An overview of who’s using them, which ones are leading the pack, and what’s next
The voice assistant has been around in one form or another for over 20 years. According to Voicebot.ai,
“The general availability of consumer voice assistants first arrived in cars in 2000, smartphones in 2011, and smart speakers in 2015.”
Voicebot goes on to note:
“Voice assistant adoption seems to have settled into a comfortable 50-60% of the population. The pandemic brought on a small decline in total users which was largely driven by lower access of voice assistants for on-the-go use cases. More notably, the use of voice assistants is no longer growing among the U.S. adult population.”
Insider Intelligence agrees, showing very slow growth, plus offers projections for the next few years.
They also break out users by age:
Note the age-range sweet spot is between 18 and 54.
User Bases for Smart Speakers and Smartphone Voice Assistant
Voicebot has charted the growth of smart speakers. There are almost 95 million US adults with at least one and 50% use them daily. Although the novelty has worn off, the numbers are still impressive!
Voice assistant use on smartphones has dwindled a bit:
Regardless, it’s a remarkably large user base for both.
And remember, all electronics do eventually fail. Loyal users will definitely want to replace their smart device, especially if it is a smart speaker or smartphone.
Smart Home Adoption Rates
The 2022 US Smart Home Consumer Adoption Report from Voicebot has been released. Unlike some other market trackers, Voicebot does not include smart speakers in their overall count of smart home devices.
Some highlights include:
- Over half of U.S. adults have a smart home device that is not a smart speaker
- About 80% of smart speaker owners also have at least one smart home device
- About 55% of smart home device owners have a smart speaker
- There are some smart speaker owners without smart home devices, but it is a small number and likely to decline further
More about Voice Assistants
Insider Intelligence has some interesting 2022 projections when it comes to smart assistants:
- More people will use voice assistants, like Siri and Google Assistant, on smartphones than on smart speakers
- 125.2 million people in the US will use a voice assistant on a smartphone this year
- 88.1% of voice assistant users will use the voice assistant on their smartphones
And when it comes to specific smart assistants:
- Google leads in the number of voice assistant users, likely due to sales growth of Google Home, Nest Home, and Android devices
- Amazon will be a close second, with Apple trailing closely behind
- 27.1% of US internet users and 24.2% of the total population will use Google Assistant this year
- 25.8% of Internet users will use Siri this year, as will 23.0% of the overall US population
- 21.2% of the population will use Alexa this year, reaching 22.1% by 2024; growth in Alexa users will mirror the slower growth seen in Amazon’s Echo smart speakers
The Pros & Cons of the Top Voice Assistants
Compatibility has been the bugaboo of smart home products. Some voice assistants are brand specific. So, although many devices work with Alexa and Google (and possibly Apple HomeKit), it’s not a given. However, there is a consensus on the top 5 smart assistants. They are, in order of popularity with developers:
- Amazon Alexa
- Google Assistant
- Apple Siri
- Microsoft Cortana
- Samsung Bixby
Not familiar with the last two? Cortana is found on Windows products. And Bixby can be found on select Samsung products, often in conjunction with other better-known voice assistants. For those reasons, we’ll concentrate on Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, especially as they work with smart speakers and hubs, and in some cases, smartphones.
This chart represents zdnet’s findings, which line up with conclusions drawn by others:
Amazon Alexa Pros & Cons
Pros: Best for device compatibility, intelligent, runaway winner for brands/smart home support including Philips Hue lights and Ring doorbells, easy shopping; currently uses Microsoft Bing for search
Cons: Inaccurate answers, few languages, and not pre-installed on mobile phones—needs the app
Google Assistant Pros & Cons
Pros: Best at responding, accurate, expands range of capabilities, compatible with Google brands, including Nest; uses Google search engine—the most popular one in the world.
Cons: Second-best in device compatibility, few languages, much fewer compatible brands
Apple Siri Pros & Cons
Pros: Most popular mobile voice assistant, supports many more languages than the others, works with all Apple products and HomeKit
Cons: Works primarily with Apple products so limited third-party voice applications and device control
What’s Next?
Meta has announced they are developing their own AI voice assistant (and hardware) to work with their Metaverse. Regardless of how you define the metaverse, surely Apple, Amazon, and Google will join in by beefing up their own virtual assistants and creating VR/AR hardware. Who knows what the outcome will be!
Another projected next use for voice assistants is hands-free smartglasses like the ones being developed by Apple. Yet others envision direct voice assistant use in automobiles.
And according to an Adobe Analytics study, there will be an increasing use of voice assistants by brands to reach and better engage consumers:
- 91% of 401 business decision makers surveyed said they already are making significant investments in voice
- 94% said they plan to increase their investments in the next year
And when it comes to which voice assistant they’ll use?
Buying Products by Voice Assistant
Voice assistants (and apps) are at the heart of the smart products. You need to make your customers aware of compatibility (or incompatibility) issues—or at least provide information on which voice assistant(s) a smart home product will work with.
Here at Petra, we’re making your job easier. Our SmartestHome landing page is divided out by various smart home product categories and provides a search choice by either Alexa or Google Assistant.
For those of you seeking Apple HomeKit or Bixby products, simply type HOMEKIT or BIXBY in the top search bar.
We’ve been tracking the evolution of voice assistants for quite some time. So be sure to read our other blogs: Voice Activated Revolution and Be The Expert: Voice Assistants.
And if you’re not yet a Petra customer, it’s easy to become one. Visit petra.com to get started! See how choosing the right distributor changes everything.