It wasn’t too long ago that the familiar sensation of depressing a physical button was replaced with the frictionless action of a touchscreen. Touch-sensitive digital interfaces might be ubiquitous now, but their time is dwindling. Welcome to the voice-operated future, where there are no more buttons to press and the knowledge of the internet is only an ask away.
This fall, Searchlogic was invited to the Google Partner Summit in New York as part of Advertising Week, and one of the biggest takeaways from the experience was just how staggering the implications of voice-based AI really are. In 2016, a fifth of mobile queries were made by voice. Google’s voice accuracy is already up to 95 percent. But what’s really incredible is just how many stones are still left unturned in the voice revolution. Here are just a few ways the world is about to become way more voice-powered:
The age of voice assistance
From Siri to Alexa to Google’s less-anthropomorphically named Assistant, voice interfaces are taking over mobile, home, office, and auto environments. Expect more integration across the various environments you interact with each day, where all of your voice-controlled device data goes wherever you go.
The key upheaval of voice assistance is the efficiency with which you’ll be able to get your needs met. From making a call to getting a weather update, the experience will be personalized and your assistants will become more and more attuned to your habits with time.
Voice- first news delivery
Most of us still get our news by reading or watching something on a screen. But news outlets have yet to take full advantage of the possibilities offered by voice command assistants. Get ready to hear the morning’s updates via a flash briefing from your favorite news outlet queued up on your device. You’ll be able to ask what breaking news you’ve missed during your workday or have the news notifications that would normally pop up on your smartphone read aloud.
Voice- operated homes
Applications for voice interfaces at home are taking off. Users are already versed in calling a rideshare car, hitting play on their Spotify playlist or ordering pizza, but the new Google Home and Echo launches suggest the home of the future will be augmented with several voice-powered AI devices all interacting with one another.
For example, Google Home has an intercom functionality in case you want to let everyone know dinner’s ready without raising your voice. IoT integrations will set off a series of actions like dimming the lights and setting the alarm in response to simple phrases like “Goodnight.” It can even detect a second voice, differentiating between two different family members and accessing the appropriate data for each.
Predictive advertising
Speaking of data, imagine how much clearer a picture your AI will have of you — being able to hear not just what you’re saying but the tone of your voice as well. Once assistants get to know their users’ mood patterns, brands will use sentiment monitoring to target the right ads at the right times. The wealth of actionable information collected through routine tasks is enough to totally transform targeted marketing as we know it.
Now that language is being freed from the constraints of words on a screen, digital communication is on the road to becoming much more intuitive, personalized, and seamless. Add the data-deciphering power of machine learning and there’s no telling what the marketing landscape might look like a few decades from now if the voice revolution sticks to its radical trajectory.
If you’re still not convinced the world is on the verge of a powerful voice-powered communications shift, get ready for what Google’s Pixel Buds can do: They’re earbuds that work with your phone’s microphone and speakers to translate two-way conversations in 40 languages in real-time. They’re just one product in the rapidly budding industry of voice computing, but they serve to show us that the new wave of voice won’t only be about human-to-machine communication — it’ll close communication gaps between us as well.
