Voice Control ANALYSIS
Right: The Optoma UHD51A is one of the first voice-activated projectors
Below: ‘Alexa, flush the toilet’ is something Kohler’s Numi smart toilet will be hearing a lot
February 2018
ertonline.co.uk
Make sure they’re talking about you
Do you have a voice strategy? So far, voice assistants have been a way to sell smart speakers and other appliances, but some think that retailers need to understand how their customers are interacting verbally with the likes of Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri
26
smart fridge. Bixby will soon be able to distinguish between different voices.
LG unveiled its new SmartThinQ platform, which it claims uses artifi cial intelligence. Operating on SmartThinQ is its InstaView ThinQ Smart Refrigerator, a new fl agship fridge with a 29in touch LCD display, and a two-megapixel PanoramaView camera that sends a feed of the interior to the SmartThinQ smartphone app. Like a smart speaker, the InstaView also plays music, hunts for recipes and stores shopping lists courtesy of built-in Alexa. However, LG is hedging its bets. It also showed-off an unnamed top-loading washers and dryers that use voice commands via Google Assistant.
“Many experts have been calling 2017 the ‘Year
of Voice,’ but 2018 will see voice make far bigger impacts on revenue,” says Sergey Bludov, senior vice-president of media and entertainment at global technology consultancy DataArt. He thinks that a ‘voice user experience’ has huge potential to become the de facto way we interact with electronics, and that 2018 will see more of a focus on ‘skills’. This is where a voice assistant exerts control over a third-party device, usually a smart- home gadget. “Now that Google Assistant and Alexa are openly accessible to third-party developers, the software, not the hardware, will largely determine success in the market of voice-activated technology,” says Mr Bludov. Alexa currently has 15,000+ skills, and among other things can control Philips Hue smart bulbs, control a Nest thermostat, play music from Spotify, order a pizza from Domino’s or call
Uber. The Google Assistant has fewer skills, largely because it’s younger, but it can still talk to most of the same things.
A good shout One thing is for sure – voice control will develop and increase its reach in the years to come. “The market for voice-controlled speakers will continue to grow rapidly, with more and more customers adopting the technology, and products becoming available in more and more countries,” says Mr Amsterdam at Harman EMEA. “Voice-assistant technologies will most likely lose some of their current uniqueness, as competing technologies will copy each other’s strong value propositions.” However, as the market matures, sales could
increase sharply. “The falling price point is resulting in high levels of multiple ownership,” says Futursource’s Mr Bryant. “It’s far more pronounced than we’ve seen for any other audio device… smart-speaker households are likely to own two or more devices, not least because bridging devices are available at cheaper price points and the hardware brings an element of fun to otherwise dreary everyday tasks.” That hardware looks set to boom, as voice
control seeps into many other categories, rendering existing products obsolete, and shortening the replacement cycle. “It is likely we will see the capabilities of voice control transferred to devices and objects that we don’t currently associate with the technology through the inclusion of built- in microphones,” says Universal Electronics’ Mr Jonkman. “The possibilities are boundless.”
“Intelligent assistants and voice search are disrupting brand discoverability as we know it,” says Jon Buss, managing director for the UK and Northern Europe at Yext, which coordinates up-to-date business listing information across the likes of Google, Facebook, Bing and Yelp. Largely because voice search is more natural than typing, consumers are asking voice assistants different questions. “It’s easier to ask for something verbally than it is to type the same thing, and voice searches often contain more long-tail keywords than your average typed search,” says Mr Buss, who thinks that this presents a new opportunity for brands to match products and services to specifi c consumer demands. Long-tail keywords are three- and four-keyword phrases very specifi c to whatever you are selling, and what a consumer wants to buy. “If someone asks Siri where they can buy Bose headphones and what is the current retail price, how does Bose, or any retailer selling Bose products, have any confi dence that Siri will provide the right answer at that moment of high intent?” says Mr Buss. “Or that the consumer will even receive an answer of any type? And how does a brand take control of this experience to drive the best possible revenue or experiential outcome?” One way, he suggests, is for retailers to control and structure all publicly available information about their business and the products and services offered. That way, voice assistants will be better placed to give high- intent consumers correct answers. “If intelligent agents don’t have the correct answers to consumer queries, these are wasted opportunities for brands to drive sales or footfall, and can ruin a brand experience,” concludes Mr Buss.
have a retail strategy for voice?”
“Do you
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
