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Voice AI: A Conversational Customer JourneyHow voice technologies are transforming marketing and the customer experience as we speak.

Voice AI: A Conversational Customer Journey

The voice of the customer has literally taken on a new meaning, thanks to recent advances in voice-enabled technology and artificial intelligence (AI)

Through voice assistants like Siri, and voice-enabled speakers like the Amazon Echo, advertisers are presented with a new opportunity to speak up.

The era of voice-enabled search and commerce has arrived, and advertisers need to ready themselves for this new paradigm. By embedding their brands into conversations with customers, advertisers can provide personalized solutions for just about any problem. However, most still need to figure out how to seamlessly integrate voice into the customer experience, efficiently capture and manage this new data stream, and assess resources to ensure they can fully capitalize on this new world of “speak to shop.”

In this paper, we aim to clarify the key concepts of voice AI, explain how the technology is changing consumers’ digital behavior, explore how leading brands are taking advantage, and what you should be doing to get ready for the new era of voice commerce.

What is Voice AI?Voice-powered artificial intelligence is the technology that brings together speech recognition software, natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning, to enable conversational interactions between humans and voice-activated devices. This technology converts human speech into queries whereby voice AI applications can help users with tasks of varying complexity, including multi-step requests such as buying movie tickets, ordering pizza, or making travel arrangements.

While speech recognition technology has been around for a while (dating back to the ‘60s when IBM launched Shoebox: a speech recognition tool that identified 16 words and single digits), the increased accuracy attained in NLP and AI algorithms in the last ten years have markedly fueled the growth of voice technology. Today, it is estimated that voice assistants are able to recognize speech and achieve word precision with 95% accuracy. In addition, given the abundance of customer data, the opportunity for voice assistants to curate and personalize everyday experiences for users is pivotal.

The most common representations of artificial intelligence-based voice technologies are digital voice assistants and voice-enabled speakers:

• Voice assistants are intelligent software agents that interact via voice with customers (think Siri). They can be activated through a variety of devices, such as smartphones, speakers, computers, TVs, and other Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices.

• Voice-enabled speakers are stand-alone speakers that are enabled with voice assistant technology (think Amazon’s Echo). They connect with services to provide information, play music, and complete tasks, such as ordering food or checking traffic. They can also connect and interact with compatible IoT devices, such as appliances or wearables, to complete household tasks like running the dishwasher.

The most well-known voice assistants and speakers are illustrated below:

Other

Voice Assistants

Alexa Google Assistant Siri Cortana Bixby Facebook + Ozlo

SoundHound

Nuance Nina IDVoice Enabled

Speakers

Echo Google Home HomePod Invoke Bixby Speaker

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Is Voice AI Changing Consumers’ Digital Behavior?Voice AI creates a more natural and conversational experience between humans and machines (smartphones included). The tediousness of opening a browser, typing and scanning search results has been replaced with an assistant that responds to our commands with a welcoming voice, telling us what we need to know. Not only that, but its ability to tap into users’ data, browsing behaviors, media histories, and other unique identifiable data points, delivers a more curated and personalized experience, reducing

friction with the technology and simplifying the decision-making process for customers.

Voice is already changing the way we search. Nowadays, one in four searches is conducted via voice, and this figure is expected to reach 50% by 2020. Roughly 91 million people, or almost 28% of the US population, uses voice assistants at least monthly, with millennials representing the largest group of users (49%), followed by Gen X-ers (35%).

The most popular voice digital assistants are Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana, and Samsung Bixby. Siri owns the largest market share in the US, with 41.4 million monthly active users. As far as smart speakers, Amazon Echo leads the pack, with 66.6% share of the 61.1 million

voice-assisted devices in use in the U.S. Other popular smart speakers (US) include Google Home, Apple HomePod, Harman Kardon Invoke (powered by MS Cortana), among others. Amazon is now licensing the Alexa product and it is embedded on multiple third-party devices, like Sonos speakers.

While most voice assistants have similar functionality, key differences emerge from their parent company’s heritage and vision. Siri’s greater market share is partly

explained by being the first to market, in addition to Apple’s dominance on smart mobile features. Cortana, linked to Windows and everything Microsoft, displays a greater focus on productivity. Google Assistant’s strength resides in the longstanding history of Google’s search engine, making it one of the most powerful voice assistants in the market. And Amazon’s Alexa aims at integrating itself to whole-house management and services, as a link to Amazon’s vast e-commerce empire.

