Voice on Voice

In 2020, Siri was the second most popular voice assistant behind Google Assistant, with over 500 million users (compared to Google Assistant’s 1+ billion users). While its vast presence on mobile devices has given Siri a boost, the popular assistant has fallen short in meeting users’ expectations. Apple has tried to revitalize the assistant through the latest iOS 15 update, third-party product integrations, and new Apple hardware, but Siri’s functionality has remained relatively stagnant in the last few years when compared to Google Assistant. From sending texts to asking simple questions, there haven’t been monumental updates in what Siri can do for users. October 2021 now marks Siri’s 10-year anniversary of its initial launch — below, The Verge examines why Siri hasn’t lived up to the hype.

The car is a hub of on-the-go activity — from taking and making calls to searching directions, drivers have their hands full (literally). As a result, voice assistants have become helpful tools by providing hands-free assistance. One use case emerging quickly is voice commerce in the car. In-vehicle payments are expected to reach $86 billion in 2025, and 70% of consumers who commute to work are very or extremely interested in new connected commerce experiences. Companies are already tapping into this growing opportunity, especially for gas stations. ExxonMobil and 7-Eleven have built payment experiences on Alexa and Siri, respectively, and Cerence partnered with Ryd Pay in Europe for payments via Cerence’s in-car systems. This week, Google’s new features for Android Auto include fuel payments at select stations. While these activations focus on fueling, there is vast opportunity for retailers like grocery stores to think about how voice can support buy-online-pickup-in-store behaviors.

It hasn’t been smooth sailing for smart glasses. Marked by the failure of Google Glass (now repositioned for enterprise use), which was initially introduced in 2013, smart glasses are experiencing a revival as many other tech companies try their hand at the accessory. Snap released the Snap Spectacles to let users take pictures and videos, and they now sport AR and voice capabilities. Amazon’s Echo Frames are embedded with Alexa. This week, Facebook enlisted EssilorLuxottica to unveil Ray-Ban Stories. It’s clear that major tech companies see the potential for smart glasses, especially when paired with voice assistants. While these devices are getting less clunky and adding on more capabilities, it remains to be seen if they are compelling enough to spur widespread adoption. Early critiques pointing to Facebook’s privacy track record are already rolling in.

One of the ways voice assistants are evolving to be more frictionless and valuable to users is through adding proactive capabilities that often don’t require speaking more. While we want our assistants to be there for us, they need to assist while being unobtrusive. Features like automatic camera tracking on the Facebook Portal and Echo Show smart displays keep users in the frame during pictures or video. Both Amazon and Google are leveraging radar technology to derive health insights from sleep. This week, Google is actively exploring how the absence of wake words might elevate a voice experience, while Amazon is dabbling in how Alexa status announcements on third-party smart devices might prove useful. These contextual functions are paving the way for easier and almost effortless two-way exchanges, but these experiences must be careful not to infringe on the delicate balance between helpful anticipation and unwelcome trespassing.

Asian consumers in China, India, and Southeast Asian countries have spearheaded the global adoption of voice. In 2018, iProspect found that 62% of smartphone users in China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore have used voice-activated technology in the last six months. Usage has primarily been driven by the prevalence of inexpensive smartphones in the region, making capabilities like voice search and in-app voice features more accessible to consumers. Specifically, China has emerged as a global voice leader with its major tech companies building out robust smart home device and smartphone lines. Baidu, Alibaba, Xiaomi, and Huawei have launched advanced voice-enabled devices from speakers and phones to even scooters and robotic dogs. As brands plan for growth in markets outside of North America and Europe, Asian countries harbor underexplored opportunities.

Google has been making substantial investments in its push to make Google Assistant the powerhouse of the Android smartphone. But the company has also been expanding its reach within the smart home through partnerships with popular household appliance manufacturers. Through its relationship with Samsung, Google Assistant now lives on Samsung TVs and can control Samsung SmartThings devices. Google is also developing support for Matter, the initiative that will make a new generation of smart home devices compatible with multiple voice assistants including Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and more. By tapping into the existing smart home networks of high-profile brands, Google is scaling the presence of the Assistant. And this week, it is sticking to that strategy with a new multi-year deal with GE Appliances to bring its services to GE smart home products.

