The proliferation of voice technology is changing the way we go about our daily lives, and interact with the world. Invoca surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults that own living-room based voice assistants to better understand how consumers are using their voice devices and what that means for businesses and marketers.

People that own voice assistants use them frequently.

‍The longer people own their voice assistant, the more they use it. Since buying their voice assistant:

• 64% use it more frequently
• 27% use it at the same frequency
• 9% use it less frequently

Voice is the new user interface and source of revenue.

‍People aren’t just using voice to turn on lights or ask for directions. They’re buying things, too.

73% of people with voice assistants have made a purchase directly through the device at some point.

39% of people said an interaction with a voice assistant influenced a purchase decision in the past month.

Most voice assistants don’t currently support ads, but that’s likely to change.
61% of people are willing to hear ads on their voice assistant device in certain circumstances;

• If asked if they want to hear the ad before it plays – 30%
• They choose the brands they hear ads from – 28%
• Ads are connected to brands they like on Facebook or other social networks – 23%
• Ads are personalized based on commands or questions they ask often – 25%
• Ads embedded into answers from the assistant – 18%

As voice assistants grow, people use their voices more.

‍As people get used to accomplishing tasks with their voice assistant, they are speaking more, and clicking less.

Since getting a voice assistant, people are using their voices to:

• Accomplish tasks they used to do through typing or swiping: 58%
• Use their phone-based voice assistant more: 44%
• Talk more, generally: 40%
• Make more phone calls to friends and family: 35%
• Make more phone calls to businesses: 24%

Could voice be the key to human connection again? 49% of millennials say they’ve been looking down at their phone less since using a voice assistant.

Voice commands are not the same as conversations.

‍Despite how far they’ve come, voice assistants still need to work on understanding context.

82% of people said context of the conversation is important when communicating with businesses.

People ranked which or who they thought was best at understanding the context of their conversation:

• Human in person
• Human over the phone
• Human online chat
• Voice Assistant
• Chatbot

Human conversation still matters.

‍Voice assistants are still in their infancy; it’s not surprising that they don’t always work. When they don’t, consumers don’t want to go back to typing and swiping.

85% of respondents said they would turn to an online search if the voice assistant could not provide an adequate answer when buying a product or contacting a business.

• BUT 76% said that if the device could have easily connected them to a human who could answer their question, they would have done that instead.

Will voice become part of your customer journey?

‍Discover how your business could benefit from working with Invoca.

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