“As of January 2018, there were an estimated one billion voice searches per month.” Alpine AI

Voice AI: A Conversational Customer Journey

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“The Echo Dot was the best-

selling product on all of Amazon in the 2018 holiday

season” Techcrunch

2020 Projection: 50% of searches

will be conducted by voice Comscore

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

105.8100.591.0

72.1

54.6

US Voice Assistant Users (Millions)

2020 Projection: % of US population using smart speakers

How US voice-enabled speaker owners are using them

December 2017

OC&C

eMarketer

eMarketer

23%(76.5 Million)

$1.8 Billion in 2017 …and a projected

$40 Billion in 2022

playing music

weather / news

general questions

timers / alarms / reminders

to-do lists / shopping list

making a purchase 62%

97%

94%

90%

87%

71%

57%

55%

enabling smart home devices

emails / calls

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How Will Voice AI Impact Brands?As the adoption of voice assistants and voice-enabled speakers continues to grow, voice AI agents will have a greater role mediating (or disintermediating) customers’ interactions with brands.

When compared to paid search, voice-enabled devices typically provide a single response to most queries. This is because their goal is to surface the most relevant content for the user and simplify the dialog to accomplish tasks. Therefore, whereas on desktop and mobile, advertisers were satisfied with landing among the first couple of pages of search results, with voice, they will have to compete for the top slot (or top three at most, since users are unlikely to listen to more than a few results through voice assistants). Despite Amazon and Google’s current focus on providing a great user experience, it’s not

hard to imagine that voice-commerce is where they’ll go next. Some search professionals are already anticipating the emergence of voice ad-exchanges, where advertisers will bid to get their brands to the top spot. The first execution of this solution has just hit the market: Instreamatic.ai is the first company to serve “voice ads that people can speak with.”

In addition to competing for the top voice slot, marketers should realize that in this new voice ecosystem, access to customer data generated through third-party devices will most likely be owned by the voice-AI makers—which, coincidentally, are also the major advertising walled gardens (we could very well be witnessing the early stages of future sound/voice walled gardens.)

Voice AI: A Conversational Customer Journey

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Some first-mover advertisers have already begun incorporating voice and artificial intelligence into their products and services to outpace the competition.

Auto In 2017, Nissan announced that is working with Microsoft and its Connected Vehicle Platform, to integrate Cortana into some Nissan models. Cortana will adapt preferences and features based on drivers and passengers on board. For example, through the calendar integration in Cortana, the driver could ask about his or her schedule for guidance on where to go next, and get suggestions on shortcuts to their destination. In addition to Cortana, Nissan also announced that Alexa will be able to lightly operate some Nissan models (turning the engine on/off, operating locks and horn, etc.)

Travel & Hospitality In partnership with IBM, Hilton piloted Connie, the first intelligent robot concierge in the hospitality industry. Connie is powered by Watson, IBM’s AI supercomputer, and she works side-by-side with Hilton’s guest services, to help with visitor requests, personalize guest experiences, and support travelers with additional information to plan their trips. Connie uses a combination of technologies including Watson APIs (Dialog, Speech to Text, Text to Speech, and Natural Language Classifier), and a partnership with WayBlazer (which has extensive travel domain knowledge) to interact with hotel guests and address their travel needs. Hilton’s goal is to deepen customer and brand engagement through innovative and more personalized experiences.

Retail Walmart and Target joined forces with Google to compete against Amazon’s Alexa-enabled shopping services. Walmart will be offering hundreds of thousands of items for voice shopping through Google Assistant. Through the personalization of the partnership, customers will be able to order generic items like cheese or pasta, and Google Assistant will know which brands and size the user prefers. This year, Target will give users the option to link their Target.com accounts to Google, for similar personalization features (as Walmart). Google Express or Uber will take care of the delivery.

CPG The fast food giant McDonald’s partnered with Microsoft to develop an app that takes advantage of MS cognitive technology to convert drive-through orders into text, and send it directly into an integrated POS system for faster processing and even faster drive-through meal delivery.

