7 key predictions for the future of voice assistants and artificial intelligence

User interfaces and voice assistants are increasingly common. Brands such as Amazon, Google and Facebook are driving this trend as they compete for market share. Voice interfaces are advancing at an exponential rate in industries of all kinds, from healthcare to banking, as companies are competing to be part of this revolution.

Siri from Apple, Assistant from Google, Cortana from Microsoft, Alexa from Amazon. These are all the ways that big brands are investing in voice technology. From the smart home to the smartphone, there are numerous applications of this technology.

According to Adobe Analytics, 71% of smart speaker owners such as Amazon Echo and Google Home use voice aids at least daily, and 44% use them several times a day.

More than 76% of smart speaker owners have increased the use of voice aids in the last year.

Voice-enabled applications are also becoming a predominant part of our daily lives, changing the way brands and consumers interact. In fact, the number of use cases for voice-enabled applications increases every day. In fact, just last month, Google launched a new application for Android, Voice Access, which helps people with mobility and motor disabilities to control their devices. With this application, users can be more specific with their controls, such as being able to use their voice to touch buttons or adjust controls and navigate within applications.

The applications of this technology are everywhere, where will it take us in 2019 and beyond? We offer a high-level overview of the voice's potential and 7 key predictions that we believe will take off in the coming years.

Voice assistants

1. More personalized responses with contextual understanding

The last few years have been about what the user is saying, and now it will be more about why and where they are saying it. Contextual understanding is the next step for the voice to become an integral part of the lives of consumers.

Users want to feel that they are getting a personalized experience when interacting with technology, specifically with the voice. Personalization is particularly important in this area as there have been many points of friction with voice technology in the past. If we are going to experience a more widespread adoption of this technology, we must provide a personalized experience, which is exactly what we will see in 2019.

The Google Assistant has already loaded before the game, since the technology has understood the context of the follow-up questions since the beginning of last year. Users can ask the assistant on Google Home, "What is the weather forecast for tomorrow?", then ask "will it snow?" And Google knows that your second question is about your specific location. Alexa, on the other hand, does not understand the context in this grade. As it stands, Google Assistant has developed faster in terms of use and customization cases. Alexa relies on custom creation "skills", Google Assistant can understand the specific requests of users and customize the response.

Many digital assistants in the current market lack contextual knowledge, which places Google ahead of the competition, even with Amazon that dominates more than 70% of the market. Personalized answers will definitely be a big focus in the next year.

2. Individualized experiences

Voice assistants will also continue to offer more individualized experiences as they improve in the differentiation between voices. Last year, Google announced that its Google Home Assistant can support up to six user accounts and detect unique voices, allowing Google Home users to customize many features. Users can ask "What's on my calendar today?" And even "Tell me about my day?" And the assistant will dictate the trip, the weather and the news information that adapts to each user. It also includes features such as nicknames, work locations, payment information and linked accounts such as Google Play, Spotify and Netflix. Amazon struggled to catch up when the company announced personalized voice detection for more individualized experiences a few months ago.

3. beyond the mobile phone

Steve Capuchin, vice president of Amazon Alexa says: "Our vision is that customers can access Alexa whenever and wherever they want, which means that customers can talk with their cars, refrigerators, thermostats, lamps and all kinds of devices inside and outside of their homes ".

Now, with a lot of systems competing for attention and new players in the game with each passing day, application developers will have to manage the fragmentation and complexity of application development across multiple platforms and channels.

However, it is not just developers who need to address the complexity of voice development, since brands must also understand the capabilities of each device and the integration, and if it makes sense for their specific brand. They should also focus on maintaining a user experience that is consistent over the next few years, as complexity becomes more worrisome.

One area where we will see that voice enabled devices will really take off will be in the automotive industry and voice recognition in the car. In 2018 it became a standard feature for many car brands and we will see this breakthrough next year. People will be able to do more in their units to work. As proof of this, DriveSafe.ly is a great example of an application that encourages safe driving so that users can keep their eyes off their phones.

4. Search behaviors will change

Voice search has been a hot topic of discussion. The visibility of the voice will undoubtedly be a challenge. This is because the visual interface with the voice aids is missing. Users simply cannot see or touch a voice interface unless it is connected to the Alexa or Google Assistant application. The search behaviors, in turn, will see a big change. In fact, if Juniper's predictions are correct, revenue from voice-based advertising could reach $ 19 billion by 2022, thanks in large part to the growth of voice search applications on mobile devices.

Brands are now undergoing a change in which points of contact are being transformed into listening points, and organic search will be the main way in which brands have visibility. The ComScore data even reveals that 50% of all searches will be through voice technology by 2020.

As voice search grows in popularity, advertising agencies and marketers expect Google and Amazon to open their platforms to additional forms of payment messages.

