Transcript 0:00 [on-hold music] So gaining consumers' trust is going to be the next big task for voice assistants in tech companies. 0:11 And shopping is just one example of what people aren't doing, and even fewer people, according to PwC's survey, are using voice assistants to control their smart homes. 0:23 And I think in, in reality, that's kind of a shame if overall we think about this. In the future, we need to look at what voice assistants will be capable of doing, and it's going to require user trust. 0:34 [upbeat music] Welcome to The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation, with your host, Peggy Smedley. 0:58 Hello, listeners, and welcome to today's edition of The Peggy Smedley Show. I'm your host, Peggy Smedley, and what a great day to be on the radio. It's going to be a great month as well here on the podcast. 1:11 Uh, this month we will be focusing on voice assistant technologies and artificial intelligence behind these devices and technologies and related subjects such as the Internet of Skills. 1:24 Today, I'm going to kick off the month by giving you a bit of an overview on the topic of voice assistants, and then I'm gonna be taking a look at the potential of use cases we haven't seen much of yet, I guess, like voice assistants in healthcare. 1:40 Later on in the show, I'm gonna be interviewing Konrad Konarski. He's an AI, IoT practice head of VSoft Consulting. 1:49 And then I'm gonna wrap up the show with show regular Joshua Peschel, assistant professor of Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering in Iowa State University. But first, let's get started. 2:00 Let's start by looking at some of the research from PwC on voice assistants. You know, I guess what I wanna start out with is I, I think this'll kind of give you a framework of our conversation today. 2:13 PwC's study demonstrates that awareness about the technology so far is pretty high. 2:21 In fact, 90% of those surveyed, and this was interesting at least when I looked at the numbers, knew what voice assistants actually are, and most, about 72%, which I found really interesting, had used it at least once before. 2:37 And the top device people use voice commands is on their smartphones at 57%. 2:45 27% use commands to a speaker, and actually 20% issue, kind of issue commands to their vehicle or navigation for navigation purposes. 2:58 Now, adoption of voice assistant technologies is highest among the younger crowd, which doesn't surprise me, and I s- suspect it doesn't surprise most of you listening right now, to the 18 to 24-year-olds. 3:11 But the age group that uses voice assistants most frequently is the 25 to 49-year-olds group, with 65% of them considered heavy users that issue voice commands to a device at least once a day. 3:28 Okay, so we kind of get a, an overview of the market. So let's now take a look at what voice assistants are used for because I think that'll help all of us kind of understand what we're talking about. 3:40 According to PwC's research, the most common tasks people ask of their voice assistants are searching for information on the Internet, answering a question, or providing weather or the news, playing music, or setting a timer or a reminder. 3:59 Now, slightly less common tasks include sending a text or an email and checking traffic. 4:07 So the tasks at 50% or more of people say they never do include buying or ordering something via their voice assistants or using it to control other smart devices. 4:20 Now, I find this interesting overall because Juniper Research says there will be 8 billion, yep, I said with a B, 8 billion digital voice assistants in use by 2023, and that's in just three years. 4:35 So now if you read our article that's up online right now, that's what we're saying. So clearly the stage is set here for something truly big. But here's the first hurdle: awareness. 4:48 We have to clear that right now, and we don't have it because that's a big problem. I, I, I think we've gotta look at that. 4:54 And I think the second hurdle is achieving acceptance and basic use across different demographics, but I think that's also been cleared. 5:04 Now, the technology has come a long way in a relatively short amount of time, and I think the next hurdle, though, I think what will have to be done is user trust because I think we have to look at that. 5:18 We need to be asking ourselves why aren't people using voice in, uh, kind of assistants to accomplish more complex tasks. And I don't personally make purchases with my voice assistant. I don't use it like that. 5:34 But I think we have to ask if... 5:36 I have to ask myself, I guess, why I have to say because I'm not using it, I just don't feel like I would feel it to be safe at this point or easier than traditional methods of making a purchase. 5:48 Now, that's just me personally. Uh, I think there's others, though, that feel the same way, and this is similar to the findings in PwC's report. 5:59 When tasks involve people's, you know, hard-earned cash, people prefer to use methods they know and trust, and I think that's, you know, pretty acceptable, and people think that way. 6:10 But this isn't true, I guess, for everybody, which I find interesting as well. A lot of people in the survey, about half, saidThey have made purchases using a voice assistant, which is interesting as well. 6:23 Purchases include things like food at thirty-four percent, groceries at thirty-one percent, books at twenty-four percent, and transportation at twenty-one percent. 6:33 But about twenty-five percent came out saying they wouldn't even consider using voice assistants to make purchases. 6:41 Now, the top reason is because folks just don't trust their voice assistants to correctly interpret and process purchases. 6:50 Now, that's kind of where I stand at this point because it's all about the stakes, I think if you think about it. 6:56 The stakes just aren't that high when you're asking your Google Home Mini to play a certain playlist or Spotify or to tell you what the temperature is outside. You go, "Okay," right? 