Smart Audio Report: Our Growing Trust of Voice Assistants

Last month NPR and Edison Research released the latest findings from The Smart Audio Report a recurring study on trends in smart speaker ownership and user behavior amp160Exponential uptake in the past year has been evident amp160After a surge this past holiday season amp8211 when 4 of US adults reported they acquired their first smart speaker device ownership is up 128 since January 2017 to now one in six Americans 16 having a smart speakeramp160 This new survey data also reveals how voice activation in the home is fueling adoption of smart technology broadly and affecting how often consumers engage with other platforms throughout the day amp160Here Edison Research Senior Vice President Tom Webster offers a deep dive on daypart trends in smart speaker use and how they indicate a growing trust of this technology that may soon give way to more substantial integration into daily life Forward by Gina Garrubbo President and CEO National Public MediaIn the most recent look at how people use devices like Google Home and the various Amazon Alexa products across a typical day we found the primary use case is exactly what you might expect to listen to audio programming in all its various forms including music news podcasts and other forms of spoken word audio amp160This is true throughout the day audio programming is consistently the most frequentlycited use for these devices However when we look deeper at some of the lowerranking activities to see how they change relatively across the day we see some incredibly fascinating patternsFor this analysis we looked at the indices a measure of how much a given skill quotoutperformsquot its average usage of each activity across various dayparts amp160As an example if quotsetting a timerquot is used by 5 of users across an average day but is used by 10 of users between 9 pmamp160and 12 am we would say that quotsetting a timerquot is 200 of its average usage between 912 or an index of 200 amp160The following chart shows the top indexing activities by each day part in short which skills punch above their typical weight in specific parts of the day amp160This chart tells an incredible tale of utilityNote Indices are a separate measure from overall activities which are typically led by audio consumptionThese indices give us a glimpse into a fascinating story of contextual relevance for the smart speaker categoryIn the early morning we see a lot of quotinformation servicequot usage traffic newsamp160and weather amp160People are getting ready to start their days and are quickly obtaining utilitarian information for their commute as well as flash briefings and other efficient means to update themselves on the top stories of the day amp160In that context it is easy to see why 30 of smart speaker owners say that the time they spend with their smart audio devices is replacing time they used to spend with TV amp160Many Americans are in the habit of turning on the TV to various morning shows to catch up on essential information and the top stories of the day but with smart speakersamp160that information is readily available immediately upon waking on demand without the friction however small of turning on the TV to the appropriate channelDuring the work day from 9 am3 pm these devices truly overindex as quotassistantsquot amp160We see increased usage of the various list and notetaking skills for busy AmericansOnce the workday has ended smart speaker owners begin to think with their stomachs looking for restaurants and recipes and ordering food all index extremely highly compared to the rest of the dayDuring prime time we see entertainment options come to the fore with reading stories and playing games all showing at much higher levels than they do during the rest of the dayAt bedtime the use case for smart speakers becomes very clear Commands including turning off lights setting an alarm and listening to audiobooks over index during this timeWhat is fascinating about smart speakers is that none of the activities listed above is particularly novel amp160Setting timers looking up recipes and listening to the news are all things we have been doing for years amp160But that reality is the very heart of the smart speaker value proposition These devices don39t ask us to do something new amp160Rather they enable us to do so many prosaic basic things that we already do but with less frictionThis incredible utility with even the most mundane tasks is why twothirds of smart speaker owners say that they wouldn39t want to go back to life before they owned their devices amp160It39s not any one big functionality amp160It39s a host of little things amp160One tiny task at a time smart speakers have become part of the fabric of everyday life not a gadget but an indispensable assistant for the many quotboringquot tasks of our lives amp160In assuming those tasks smart speakers have taken a fairly remarkable step in the history of personal computing they have earned at least a small bit of trust in the everyday lives of their ownersIn other words people may have originally purchased these devices for the quotcoolquot things they could do including playing music from a simple voice command amp160But what keeps them in constant use in the households of 39 million Americans is the boring things they can do tea timers weather forecastsamp160and even telling the timeAs we continue to rely on these devices for the prosaic tasks we become more accustomed to having them in our everyday livesamp160and perhaps to trusting them with more important aspects of our lives moving from entertaining usamp160to managing our finances and potentially even our healthBy effortlessly managing the mundane aspects of our life these smart home assistants will gradually earn our trust to handle more and more of the minutia of our day amp160That utility however quotboringquot it may seem is the secret sauce to increased adoption of voice assistants in our everyday livesThe Smart Audio Report from NPR and Edison Research which debuted as an industry resource in June 2017 is a reoccurring study on trends in smart speaker ownership and user behavior amp160A full archive of research from the Report is available atamp160NPRorgsmartaudioamp160Click the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Smart Audio Report: Our Growing Trust of Voice Assistants

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Tom Webster

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