One of the most popular use cases of smart speakers is playing music, with 60% of smart speakers users saying they use their devices to play music. As a result, it’s no surprise that streaming companies are building robust voice strategies to tap into this preference. For example, Spotify unveiled its in-app mobile assistant that allows listeners to choose songs, stations, and playlists as well as play, pause, and skip tracks. On the other hand, device manufacturers that are focused on the home audio and entertainment environment are also rethinking how they can tap voice technology to craft quality listening experiences. Brands from Bose to JBL have already built mainstream voice assistants into popular products, and now Sonos will take its voice experience one step further by building a Sonos voice assistant for its devices. While these are significant developments, the music industry holds vast potential for novel cases of voice activation.

The long-standing relationship between Google and Samsung, often wavering and hard to follow, is entering a new chapter with wearables. Samsung mobile phones leverage Google’s Android system (which includes Google Assistant), but Samsung also offers its own Bixby voice assistant and app store in the mix. Last year, it was reported that Google and Samsung were in talks to prioritize Google Assistant and the Play Store over Bixby and the Galaxy store on Samsung phones. But in January, Google released a Nest app for Samsung’s SmartThings system, allowing users to control SmartThings devices via Google Assistant or Assistant devices via SmartThings. It appears that the two are still intent on unifying their smart device ecosystems — last week, 9to5Google found that Samsung and Google’s combined smartwatch system may leverage both of their voice assistants. With these new developments, it’s clear that Samsung and Google are still exploring how each can leverage the other’s strengths.

While Amazon Alexa leads in the smart speaker market, Google Assistant is strengthening its presence on mobile devices. Many Android phones come with Google Assistant already built in — bypassing the need to open one more app to get to the assistant. And with voice assistant usage on mobile devices growing, Google is well positioned to make the Assistant a core part of the mobile experience. This year, the company has consistently launched and tested new updates that seek to do just that: the Assistant can shut off your phone and pay for food, it may soon be able to provide suggestions based on information you’re searching, and save and find content. And last week, news revealed that Google is testing a host of updates for Duplex on mobile. Voice is becoming not only an interface for retrieving information, but it is also transforming how we complete tasks by becoming an orchestration tool.

Advancements in voice AI have pulled creators into uncharted territory: voice clones and deep fakes. Manually recording clips for video games, shows, and entertainment is time-consuming and expensive, but with voice technology, people can use existing clips to quickly craft custom recordings (of themselves or others) for tailored needs. Amazon has already tapped into this trend with its new Shaquille O’Neal and Melissa McCarthy celebrity voices. And startups like Veritone and Lovo are building their own platforms with licensing and monetization features. But similar to video deep fakes, voice AI is blurring the lines of reality and fantasy, posing important questions on what is and isn’t ethical: when can synthesized recordings be used, and does it need to be disclosed? Who needs to approve use? As a result, the rapid growth and use of this technology spurs the need for the formation of ethical use guidelines and standards.

Voice profiling is already making its way onto the radar of marketers at major companies — Spotify patented technology to read listeners’ emotions through their voice. However, a more immediate compelling use case of voice analysis technology is for healthcare. Wearables like Fitbit and Apple Watch are already widely used to glean health insights related to heart rate and fitness, but voice technology can unearth hidden abnormalities rooted in our voices. University of Washington researchers found that assistants may be able to identify those having heart attacks, and Mayo Clinic explored how high blood pressure can be detected from voice recordings. In the future, voice has the potential to catch life-threatening conditions before they become deadly. But with heightened concerns around what exactly our assistants listen to, voice biometric providers must evaluate how they can instill trust in consumers.