5. Voice notifications

In terms of mobile app marketing, the voice poses a new challenge: commitment and user retention. Developers should find ways to capture and maintain the attention of their users, giving them a boost to continue using the application. In September, Amazon added a notification capability to the Amazon voice services API. The notifications feature allows Alexa to proactively indicate that there is new content for the main functions, such as shopping updates and Alexa skills. Urban Airship has also announced its voice notification services.

"Today's voice notifications can be pretty basic, but just as app notifications have become rich interactive experiences, voice notifications evolve as voice interfaces become more prominent in our lives." - Urban Airship

6. Touch the interaction

CES 2018 showed that voice and screens are merging into a seamless experience. Google showed its assistant with the Lenovo screen. In fact, Google's CES 2018 installation housed hundreds of other devices that showed the Google Assistant, many of which were screens so that users could interact more with the assistant.

7. Security will be a focus

This year, voice payments will be more secure and convenient for users to make voice payments. Users are becoming more aware and familiar with the concerns surrounding their smart home devices. With so many devices in the space of our own home, it is more important than ever to keep information private. Privacy and security should be an approach as the voice makes its way into the mainstream, entering the homes of millions more. Voice payments, in particular, will be more secure and convenient for users to make purchases. The verification and identification of the speaker will be of utmost importance as part of the voice assistant's experience, since more security will be created around the user.

What is causing the Change to the Voice?

The main driver of this shift towards voice user interfaces is the changing demands of users. There is a greater general awareness and a higher level of comfort demonstrated specifically by the consumers of the millennium decade. In this digital world in constant evolution where speed, efficiency and comfort are constantly optimized.

The massive adoption of artificial intelligence in the daily lives of users is also driving the shift towards the voice. The number of Iota devices, such as smart thermostats and speakers, gives voice assistants more utility in the life of a connected user. Smart speakers are the number one way we see the voice used, however, it just starts there. Many industry experts even predict that almost all applications will integrate voice technology in some way in the next 5 years.

Why adopt a mobile voice strategy?

Mobile phones are already personalized, more than any other website. In addition, there is very little screen space on the mobile device, which makes it difficult for users to search or browse. With larger product directories and more information, the voice allows consumers to use natural language to eliminate or reduce manual effort, which makes tasks much faster.

Comcast took the voice search to its remote controls to allow Finite X customers to quickly navigate and find their favorite shows or the latest movies with certain keywords, for example, the name of an actress. Brands should focus on better mobile experiences for their consumers and voice is the way to do it. Users are looking for faster and more efficient ways to perform tasks and the voice is fast becoming the ideal channel for this.

Whether it's searching for information, making a purchase or accomplishing a task, the voice is the new mobile experience. It is clear that brands are competing to discover their voice strategy. With more than 10 million voice activated digital assistants that have already been sold, there is a reason why this is the case.

The voice user interface (VUI) will continue to advance

Even with just a handful of simple scenarios, it's easy to see why voice aides are becoming the centers of our connected homes and increasingly connected lives.

Voice technology is increasingly accessible to developers. For example, Amazon offers Transcribe, an automatic speech recognition service (ASR) that allows developers to add voice-to-text capability to their applications. Once the voice capacity is integrated into the application, users can analyze the audio files and, in return, receive a text file of the transcribed speech.

Google has taken steps to make the Assistant more ubiquitous by opening the software development kit through Actions, which allows developers to incorporate the voice into their own products that support artificial intelligence. Another of Google's speech recognition products is the AI-based Cloud Speech-to-Text tool, which allows developers to convert audio to text through deep-learning neural network algorithms.

And this is just the beginning of voice technology, since we will see great advances in the user interface in the coming years. With the advances in VUI, companies must begin to educate themselves on how they can better use the voice to interact better with their customers. It is important to ask what the value of adding a voice will be, since it does not always make sense for all brands to adopt. How can you provide value to your customers? How are you solving your pain points with your voice? Will the voice improve the user experience or frustrate the user?

In 2019, voice-enabled applications will begin to understand not only what we say, but also how we say it and the context in which the query is made.

However, there are still a number of barriers that must be overcome before the voice sees mass adoption. Technological advances make voice assistants more capable, particularly in artificial intelligence, natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. To build a robust voice recognition experience, the artificial intelligence that supports it must improve in the handling of challenges such as accents and background noise. And as consumers feel increasingly comfortable and rely on the use of voice to talk with their phones, cars, smart home devices, etc., the voice will become a major interface to the digital world and, with it, , the experience in design of voice interfaces and voice applications The development will be in greater demand.

The voice is the future of how brands will interact with their customers

Advances in various industries are helping digital voice assistants become more sophisticated and useful for everyday use. The voice has now established itself as the best mobile experience. The lack of skills and knowledge makes it especially difficult for companies to adopt a voice strategy. There are many opportunities for much deeper and much more conversational experiences with clients. The question is, is your brand willing to take this opportunity?