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You can soon, if you insist, talk to your microwave – and it will listen.
Amazon recently announced a $ 60 voice-activated microwave, along with 10 other products using its Alexa voice assistant. Roll your eyes if you'd like it, but it's the latest example of Amazon's obsession with making.
And Amazon is hardly alone. Google has been ramping up its voice-powered Assistant gadget lineup, recently announcing the Google Home Hub, has a smart speaker with a screen. Facebook just unveiled Portal, a device that specializes in video calls in addition to its smart speaker responsibilities. Apple has its HomePod, plus Siri – which has been around since 2011 – from all over the world, from the iPhone to AirPods.
Voice assistants are possible privacy nightmares as they proceed to monitor more and more elements of our daily lives. That fear, however, has not seemed to be a dent in sales.
As the holiday shopping season approaches, voice-powered smart speakers are again expected to be big sellers, adding to the one-quarter to one-third of the US population that already owns a smart speaker and uses a voice assistant at least once a month.
Voice interfaces have been adopted faster than nearly any other technology in history. And with big sales has come big hype, thanks in part to breathless prognostications about our voice-driven future:
- The global number of installed smart speakers is going to more than double to 225 million units in two years, says Canalys.
- $ 5 billion in revenue per year, according to RBC Capital Markets.
- Global ad spending on voice assistants – currently nonexistent – will reach $ 19 billion by 2022, nearly the size of the current business ad magazine, per Juniper Research.
While some of this is likely to come back, the hype might be disguising where we really are with voice technology: Earlier than we think.
NPR and Edison Research report earlier this year. Just a little more than half said they would not want to go back to life without a smart speaker.
While people are certainly enthusiastic about the new technology, it's not exactly life-changing yet.
Today, voice assistants and smart speakers get your way to the weather or get information. But to be revolutionary, they will need to find a greater calling – a new, breakout app.
That's not saying they are not already proving useful.
Human-to-machine voice interactions are inevitable. And as fast as you can get in the world of wireless networks proliferate – most voice-assistant processing happens on the internet – they are driving real utility and are changing how we interact with machines.
Playing music and other audio is the most successful use case for voice assistants.
Anywhere from 70% to 90% of smart speakers users say they have streamed music on a smart speaker, depending on the study. About half of that amount so so daily. These statistics are meaningful, showing major changes in how we consume media.
Indeed, people who listen to Spotify users are more likely to listen to music every day, according to the streaming music company, than Spotify users overall. They are also more likely to listen to music on weekends and request nostalgic songs.
Old-school radio is feeling the smart speaker love as well. This time last year, 4 percent of National Public Radio's live listening hours cam through smart speakers. It's now 19 percent, according to Tamar Charney, managing director for personalization and curation at NPR.
Importantly for public radio, which is funded by listeners, this list is accretive, as NPR has not seen declines on other platforms. "The more time people listen, the more they are with the content and the more likely they are to donate," Charney said. (Public radio stations now regularly remind listeners that they can ask their smart speakers to stream NPR.)
"Smart speakers single-handedly brought radio back to the home," according to Bret Kinsella, founder of the Voicebot blog and podcast, which are dedicated completely to voice technology. "The killer voice app is calling up music."
Even podcasts, which can be more difficult to surface with voice assistants, are seeing a boost. Cara Meverden, founder of voice-controlled podcast curation app Scout FM.
Even more compelling for the advertising-led world of podcasts, smart speakers listeners are less prone to skipping through advertising than those who listen to computers or phones.
"People are much less likely to skip ads on Alexa. It's more uncomfortable to tell you how to make it happen, it's just one of the ads, "Meverden told Recode. "Smart speaker listeners are much more passive," she added. "People with voice interfaces tend to accept what's given to them."
Voice technology has also helped to bring smart home devices – thermostats, lights, locks and any other appliances that can be controlled from anywhere – closer to the mainstream. Google's Smartphone Devices from other manufacturers. Alexa works with more than 20,000.
Instead of having to set up your remote-controlled lights or program at a smart home hub, voice assistants have shouldered a lot of complexity. In some cases, it's only a matter of plugging in the device and then controlling your voice.
"It used to be the only person who could use [the smart home device] was the person who set it up, "Google Director of Product Management and Hardware Micah Collins told Recode. "Using the voice interface to control things represented a huge change in usability."
