Some of the greatest breakthroughs in voice technology are happening today.  But not all of the breakthroughs are coming from Amazon and Google.  Amazon continues to lead in Smart Speakers and most recently with Wearables.  Google is well known for putting Google Assistant in Android phones, Android Auto, and Google Nest Smart Speakers. But there are many companies working to make voice technology ubiquitous.  Presently, the world is at the nexus of the IoT, 5G, and AI revolution. That means that greater advancements in voice-enabled technology are around the corner with improved voice recognition technology, multilingual voice recognition, and more contextual voice controls likely to happen in the future.

Here are a few lesser-known breakthroughs in AI voice tech that have already happened or are happening right now. Let’s take a look at them:

According to an NPR and Edison Research report published in 2020, 24% of American adults own at least one smart speaker. That means nearly 60 million people are now engaging with a digital voice assistant.

The same report states that the number of smart speakers owned by American households stands at 157 million, with the growth rate of smart speakers at 135% in 2 years. And these statistics are only for smart speakers, and don’t include digital voice-assistant usage on other platforms like smartphones.  The digital voice-assistant platforms are a huge opportunity for brands to market their products and services as well as interact with and sell to their customers.

As you may have guessed, many brands have already begun. One of these brands is Domino’s Pizza, the single largest chain of pizza restaurants in the world. Another brand that started engaging clients early with digital voice-assistant marketing is Capital One Financial Corporation.

Let’s take a look at how brands are using smart speakers as marketing opportunities:

The use of voice to search for information online is growing at an exponential rate throughout the world. A recent study by Adobe showed that in 2019, voice-based web searches consisted of 48% of the entire general web searches. According to Gartner, 30% of all online searches in 2020 will be made on devices without screens.

Meanwhile, Juniper Research reported that 3.25 billion voice assistants were used in 2019. The same research study also predicted that the number would go up to 8 billion by 2023. The reasons for this may include ease of use, convenience, or intuitiveness. However, what is certain is that the trend towards voice search and control is speeding up.

This essentially means that marketing, brand advertising, and client engagement will tilt towards voice-based search, manipulation, and control. Thus, voice UX will have to evolve for marketers, influencers, and brands to become more capable tools. The core voice user experience will have to change for global adoption to take place.

Here are 4 elements of Voice UX that need to evolve for greater consumer adoption and brand integration.

The Amazon Smart Speaker reading ability was recently enhanced. There are now two additional reading styles.  The first style sounds like a newscaster.  The second style is for lengthy content like blog posts, this style is referred to as the long-form reading style.  For clients of Create My Voice, we have already upgraded all blog posts to automatically use the long-form reading style.

With a voice application created by Create My Voice, your posts can be read aloud. Your audience can listen to any of your posts while packing lunches, running errands, or even taking a walk.