Aaron Price asked True Reply co-founder and CEO, Jose Cotto a question around voice search during a live TechUnited AMA (ask-member-anything) on September 30th, 2020, and but the answer provided didn't truly sit right with Jose.
Voice search, while being a powerful indicator today of voice adoption is only a use case of voice technology. Voice search is to voice technology what google search is to internet routers, the backbone of all things internet. It’s not the whole party, just one of the VIP guests.
"When Aaron asked me about voice search adoption numbers, I tried my best to pull from memory of one of the dozen insight reports published over the course of the last year. The number I grabbed was off - by a bit. I want to make sure I corrected that and take a quick moment to share some overall statistics on voice, voice adoption, and the reach of voice." shared Jose via a LinkedIn post.
So…here we go.
First on the question of voice search and voice search adoption.
According to Comscore, coming into 2020, it was estimated 50-60% of all search queries would be driven by voice or voice search. These are pre-pandemic estimates which, we know from the Voxly Digital report published in May, usage of voice assistants has exploded by more than 52%. Numbers that are also supported by usage reflected in the Smart Audio Report published by NPR/Edison in April.
When it comes to voice search, local businesses are most vulnerable as 58% of local business searches today are no done via voice. In addition, Statistica reports purchases made via voice search will reach $40 billion by 2022.
And folks, when thinking about how voice technology was already changing our world pre-pandemic, this is just one use case as we look forward to a post-COVID no-touch-preferred future.
Looking at voice technology as a whole, here are some of my favorite stats of today…
- As of April 2020, over 1/3 or 40 million U.S. homes have an average of 2.5 smart speakers
- Smart Speaker install base is growing an average of 32-40% year over year since launch in 2014
- The Smart Speaker is the fastest adopted consumer technology, surpassing 50 million devices sold in just two years. Compare that to the Television which tool 10 years to reach the same milestone.
- Over 130 million consumers in the U.S alone use voice assistants via in-car systems
- As of 2020, there are over 8 billion devices world wide that are voice-first or voice-centric
We are very much at the start of the voice-first revolution. As Mark Cuban can be heard predicting in the video below, there is no future that doesn’t have ambient voice technology in it and, we at True Reply, are very excited to help power that future.
Here are some links to articles and research around voice technology:
- Nearly 90 Million U.S. Adults Have Smart Speakers, Adoption Now Exceeds One-Third of Consumers, Voicebot.ai
- 41 Voice Search Statistics You Need to Hear in 2020
- Top Voice Search Statistics, Facts And Trends For 2020
- The Smart Audio Report
- COVID-19 quarantine boosts smart speaker usage among U.S. adults, particularly younger users
- Mark Cuban on the future of Voice Technology