Although screenless smart speakers lead the market for voice-enabled devices, the popularity of smart displays is climbing. In Q1 2021, 38% of worldwide smart speaker sales were those of smart displays. With Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest Hub displays, it’s not difficult to imagine the allure of such products. The ability to view content and stream videos is compelling, especially during the WFH era as consumers turn to their smart devices more frequently. Amazon is tapping into this opportunity by building a large Echo Show to mount on the wall, and Apple is even exploring the development of a smart display attached to a robotic arm. This week, Verizon is entering the market with its own Alexa-powered display. As these devices make headway, companies must create a thoughtful plan for how their displays integrate with their core services while fitting into the broader smart home ecosystem.

As a nascent field, the voice AI industry has largely operated without any widely accepted standards in the last few years. However, government scrutiny has raised concerns over how tech companies harness data through their voice assistants and the amount of control they have in the market. Recently, the European Union released a report on the competition concerns stemming from major voice assistants. As a result, companies are banding together to launch initiatives that ‘democratize’ voice: Matter, formerly Project Connected Home Over IP, will roll out devices later this year that are compatible with multiple assistants, and Amazon’s Voice Interoperability Initiative seeks to do the same. This week, the Linux Foundation’s launch of the Open Voice Network goes even farther in trying to establish comprehensive, open, and shared standards with a particular focus on data security and privacy.

Voice assistants in the car, once nice-to-haves, are now must-haves. There are nearly 130 million in-car voice assistant users in the US, which is greater than the number of smart speaker owners. One reason why drivers are turning to voice assistants in the vehicle is because 92% of voice users believe they make them feel safer when driving. As a result, car manufacturers from Ford to Lamborghini have leveraged major voice assistants, as well as custom assistants with their own wake words. Amazon saw the value in the deployment of both Alexa and a manufacturer’s custom offering when it introduced Alexa Custom Assistant. This week, Continental and Elektrobit are helping automakers speed up their voice assistant deployments with the first in-car integration of the Alexa Custom Assistant offering.

Siri supporters have long lamented the absence of a robust Siri-driven smart home ecosystem (not to mention the similar lack of a 3rd-party voice app marketplace). Although Siri was the first major voice assistant to debut, its ubiquity is rooted in its presence on smartphones rather than its availability in other devices . However, Apple has taken note and is actively trying to position itself as a rival in the smart home with its introduction of the original HomePod speaker and newer HomePod mini. Now rumors are hinting at Apple’s development of a hybrid TV set-top box and speaker and smart display. This week, the company announced that later this year, third-party devices will be able to integrate Siri. With these smart home milestones, it’s clear that Apple is trying to expand its position in the voice assistant market.

Apple’s release of the AirPods in 2016 has transformed the wireless headphone industry. The earbuds have enjoyed widespread success with over $12 billion in revenue (which is nearly equal to the revenue of Spotify, Twitter, Snap, and Shopify combined), and its integrated Siri capabilities for announcing message notifications, replying to messages, volume control, and playing music have set the stage for voice-enabled smart hearables. In just the last month, Amazon dropped the new Echo Buds, and Google debuted the Pixel Buds A-Series — pushing the boundaries of potential for what the assistants in our ears can do. Wayfinding has emerged as a viable use case, illustrated by Amazon’s demo of Echo Buds providing product location in a Whole Foods, and Foursquare’s Marsbot for AirPods offering “guided” audio tours. Additionally, companies are honing in on the fitness craze with fitness tracking features. With 43.7 million users tapping into the voice assistants in their hearables, these devices are only going to expand their capabilities.

The QSR drive-thru is the ideal environment for voice: with employees repeating the same tasks and constantly communicating with one another, voice AI can automate these functions and provide information instantly. Major chains like White Castle and McDonald’s (which acquired voice ordering startup Apprente in 2019) are already piloting voice-enabled drive-thrus at several of their locations. In Spain last year, McDonald’s even installed kiosks where customers can order with voice commands. This week, Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken leveraged their own assistant at the drive-thru. As long wait times continue to remain significant pain points for customers and employees alike, restaurants are exploring new ways to eliminate this friction. However, these voice experiences must balance promoting efficiency with ease of use.

