15 mind-blowing stats about voice assistants

Here’s a prediction worth talking about: By 2024, according to Juniper Research, consumers will interact with voice assistants on over 8.4 billion devices, overtaking the world’s population and growing 113% compared to the 4.2 billion devices expected to be in use by the end of this year.

That represents a massive opportunity for brands to engage with customers in a no-longer futuristic way. That said, it’s still early days in terms of brands putting forth voice apps and consumers using the technology in sophisticated ways. The following statistics (a handful of which comes from internal Adobe data) speak volumes about where the market is now, consumer behavior, and related considerations.

1. During the three-month period of April through June, 46 percent of smart speaker owners said they were using voice assistants more often. (Adobe)

2. Thirty-six percent of U.S. smart speaker owners (18 and older) said they are using their device more to listen to music and entertainment since the COVID-19 outbreak. Fifty-two percent of 18- to 34-year-olds said the same. (NPR/Edison Research)

3. Which voice assistants are consumers using most? Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant are tied for first place with 36 percent market share. Amazon Alexa comes in second with 25 percent market share, followed by Microsoft Cortana at 19 percent. (YouGov)

4. Among surveyed U.S. online adult respondents who use smart speakers, the most common task is checking the weather (65 percent) and the least common is ordering or reordering products (5 percent). Complex tasks and interactions with brands, such as online searches, checking bills, making payments, or ordering items, are still relatively rare. (Forrester)

5. In a July 2020 survey of 1,043 US consumers (18 and older), 51 percent reported having heard an ad on their smart speakers, up from 25 percent in May 2019. In the most recent survey, 85 percent also said they hear these ads at least weekly. (Adobe)

6. In July, 58 percent of consumers said they found smart speaker ads to be less intrusive than other major formats (TV, print, online, social. In addition, 52 percent said the ads are more engaging and 57 percent said they are more relevant to their needs and interests. (Adobe)

7. In July, 51 percent of consumers said they found it easier to recall the brand behind a smart speaker ad versus other major ad formats. What’s more, 53 percent reported a smart speaker ad drove them to make a purchase at a later time, up from 39 percent in May 2019. (Adobe)

8. More than half (55 percent) of survey respondents said they are likely to use voice to ask questions via their smartphones. (Perficient)

9. Sixty-four percent of consumers use voice commands while driving. (Perficient)

10. Nearly one-third of U.S. consumers said they are interested in using smart speakers for customer service. (Statista)

11. Breaking the market down by generations, 41.1 percent of U.S. Millennials use smart speakers, followed by 34. percent of Gen X, and 17.6 percent of Baby Boomers. (eMarketer)

12. By the end of 2020, 34 percent of North American marketers will have launched a voice app, such as an Alexa skill or Google Action. (Voicebot.ai/Voices.com)

13. Brands see incredible potential in voice, with 66 percent of business decision makers strongly agreeing that voice can help drive conversion and increase revenue; 71 percent see it improving the user experience. (Adobe)

14. By 2023, 25 percent of employee interactions with applications will be via voice, up from under 3 percent in 2019. (Gartner)

15. An average 16 percent of consumers said they would prefer a voice system for help, while 71 percent on average said the same of human help. Among those who expressed any preference for an AI voice assistant, 73 percent said the pandemic is a factor in the voice assistant’s appeal. (Morning Consult)