Finance Capital One developed an Alexa skill that allows customers to check their credit card balance or make payments when due. The skill has the necessary safeguards in place: it performs security checks and requires customers to sign in using a username and password. Once the skill is open, users must provide a four-digit code to confirm their identity. The only caution for users is to make sure no one overhears their personal key, otherwise they’ll be able to access banking or credit card info through Alexa as well.

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What Should Marketers Do About it? It may be time to speak up! As a first step, marketers must assess their business’ strengths and resources to determine if they have the necessary digital, technological, and data management capabilities to create their own voice-AI experiences. Second, consider customer loyalty: brands with higher brand loyalty are better positioned to attract customers to their own voice AI offering.

Once brand and organizational strengths are appraised, there are several paths to create a voice-enabled marketing program:

• Open model: Partner with a voice AI provider, and make your brand’s data available to the AI service so that it can be accessed, vetted, and delivered when deemed relevant for the user.

• Partnership: Brands can integrate themselves into specific experiences of a partner brand. For example, a beauty brand sold at Target can piggyback on the Target program to integrate with Google Home shopping.

• Autonomous: A brand creates its own voice experience. Examples include Hilton’s Watson-

enabled robot concierge Connie, or the development of brand-specific Alexa skills.

With these models, the greater the cost, the greater the control over customers’ data and product experience.

“Behind this voice activity is a complex AI infrastructure that turns voice command into data which can be used by these devices. Marketers seeking to create meaningful interactions in this environment must first understand how people are ‘speaking’ to devices, which can be done through keyword research. Qualifying and quantifying this behavior will lead to new approaches to content strategy and structured data sets that fuel the AI revolution powering voice interaction.”

Dave McAnally, Resolution Media, Content

Voice AI: A Conversational Customer Journey

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Our Point of ViewThe growth of voice technology and its impact on the customer journey clearly speaks for itself, and advertisers must prepare to enter the voice-commerce race or risk falling behind. These are some key considerations for data-driven marketers to prepare for the integration of voice initiatives into their overall marketing and media strategies:

• Assess your data and marketing technology maturity level, to ensure your organization will be ready when time comes to ingest voice data and deliver analytics and performance insights.

• Develop a technical roadmap to acquire the necessary tech capabilities to manage the incorporation of voice strategies into marketing and media.

• Invest in partnerships and the required talent to make your martech stack vision come to life.

• Engage experts to support your brand and business cultural transformation and be ready to listen to your customers’ voice as they speak.

As voice assistants and smart speakers continue to evolve and become an indispensable part of consumers’ life, integrating the necessary voice technologies into marketing strategies should be a top priority for marketers in 2018. If you would like to learn more about how you can accelerate your voice enablement plans, please reach out to our Annalect Consulting team, at AnnalectConsulting@annalect.com. ■

SourcesGoogle’s Ability to Understand Language Is Nearly Equivalent to Humans, April Glaser, https://www.recode.net/2017/5/31/15720118/google-understand-language-speech-equivalent-humans-code-conference-mary-meeker

eMarketer, Voice-Enabled Technology StatPack: Current Forecasts for Digital Assistants and Speakers. August 2017, Victoria Petrock, https://www.emarketer.com/Report/Voice-Enabled-Technology-StatPack-Current-Forecasts-Digital-Assistants-Speakers/2002120

Siri Usage and Engagement Dropped Since Last Year, As Alexa and Cortana Grew, Sarah Perez, https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/siri-usage-and-engagement-dropped-since-last-year-as-alexa-and-cortana-grew/

eMarketer Inc., 10 Key Digital Trends for 2018, http://totalaccess.emarketer.com/reports/viewer.aspx?r=2002189

Digital Staff, Virtual Assistant Comparison: Cortana, Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, Bixby — https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/cortana-vs-siri-vs-google-now/2/

Forrester Research: The Rise of Intelligent Agents, September 2016

Forrester Research: How Voice-Controlled Intelligent Agents Can Redefine Computing, November 2013

Adweek, August 2017, October 2017

(the portion of Amazon Echo and Google Home owners that can’t imagine going back to the pre-smart speaker days)Geomarketing.com

65%9

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