Earlier this year, a report from Consumer Intelligence Research partners (CIRP) pegged the sales of Amazon’s Echo at more than 3 million units. Echo of course uses Amazon’s cloud based AI “Alexa” to answer questions, play music/games, control smart devices including home automation systems and of course re-order products off Amazon. More importantly, awareness of this device and others like it continues to accelerate.
This week saw the publication of Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report , packed full of data and insights into the development of the internet and digital technology across the globe. Particularly of interest to us here at Search Engine Watch is a 21-page section on the evolution of voice and natural language as a computing interface, titled ‘ Re-Imagining Voice = A New Paradigm in Human-Computer Interaction ’. It looks at trends in recognition accuracy, voice assistants, voice search and sales of devices like the Amazon Echo to build up an accurate picture of how voice interface has progressed over the past few years, and is likely to progress in the future