The 2018 Consumer Electronics Show proved that voice isn’t going anywhere soon, in fact, it’s prominent in almost every industry. From automotive to healthcare, there has been significant growth in digital assistants. What’s possible now with voice is just the beginning of what will come in the following years and it shows great potential for developers everywhere.
Amazon’s Alexa is showing up in new and interesting integrations for major brands around the world. CES 2018 hosted a myriad of products and brands of smart speakers showing off an onslaught of Alexa integrations. The interest in developing tools for the platform has skyrocketed as many developers show eagerness to jump into the rapidly growing ecosystem.
The Smart Speaker Landscape
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which is the organization that runs CES, reports that sales of smart speakers rose by 279% last year while eMarketer predicts that voice-enabled speaker usage will grow nearly 130% in 2018.
Amazon isn’t the only major player now. Apple, Google, Windows, and Samsung are following behind and some brands are now looking at building their own personalities, from bots to voice assistants, like Domino’s pizza-ordering AI personality, Dom. Some others include Campbell Soup Company, Uber, and Capital One that are building apps (“skills” for Alexa, “actions” for Google) that allow users to search for recipes, order a ride, and check bank balances by speaking to a voice-enabled device.
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When iPhone was first released, there was a surge in app development as developers and brands rushed to get mobile apps out. Now we’re experiencing that same urgency as voice is the new frontier of mobile apps. In fact, Gartner estimates that there will be more than 20 billion voice-enabled appliances, TVs, and other IoT devices by 2020.
Alexa has helped to drive interest in the use of voice technology. Other services such as Apple Siri, Google Now, and Microsoft Cortana launched before Alexa, however, it is Amazon that has become synonymous with voice assistants, stealing the show from Siri.
The rising popularity of Alexa is changing the way we build user interfaces. Alexa allows users to access information and services through hands-free operation. Voice provides an entirely new way of interacting with technology that will transform the way users interact with mobile apps altogether.
Now that Amazon and many other colossal brands have proven the value of voice, we will see continuous growth in this space. Between cars, home appliances, and so on, the opportunities for voice integration are endless. Companies are now realizing that voice provides consumers with the ability to connect directly and more conveniently with the content they want. The number of Alexa integrations announced during CES proved Amazon’s dominance with this emerging technology and demonstrated the potential that Alexa and voice services have to transform interactions between brands and their users.