How voice-technology made its way in our day-to-day lives

Soon we’ll have more homes with a smart-speaker than without

Published in

Chatbots Life

5 min readJun 25, 2020

According to a recent survey conducted by Voicebot.ai, almost 1 out of every 4 Americans owned a smart speaker. Research claims that nearly 90 million adults in the States have a smart speaker, which speaks for the increase in adopting voice-first technology by almost one-third of the total user base.

The present user base comprises 87.7 million adults, 32% more than a year ago. The adoption rate has now rounded off to a staggering 34.4%.

But what caused such tremendous growth in humans welcoming speech recognition technology into their lives?

What are the basic activities that a smart speaker can do that pulls such a huge user base towards them?

We have listed the activities that are most popular with smart-speaker parents, according to a survey conducted by Adobe.

● 74% of people claimed to use their smart speaker to play music, making it the most popular activity

● About 66% of people reported that they used their smart speakers to check the weather forecasts

● The third most popular activity consisted of about 58% of people confessing that they used their smart speakers to ask fun questions!

● 26% of people have claimed to use their smart speaker for setting an alarm or a reminder, shopping or searching something on the web

● 14% of people stated that they used their smart speakers to order food online

● About 11% declared to be used to booking flights through their smart speakers

● 5% of people said that they use it for handling their financial tasks such as banking

All the above statistical reports show that more and more people are adopting smart speakers in their lives. It is becoming an integral part of their day, as they communicate with them on a day to day basis for music, shopping, reminders, timers, and so forth.

The ways smart speakers are affecting our lives, compelling us to buy them in the first place

So what is it about smart speakers that are affecting the masses in such a way so as to compel more and more users to buy it?

Decluttering our lives

From smart home automation to tackling our agendas on a day-to-day basis, smart speakers have made our lives a lot less hectic. We don’t have to worry about our milk over-boiling on the kitchen stove while watching Netflix or worry about our cookies getting burnt anymore. Smart speakers are ever ready to alert us accordingly!

It’s an integral part of our daily routine

From finding our phone or keys while rushing to work to dropping messages, and placing calls while we’re driving; smart speakers have become the main focus of our daily lives. It reads our daily news, sets our daily reminders, schedules our meetings for the day, and even wakes us up. Our day starts with it waking us and ends with it turning off the lights as we drift off to sleep.

Controls all the smart home automation

Needless to say, you cannot perform any of the vital tasks with your smart home automated devices if not with the help of your smart speaker. Everything in a jiffy and hands-free, smart speakers are the center of our homes.

Helps in marketing your brand better

Smart speakers inform us about the latest deals, ongoing sales, and promotions about a specific brand whenever asked for the information. It markets your brand to consumers. Your emails might go to spam and your marketing messages might go unread, but this way your information will never go unheard!

Admit it, you have a unique relationship with your smart speaker

We cannot deny the fact that smart speakers give us the illusion of an actual person in the room who is super smart and efficient. It helps you create a unique relationship with it as if it is your own personal companion. Voice technology is helping man and technology co-exist this way.

Smart speakers have thus affected our lives majorly and have become indispensable. We are at a stage today when we can not imagine returning home and ‘not’ asking Alexa to switch on the lights and play some music, or asking Google about the weather and traffic in the morning. No wonder more people are welcoming this technology into their living rooms!

Future predictions and statistics for smart speakers

With the evergrowing smart speakers market, IDC claims a rise of 204.1 million in a year by 2023. Strategy Analytics reported that in a few years, there will be more homes in the US with a smart speaker than without.

Google and Amazon have stated that there would not be a need for any wake words in the near future. That means users won’t have to call out “Alexa” or “Hey Google” repeatedly to do a task, we’d rather be able to have a coherent, continuous conversation instead.

According to a report by Juniper Research, voice-based ad revenue could reach a staggering $19 million by 2022. There will be changes in voice-search algorithms, better interactability with prime focus on security, and much more!

If all that we have now makes us sit in awe and wonder, imagine the spectacle we’ll have the chance to witness in the upcoming years, thanks to voice-first technology.

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