In the past six months we’ve seen an explosion of stories about digital assistants – from Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana, to Apple’s Siri. If you’re still on the fence here’s 6 reasons we think they have staying power for your smart home and beyond.
- Revenue Just follow the money. The digital assistant market could hit $15.8 billion by 2021, a shocking number considering its revenue was estimated at only $1.5 billion in 2015. This has started a digital arms race among tech giants Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, and Amazon.
- Voice Recognition Voice recognition technology has hit a tipping point. When Siri was first introduced its poor voice recognition spawned an industry of sites (damnyouautocorrect.com comes to mind). As a result, most systems today boast an accuracy rate in the mid to high 90s.
- Open Platform Amazon’s decision to open Alexa to third-party developers looks like it will soon become the industry standard. Consequently, Google released Actions on Google. Even Apple finally opened Siri’s code to third-party developers.
- Commonplace Digital assistants are now much more than an audio remote control for your music. They can now connect to and control everything from your refrigerator, vehicle, and even clothes!
- Hardware Agnostic While Amazon has been aggressively selling its Echo family of devices, it’s also banking on integrations with consumer brands like LG and Ford to massively expand their market share. Google is following suit with integrations in next-gen cars.
- Saturday Night Live Did you catch Saturday Night Live’s answer to Amazon Echo, the Amazon Silver for seniors? It’s obnoxiously loud and responds to any name remotely close to Alexa. Silver is not only a hilarious take on Amazon’s Alexa service, but it also underscores the digital assistant’s popularity and place in our popular culture.