We created a timeline
of voice assistants for you to see how the voice revolution evolved since its beginnings in the early 1960s.
While having more devices in a household does not extend audience reach
for voice assistants on smart speakers, it does change the calculation in terms of total devices in - market today.
Another key finding is that five times more consumers use
voice assistants on smartphones than on smart speakers.
That is 56 % with a favorable disposition to
using voice assistants with about one - third already using them.
This may surprise some people who saw the early promise of smart speaker based
voice assistants as a control point for smart homes.
The integration of
digital voice assistants with everyday devices will free us from having to carry a phone all the time.
These problems have put the company in a situation where they have to develop their
own voice assistant.
Both modalities have large user bases that are integrating personal AI -
based voice assistants into their daily lives.
Last year may have been about smart speakers in the home, but 2018 is definitely about getting
voice assistants into other spaces and devices.
Second, CES is next week and many more devices will be claiming
new voice assistant integration.
The AI - enabled
voice assistant market is getting large fast and the biggest companies in technology are vying for position.
The smartphone
voice assistants by contrast have been slower to build out relevant use cases for in - home use.
There has been a lot of discussion about shopping using
voice assistants through smart speakers, but fewer data points related to mobile have been reported.
Consumers who own in - home digital
voice assistant devices are «using their smartphones less often for entertainment and online purchasing», according to results of a new survey.
Though they work on Bluetooth technology, they are packed with high - tech features like
intelligent voice assistants, translator apps, and fitness coaches.
When this is all seamless to the user, it will
make voice assistants more powerful, efficient and effective.
However, as we start to rely on
voice assistants more and grant them agency, reducing error rates for speech recognition will be critical to build user confidence in our new helper bots.
It does bring forth an interesting question though —
are voice assistants making our devices less safe?
Consumers already have smartphones so they can immediately
access voice assistants without the need for a smart speaker purchase.
If the product box doesn't mention anything about
which voice assistants it supports, it may be a good idea to double - check the product's website.
The company has now raised a total of $ 21 million for its platform that allows hardware makers to embed
voice assistant services in just about any device.
It will support some apps, it will work with both iPhones and Android phones, and there will be some integration with
voice assistants at some point.
Despite the increased adoption of smart speakers with voice control capabilities, the new report points out that the majority of
voice assistant usage won't be through these in - home devices.
Those paths are taking a similar course, too, particularly when it comes to smart home devices, the lowest hanging fruit for
voice assistant integration.
The idea that digital shoppers are moving quickly to
voice assistant support on mobile is an important development.
Many people first think of either the utility features of
voice assistants such as sending a text or the voice apps that enable you to play games or control smart home devices.
Researchers have devised a method to give potentially harmful instructions to most
popular voice assistants using voice commands that can't be heard by humans.
To make things easier to understand, we've created a table that should help clarify what each of the three
major voice assistants can and can not handle right now.
The fact that people want to
ask voice assistants about health questions speaks to the power of the voice interface and the expert implementation of voice user experiences.
2018 will bring many more fronts where the
leading voice assistant providers will battle for consumer access and affinity.
One feature that I've been dying to have on a
virtual voice assistant is shortcuts, which are shortened voice commands that can substitute in for longer voice commands.