There will be eight billion voice assistants in five years
Analysts at UK-based market Research firm Juniper Research have predicted that the use of intelligent voice assistants will triple in the next few years, foreign media reported.The company estimates that the number of devices equipped with intelligent voice assistants will grow from 2.5 billion at the end of 2018 to 8 billion by 2023.
Most of these smart voice assistants will be found on smartphones.Google's Google Assistant and apple's Siri offer voice assistants for Android and iOS users, respectively.
In fact, Google has announced that its voice assistant has been installed on 1 billion devices as of January 2019, thanks to its integration with Android.Amazon's Alexa, meanwhile, has covered more than 100 million devices, but it's still mostly found on smart speakers like the Echo.
However, Juniper Research analysts predict that the fastest growing voice category in the next few years will not be smart speakers, but smart TVS.
The company expects smart TVS with smart voice assistants to grow 121.3 percent over the next five years, while smart speakers will grow only 41.3 percent.The study found that voice assistants will also be popular on wearables, with an increase of 40.2 percent.
Juniper Research reports that Alexa is already the leader in the smart speaker market, but in the coming years it will face strong challenges from smart devices launched by Chinese companies.
It's also worth noting that the report challenges the idea that smart speakers won't be used in business.Juniper Research says "voice commerce" will grow substantially, reaching more than $80bn a year by 2023.
However, this "voice commerce" number includes the transfer and purchase of digital goods, as well as the use of voice commerce in more traditional areas of shopping.But voice-enabled bricks-and-mortar shopping may not account for much of the $80 billion.
"We expect that most voice commerce will be digital shopping until digital assistants provide a truly seamless cross-platform experience," said James Moar, the study's author, in a statement about the new research.Connected TVS and smart displays are crucial here because they can provide a visual environment that smart speakers lack."
Notably, Juniper Research believes the rise of digital assistants will have a negative impact on the global mobile application market.Specifically, the company said that as consumer demand for multi-platform assistants increases, independent developers will create fewer stand-alone apps for smartphones and tablets.This will happen because many of the simple interactions we use today will be outsourced to voice assistants.This, in turn, will reduce our screen time.
In addition, there are early signs that smart speakers are becoming an important part of users' daily lives, while voice assistants on other platforms are not.Juniper Research says this will lead to increased demand for voice-only interactions in the future.
