Amazon’s advancements in voice search have only continued to evolve within the U.S. market share for in-home digital assistants. According to studies by OC&C, 50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020 and 30% of those searches are set to be complete without a screen. Individuals are simply adapting rapidly to the evolution of voice search and it is destined to become more of a promising factor in our everyday lives.
The Amazon Echo, the ingenuous smart speaker with advanced voice search capabilities, was introduced in 2014 and is programmed with an AI virtual assistant, Alexa. The voice-controlled intelligence device is set to provide consumers with an array of functionalities from making hands-free calls and music selections to adjusting in-home light settings with SmartHome.
Voice recognition is designed to be fully embedded into every application that we plan to use and within the next few years, will be the primary form of communication with our smart devices. This advancement will allow brands to expand and optimize for voice search as well. Advances in voice technology are placed to help facilitate and accelerate the migration from physical stores to e-commerce. Alexa has the capability to make purchase decisions on behalf of the customer through “Amazon Choice,” which provides effective data for new Amazon customer queries because it presents these products as the first and/or only option.
How Will Voice Search Change Online Shopping?
Voice search has the potential to make online shopping effortless and more personalized by creating recommendations and search results curated for each individual customer. Voice search will also make it easier for customers to leave product reviews, and increase the importance of them. Amazon has an influence on essentially every aspect of a customer’s purchasing profile with the capability to deliver almost everything from groceries and toiletries to the world’s latest technology. This is important when it comes to the customer: Nearly 85 percent of voice shoppers are confident in the recommendations given to them by their digital assistants.
There are, of course, going to be challenges with voice search. Our natural speech patterns contain more context compared to if we were to send out a text message.
Voice search has a promising lead and will have a substantial impact on the future of e-commerce, which will make this form of technology something of ubiquity.
What to Expect?
- Voice shopping markets are predicted to grow from $2 billion today to a massive $40 billion by 2022
- Substantial increase of 50 percent in consumer utilization of smart voice assistant products by 2019. 39 million currently own some form of smart speaker in their current household.
- 71 percent of smart-speaker owners reported using them daily, while 44 percent said they used them multiple times a day, and 8 percent reported never using them. Expect to see more AI assistants in homes, work, and other areas of your life in 2019.
Given that we are still in the “early” days of voice search, voice technology is still maturing and consumers are further discovering new ways to leverage it into their everyday lives. Our Search team at Direct Agents specializes in voice search and optimization. Interested in how our experts can help you? Feel free to reach out to us directly at [email protected]