That has caused sales of smart home devices to increase. The world's smart home device market – including smart speakers, digital media adapters, lighting, thermostats, home monitoring and security devices – is expected to grow 27 percent this year to about 550 million units, according to IDC.
The impact has been felt throughout the smart home industry.
A majority of Leviton's smart light switches and outlets have been accessed using Alexa or Google Assistant. Has it helped sales? "Without a doubt," said Leviton product manager James Shurte. "Voice control is really the primary driver of the smart home market."
Voice assistants helped the smart lock maker August double its revenue last year. "Once they buy smart speakers, they want to do things with them," Jason Johnson, co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. "They look for things to buy to make use of the speakers they're buying."
In a perfectly set-up house, you can control the sound, the temperature and the locks with your voice. You can order streaming media to play with the movement of your lips. It's all very cool and let's jettison it. But it's also a lot of things that can be done by clicking on an app.
While streaming radio and smart home controls seem like useful-enough functions of smart speakers, it would be disappointing if that's going to be as far as voice assistants end up taking us. The life-changing thing you could not do
One thing that companies will hope to happen – but it is not so – they will start with their voice. Most surveys show that only about 20 percent of smart speakers have used their device to make a purchase. The number that shop monthly is half that.
A more alarming report for retailers by The Information said that just 2 percent of Alexa users had made a purchase with the device this year, through early August. Whatever the number is, it is not yet what is retailers are dreaming of.
Indeed, the majority of people still prefer to shop at physical stores, according to a May survey by Voicebot. Not even 1 percent of Americans said they would rather shop on a smart speaker.
Perhaps in response, Amazon has been trying to convince consumer brands to feature
It's certainly saying that the latest version of smart all screens. It points to the current limits of voice technology, especially when it comes to commerce.
"I think shopping is still very early days, especially for voice-only products," Google's Collins told Recode. "Shopping is predominantly a visual and tactile experience."
With voice, you only get one or two options when you're searching for a product, and you're looking for a product online.
That makes it more convenient for household consumables – rather than, say, clothing – because they are low-cost, need to be reordered frequently and do not require as much consideration.
Still, that's a potential king-maker moment for brands. Becoming the first toilet paper suggestion we have a voice assistant purchase.
Some 85 percent of consumers who have made a voice-assisted purchase say they have bought the first option presented, according to a study by marketing agency Digitas.
So big brands are trying to get first-mover advantage; they're not waiting for the road before they start their voice strategies.
"We believe that the impact of voice is going to have a bigger impact in the 2000s," Campbell's VP of Digital Marketing Matt Pritchard told Recode. "Two or four years from now, smarter people than me say voice will be the preferred way to search. If you have not converted your code or site experience to be ready, you're going to be behind. "
How it works now: If you ask Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant to buy, say, shampoo, they'll surface what they think you'll want. If you want to buy a product or a product, please select a product from the list below. "
Google picks products from Google Express merchants that are most relevant to the query. It also considers buying history and information about user preferences, as well as an item's availability and proximity.
There is no favoring of specific retailers – or their own products.
Brands can not pay for visibility – yet. For now, Amazon and Google are trying to build trust among others by making their search results as relevant as possible. It does not, however, take much imagination to see where Amazon or Google merchants could pay for their products by their smart assistants – like sponsored ads that crowd their websites – as a way to generate more ad dollars.
Until then, brands are mostly using voice for marketing and awareness campaigns around their products. That often includes how to answer questions, how to answer questions, how to answer questions, and how to answer questions.
The best examples of this product are related to its product. This utility usually comes in the form of a skill or action, which is basically a voice assistant's version of a mobile app.
Tide, for example, created a popular voice skill that explains how to get different stains out of different fabrics.
Campbell's offers step-by-step recipes based on your house. "We want to get closer to consumers so we can better understand and understand," Campbell's Pritchard said.
Patrón Spirits Company suggests new cocktails at home and at home.
Since these brands would like to spread their messages as far as possible, they are not sticking to just one voice assistant, but rather creating skills and experiences for all smart devices.
"Patron VP of Digital Marketing Adrian Parker told" Amazon is more of a bet on purchasing, while Google is more for browsing or education Recode. "Both are in our strategy."
Companies that complement or compete with the major players are keeping an open mind as well.
Spotify, Sonos and Qualcomm, which are working with smart speakers and voice assistants, are able to reach the most customers.