7:08 But if you're asking Amazon Alexa or on your Echo to buy you a r- a replacement Brita filter and ship it to your house, you're asking it to spend real money. Now think about that. 7:21 You're trusting that AI to understand your request, get the right filter, charge you the right price, and send it to the right house. 7:31 Even if the, in this case, we're talking less than fifty dollars, it's still a much greater risk. That's what we're talking about here. 7:39 So gaining consumers' trust is going to be the next big task for voice assistants in tech companies, and shopping is just one example of what people aren't doing. 7:52 And even fewer people, according to PwC's survey, are using voice assistants to control their smart homes, and I think in, in reality, that's kind of a shame if overall we think about this. 8:03 In the future, we need to look at what voice assistants will be capable of doing, and it's going to require user trust. 8:11 An-- for example, one prediction for voice assistants will be either growing, the growing use in healthcare scenarios. 8:20 A company called Voicebot.ai commissioned a study in October that took a look at whether consumers were using voice assistants for healthcare purposes. 8:31 Of the reported seventy-five million u- in the US who own smart speakers and the hundred and fifty million that have used voice assistants on their smartphones, this report says slightly more than half, fifty-one point nine percent, say they're interested in using this tech for healthcare. 8:51 However, just seven point five percent say they've actually used the voice assistant for a, for a healthcare-related inquiry or task so far. 9:01 So such inquiries, I think, or tasks including, you know, asking about symptoms, asking for information about medication, finding a hospital or clinic or urgent care facility, finding a healthcare provider, researching treatment options, scheduling an appointment, connecting to, uh, I, I'd say like a health device or tracker, or receiving health and wellness coaching. 9:26 You know, the top two use cases today are asking about illness symptoms and finding a healthcare facility. 9:34 So some forward-thinking providers already offer voice-enabled solutions for things like appointment scheduling and post-op patient reporting, and I think that's pretty cool if we think about where the potential is and how we could do things when we look at doctors. 9:49 And if you really look, the potential is really there. So of course, you know, the same hurdle, a lack of u- a lack of user trust, will also apply to healthcare. 9:59 You know, if folks don't trust the tech to perform, they won't be early adopters. And I spent some time with Microsoft recently, and they talk about how they're constantly working on this, and I think it's really cool. 10:11 I mean, I have to trust it, but I think in time, once we all get, uh, more comfortable, I think AI is gonna do a heck of a lot of things, and we're all gonna trust it because the way they're developing, and they're constantly working on it, constantly doing things to make Alexa and Google and all of these things that are working on this AI to really be that we're all gonna trust it and love it. 10:32 So voice assistants, I think, are going to be very relevant beyond smartphones and smart speakers, and that's the power of what they're gonna do. 10:42 So we can't quite visualize their impact just yet because we associate them with relatively, I think, simple tasks, and I think that's what we're thinking about. 10:52 But it's interesting to really imagine where the potential is going to be and to think about how we're going to use them in our homes and what they're gonna be connected to, but then what we're gonna buy and how comfortable we're going to be with them. 11:06 So here's my tip overall. 11:09 As an industry, we need to be looking at and addressing the reasons we as consumers, all of us, don't trust this technology with more complex tasks 'cause that's really important, and we really have to be thinking about. 11:25 Until we address these issues, voice assistants will be kind of locked in the realm of smartphones and I think smart speakers, and again, that's a problem. We've got to push it out. 11:37 We've got to be using it to more than what we're doing it now because the capabilities for what consumers can do and how they can leverage it is really something that's super powerful. 11:49 And that's where the power of all of this comes because we can do some really awesome things. 11:54 And I think even me, when I think about what I want to be able to do and how I want to connect it and how I want to be purchasing things, I think the power is there. 12:03 So I'll be talking more about security and privacy concerns later this month, so I hope you'll be tuning in because that's when we can dive into so much more. 12:11 But as always, I'm out of time for this month, but I want to hear what you think about it. 12:16 So tweet at me at connectedwmag and be sure to check out, we're gonna be putting up our new article that we have up there, and that's where we're gonna be talking about so much more up on the website. 12:26 So go up to connectedworld.com, read our current article because that's where we've got more up there. But also check out our website on thepeggySmedleyShow.com. 12:35 We've put up, uh, great archives of great shows that we've had up there. 12:39 We're gonna take a quick commercial break, but be sure to come back with us because we're gonna be talking with Konrad Karnerwski, whose AI and IoT practice head at VSOFT Consulting, and he's gonna share a lot of great thoughts with us as well about this. 12:53 All right. This is all the time we have right now. We're gonna take a quick commercial break, as I mentioned. This is The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. 13:01 And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. We'll be right back. [upbeat music]