Smart wearables like the Apple Watch and FitBit have become mainstays of those seeking to track their fitness, but now, voice-enabled smart speakers and displays are looking to gain a foothold in the health sector. Voice tech has already been used to analyze audio for COVID and detect emotional sentiment, paving the way for smart devices to try their hand at more sophisticated use cases tied to biometrics. One new area being pioneered is sleep data. Amazon is developing an Alexa device that uses radar to look for signs of sleep apnea and, last week, Google’s new Nest Hub display announced similar radar functionality that evaluates sleeping patterns. Assistant-equipped devices in the home are clearly getting smarter, but privacy concerns still remain. However, if the value-added to daily life continues increasing, we expect more consumers to get comfortable exchanging data for experience quality.

Voice is a natural channel for conveying our emotions and feelings. However, voice technology is still trying to crack analyzing sentiment and how these data points can inform the creation of emotionally intelligent voice experiences and assistants. We have seen voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant expand their speaking styles to include different emotions in certain responses, reflecting more humanlike interactions. However, monitoring emotions on the consumer side is still a nascent technology. Amazon has made some steps toward realizing this with its health and wellness wearable Halo, which tracks users’ tone through their voices to make them more aware of their communication styles. This week, we’ve seen a new update in emotion recognition with Spotify’s patent approval of technology that analyzes listeners’ moods. Even though the patent only points to a small amount of features and a targeted use case, we are beginning to see how voice technology might leverage sentiment to provide more relevant recommendations and experiences for consumers in many contexts.

The car has increasingly become an area of focus for voice development. This isn’t surprising given that hands-free voice control is a natural fit for busy drivers and usage is already higher than on smart speakers. As a result, many voice-focused companies have targeted this space and are creating advanced custom voice assistant offerings. Recently, Amazon unveiled the Alexa Custom Assistant offering to build car assistants with both a brand assistant and Alexa. This past week, we learned of Cerence’s new Drive 2.0 platform providing customers personalized features and software specific to the car experience. With many businesses now building solutions specifically for the car, we’re starting to see advanced use cases emerge including commerce, geo-location, and more complex tasks. There’s open road ahead for the auto industry, and voice is accelerating.

Although the voice ecosystem has long been dominated by the likes of Amazon, Google, and Apple, many brands are exploring the arena of custom owned assistants that give brands more control over data and user experience without a third-party intermediary. With Amazon’s latest announcement, the line is blurring between big tech voice assistants and brand-owned custom assistants. A handful of companies have already created devices that allow for the coexistence of their own assistant alongside a mainstream assistant. European telecommunications companies including Vodafone Spain, Orange, and Deutsche Telekom have all taken this approach and released devices integrated with both their custom assistant and Alexa. By using Amazon’s Alexa Custom Assistant initiative, many more companies will be thinking about how they can leverage the best of both worlds, bringing a generalist assistant alongside a specialist.

To-date the voice assistant landscape has primarily been driven by smart speakers and mobile assistants, but new devices are quickly taking hold. Brands have always sought to connect with customers on-the-go, and assistant technologies are now enabling a new way to provide value in their everyday lives. Smart hearables and wearables, including earbuds, watches and even glasses have all been embedded with Alexa and Google Assistant so that customers can easily ask for information and perform tasks anytime, anywhere. The most recent example of this is Amazon’s new Echo Buds feature focused on collecting fitness data (more below). However, this trend has been maturing for some time now. Recently, Fitbit added Google Assistant to its Sense and Versa watches that are already integrated with Alexa, providing a choice in assistant for users. For hearables, Foursquare’s new Marsbot for AirPods assistant serves as a personal audio guide as people stroll through a public space, and Amazon has piloted a wayfinding feature for Echo Buds to provide product and location information within a Whole Foods store. As these ‘headless’ devices free us from the ties of a cord or our home devices, on-the-go voice experiences are innovating brand marketing.