"According to Rahul Patel, Senior VP and GM of Connectivity and Networking at Qualcomm," We have a uniform, open platform platform for all brands. The company recently released an audio chip specifically designed to integrate headphones with digital assistants. "We're not picking sides; we're supporting everyone. "
Sonos, which is known for its high-end speakers that work with Alexa and soon Google Assistant, is also remaining neutral.
"Instead of trapping people in walled gardens, Sonos' design," according to Antoine Leblond, VP of software.
It's too soon in the voice revolution to call a winner, but companies are certainly staking their claims.
Siri had a few years' head start among voice assistants and is now actively used on half a billion devices, including on iPhones, MacBook Pros and Apple Watches. However, Apple's voice assistant has been riddled with problems that lead to it.
Google Assistant, thanks to Android's omnipresence, also claims that it's half a billion devices.
Amazon is the smart leader for now, but it's not so easy. The company is making up for that deficit by loading the world with other products. Importantly, it recently unveiled a low-cost Alexa-enabled chip that can make stupid smart devices.
In the second quarter of this year, Amazon had 41 percent of global smart shipments, followed by Google at 28 percent, according to Strategy Analytics data. In the U.S., Amazon makes up about 65 percent of installed speakers as of September, according to a Voicebot survey.
Market share, however, is not everything.
The future will likely include a number of smart assistants, depending on where you are and what you want to do. Juniper estimates that the average smartphone will engage with three voice assistant platforms by 2022.
Adam Wright, a senior research analyst at IDC, said: "No single smart assistant platform can provide the complete portfolio of services and devices that consumers are looking for.
For Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook, what is most important is getting users to participate in their ecosystems. "They're happy to forgo revenue for their services," said Wright.
In Amazon's box, which means getting people to buy more. For Google, it's encouraging interaction with its search and other products like Gmail, YouTube and Maps – all of which produce ad dollars for it. Microsoft's Cortana – which also works with Alexa – wants people to use its Office suite. Indeed, Microsoft is leaning its efforts largely into enterprise, recently releasing a platform that helps companies build their own workplace skills with Cortana.
Apple, in addition to looking for Apple Music subscribers, is making a hardware play. Unlike the others, Apple makes it easier for third parties to create hardware for Apple devices. Until recently, they have had to include a physical device in their own right. Still, Apple charges royalties and has to approve partner devices. While it's slowing growth, this sort of environment makes it easier than ever before.
Voice assistants have gotten good at answering one-off questions: "What's the capital of North Dakota?" Or, "What time is the Cavaliers game tonight?" But their ability to follow a line of thought to is limited. A voice assistant is able to get along with most of the conversation, but it's incrementally getting better.
For consumers, what matters most is that voice technology works, regardless of what the assistant goes by.
Aim, assuming that the devices someday attain a level of accuracy similar to one another
People who prefer shopping on Amazon might pick Alexa, while Walmart and Target shoppers might like Google Assistant better. Those who want a wide range of devices will have those with Google and Amazon. Those who prefer the Apple universe and its high-end products will end up with Siri.
Fortunately for voice enthusiasts, we're still in early days.
Smart speakers, like training wheels, are getting used to their devices. However, the future of voice probably will not be on speakers at all. The major speaker has added screens to their assistants. Samsung, smartly, is putting its voice to the Bixby on its TVs, which has the potential to become the smart assistant hub of choice.
The key element is the voice assistant, regardless of what device it resides in. Smart assistants will creep into every aspect of our lives and will be available at home and away.
Some see a future in which the audience will be able to recognize and respond to your needs. For now voice assistants are still working on what you're saying in the first place.
What we do with this surfeit of voice technology remains to be seen.
Think of the mouse in the '80s. The new way of interacting with computers, but that was less about the concept than the possibilities and execution. At first the mouse has been poor and has not yet figured out how to use the new technology. Fast-forward nearly 40 years and it's tough to imagine design software and video games without a mouse or touch pad.
Voice is much more intuitive than a mouse, but we're still trying to find ways to make voice work.
"There's always been a tendency to '' new '' when it comes to emerging technology platforms – the first ads on television, for example, were essentially radio ads, read out loud," Will Hall, chief creative officer of Rain, a digital agency that specializes in voice, told Recode, regarding early attempts at voice advertising. "Eventually TV ads evolved into multi-sensory stories – images of a car driving down the highway, music blaring – and so will the voice experience."
Until we find the app, use-case or invention that could only be possible using voice, we're still just repurposing online for your ears.
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