses and trains. This will give the digital assistant more information about bus and train stations, how to navigate them, and how to use public transit to commute.
Another emerging technology that is changing our lives is artificial intelligence (AI). This tech is making its way into our daily lives in a variety of ways. Such tech is being used a lot in IoT and other voice-activated devices, making voice technology more widely used than ever before. Experts predict that the number of voice assistants will increase significantly in the coming years. Probably it will reach almost every application in daily life.
Amazon Alexa can answer general questions and perform tasks such as providing a news briefing or calendar reminder. The voice assistant recently gained a Follow-up Mode that allows you to give multiple commands to Alexa. Simply give your follow-up command after your first, and Alexa will respond without having to be woken up or reactivated. More importantly, these conversational capabilities show that Alexa is keeping pace in the quickly evolving world of voice assistant technology. Research suggests that she is learning more quickly than the competition, exhibiting an increasing ability to handle natural language requests.
Amazon Alexa boasts the greatest compatibility with other smart home devices of all the voice assistants we compared. Most voice assistants work with popular smart home picks like the Philips Hue lights and the Ring doorbell camera. Still, Alexa is compatible with 7,400 brands and counting -- contrast that with Google Assistant's roughly 1,000 and Siri's 50-ish. Granted, Google Assistant is catching up, but Alexa still leads the pack when it comes to the number of options you have for automating your home -- an important feature if you want to shop third-party devices as you build your smart home.
A voice assistant's reliance on voice recognition and recording technology, in particular, can lead to privacy concerns. Now, as Fingerman explained, "Voice assistants are technically always listening for their wake-word, but they do not record until activated." That said, those recorded segments are often parsed through after the fact by humans, who annotate recordings in order to bolster machine learning. Recorded data may also be linked to individuals. Still, recordings are sent over an encrypted connection. And you can delete recordings by visiting your voice assistant's settings. Amazon Alexa does one better: You can just ask her to delete them for you.
Channels of Engagement. Thanks in part to continuing advances in technology, media, entertainment, and commerce, consumers are engaging with all kinds of new devices, tools, and digital channels. Think about voice recognition software. Since Apple launched Siri in 2011, she has been joined by competitors from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others. (There go those digital natives again.) Google reported in 2017 that 20% of mobile queries were voice searches; Comscore predicts that half of all searches will be voice activated by 2020. In China, voice is already the primary search method.
Although the majority of voice searches are still conducted via our personal devices, there is a growing arsenal of home devices which can conduct searches on our behalf. Now you can ask your fridge to add things to your shopping list, or ask Alexa to change the thermostat. The future is now.
Targeting voice search is still in its infancy. And as a specific marketing tool, it is very much undeveloped. But hitting those voice activated queries is definitely something that should be kept in mind when creating PPC campaigns, looking for cost effective keywords and managing your general content and search strategy.
Once an app's voice assistant is activated and actively listening to provide a response, the info on your taskbar will change to look like the following screenshot for Windows 11, which in this case shows that Cortana has been activated:
Voice activation can also be turned on when the device is locked and the screen is off. Once an app is activated with a voice keyword, it will be able to continue listening to the microphone. Even when your device is locked and your screen is off, the app can activate for anyone who speaks near the device and have access to the same set of capabilities and information as when the device is unlocked. 2ff7e9595c
Comments