Digital conversations with friends and colleagues have traditionally revolved around text - typing on our keyboards or phones to communicate messages. Although the pandemic has created new demand for video conferencing, screen fatigue has started setting in, leaving space for a new kind of communication platform driven by voice. Several companies have started to populate this new audio ecosystem, trying to leverage voice conversations for personal and professional use. From Discord to Clubhouse, these kinds of voice-driven platforms are becoming more common, and now we’re seeing mainstream platforms like Twitter recognizing value here as well (more below). As many of us continue to work remotely, audio chat is emerging as a unique way to maintain human connection and rapport.

As a nascent space, voice technology’s full potential has not yet been realized. But in the last few years, assistants have made large strides in the quest to be smarter, seamlessly providing user experiences that quickly answer increasingly complex queries with comprehensive responses. For example, Alexa Conversations—released in July— enables the devices to understand more nuanced requests. With new Amazon and Google features, users can utter commands to perform tasks within mobile apps. Devices across the spectrum are integrating voice tech, forming a connected ecosystem that shares information. Not only do these software improvements push toward a future that centers on ambient computing, they are opening up new opportunities for brands to make their mark before others as the field continues to advance.

Today marks the 100th edition of this newsletter, and we’re so grateful to all our readers for staying with us each week as we’ve analyzed the rapid maturation of voice AI.

For a technology that’s eclipsing even mobile in adoption rates, it makes you wonder: What’s the equivalent of one “voice year” in human years? Perhaps we’ll never know, but it’s clear that this industry is just getting started, and the future looks bright.

This week, rather than our usual voice news roundup and analysis, we’re pleased to exclusively offer our Voice on Voice readers the first look at our latest report: The Dawn of Brand-Owned Virtual Assistants. Get it here: https://ova.rain.agency/

We’ve all had to handle an important incoming phone call from the confines of the driver’s seat. These situations, where hands-free interactions are necessary for ease and safety, have reinforced the role of the voice assistant in the car. In fact, nearly 130 million people in the US use in-car assistants. Automobile brands from Buick to Nissan to BMW have embedded Amazon Alexa into their cars, and others have turned to custom voice assistants to cater to driver needs in a more personalized way. Cerence, the voice AI company for cars, even released a feature to customize your wake words. With these new experiences, and with the growth of connected car commerce, voice technology will soon be able to handle more advanced tasks while users are on the road.

P.S. if you're a U.S. reader, today is election day. Please don't forget to vote!

Earlier this summer, news of a new Google smart speaker rippled through the internet, where the company confirmed that it would be released in the fall. At Google’s fall hardware event, the company announced its new Pixel 5, Google TV, Chromecast, Google Duo features, and smart speaker Nest Audio. This multitude of enhanced smart home products squares off with Amazon’s new collection of devices, amplifying the calls from consumers for smarter products that can connect to each other and provide a unified home experience. In addition, Google is rolling out new software attributes, including Pixel’s “Hold for Me” feature and Assistant’s Workday routines, to accompany the hardware in playing more active roles in our lives. Moving forward, the voice landscape may be significantly altered as new multi-assistant devices make their debuts, even as the big players try to outcompete each other.

Amazon’s annual fall hardware event unveils its latest collection of smart products. In 2019, the newest Echo smart speakers along with Echo Buds, Echo Frames, Echo Loop, Alexa Smart Oven, and more made their first appearances to the public, inching toward an integrated Alexa-enabled ecosystem. Last week’s annual hardware event advanced this vision even further. The arrival of revamped smart speakers, smart security appliances for the home and car, a cloud gaming program, and assistants customized for children and the elderly is a progression in the company’s “ambient home” strategy, also supported by Project Connected Home over IP and its Interoperability Initiative. But as updated features and new security products are introduced, many remain concerned over just how far Amazon is willing to go to be ingrained in our lives.

While many brands have embraced a utility or commerce-oriented posture in their voice experiences, there’s another strategy brands are leaning into, rooted in storytelling and just plain fun. Companies including Marvel and Lego have turned to skills and actions to create immersive, gamified experiences for consumers that encourage deeper interaction that transcend viewership of traditional advertisements. Younger audiences, including children, remain at the forefront of voice reach—not only have Google and Alexa created offerings, such as Alexa Kids, targeted exclusively for kids at home, but brands like General Mills’ Lucky Charms are creating voice-led journeys for children. As kids spend more time at home and grow tired of screens, voice is a welcomed newcomer to engage and entertain.

2011. 2014. 2016. In a matter of nine years, the three major voice assistants—Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google’s Assistant—were released, reconstructing the ways we incorporate technology into our lives. Although Amazon leads in smart speaker market share and Google and Apple lead in monthly active users in total devices, other notable players such as Microsoft Cortana, Sonos, and Samsung Bixby present real challenges to the mainstream assistants. But even as the competition shakes up, consumers are faced with only a few choices for smart speakers and voice assistants. This, coupled with the scrutiny of alleged monopolistic practices of Apple, Google, and Amazon by regulators in the US and Europe, has forced the tech companies to create a voice world that is friendlier to rising newcomers with programs such as Project Connected Home over IP and the Voice Interoperability Initiative—both of which announced their next steps this week.

The more smart speakers, the merrier. Smart assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant have become staples in our homes and apartments, individually bought by customers. However, as the adoption of voice technology accelerates, companies are looking to scale the presence of voice assistants to make them everyday necessities anywhere we go. Google and Volara’s new partnership is embedding Google Nest Hubs into hotel rooms, and Alexa for Hospitality is also placing smart speakers in chain hotels and vacation rentals. Meanwhile, Alexa for Business is upgrading the workplace to be more advanced and productive. These initiatives seek to boost the presence of these assistants on a larger scale, moving beyond smart homes to smart hotels, offices, apartment units, and more.

Virtual assistants and the debate on privacy are inevitably intertwined. But as consumers adopt personal voice-integrated devices like smart watches, rings, glasses, and even toothbrushes (the list is endless), the presence of these assistants in our daily routines is revealing our growing trust and comfort in voice technology. Users expect for tech companies to safeguard their private information, and for the most part, they have. However, it is still early days for voice-enabled devices, and technology companies are learning quickly from security concerns that have emerged in the last few years. As voice AI appears on almost any imaginable surface from our car to the bathroom, big tech must ensure all touchpoints are fortified from bad actors if they want to preserve the trust of their customers. And if they do listen in on your activity, they have to be transparent about why and provide options to users. Also this week, Oracle Assistant learns a few languages and Alexa teaches you how to brush your teeth.

Disney’s 1999 Smart House movie gave us a glimpse of the future—an AI-powered house that catered to the family’s every need, from cooking to cleaning the house. Although that wasn’t an exact prediction of our future, we are moving toward a connected home filled with smart devices that make our tasks easier and faster. Google’s smart home arm, Google Nest, offers an impressive array of products, including thermostats, doorbells, cameras, alarms, locks, and smoke alarms that work in tandem with each other to create seamless experiences controlled from one place. As we move toward a true smart home, it’s easy to picture how security and alarm services traditionally provided by other companies might be folded into the realm of tech companies. However, this only strengthens the debate on the concerns about AI and privacy. Also this week, Cerence reads the news to you and Alexa debuts Starfinder.

Will your favorite coworker be a virtual assistant instead of a human employee? If there’s one thing the pandemic hasn’t changed, it’s the need for brick-and-mortar retailers to be more efficient and engaging with their customers. But COVID has accelerated the growth of new technologies like voice that will rethink the ways employees work and customers shop in physical stores—with the need for people to stay apart inside, voice can easily help employees get the information they need with limited contact with others, especially when wearing a mask and gloves. Also covered this week, Samsung considers an interesting deal with Google Assistant and U.S. Bank wants to help you manage your finances.