How we fell out of love with voice assistants
Katherine Latham
To begin with, Abigail Barnes loved her voice assistant. Now it lives in
the drawer.
"I used [my Amazon Alexa] to turn on the lights or set a timer, and as a
speaker for books and podcasts," says the 43-year-old Londoner. "She
turned my fan on and off during the heatwave and played me Christmas
music in the winter."
Ms Barnes would ask her device to set alarms, tell her the time or for
the weather forecast.
"I kept my first Alexa in the kitchen and, a few months later, I got a
second Alexa and set it up in my bedroom."
However, Ms Barnes fell out of love with her voice assistants when they
began giving her frequent delivery notifications, asking her to review
purchases or prompting her to reorder items.
"It started giving me random updates or asking me to rate a product I'd
bought last month," she says, "which I found really irritating."
She became concerned about conversation data "being stored in a cloud
somewhere". Then she found the voice commands became unreliable.
"I stopped asking her to turn off the lights when I went to bed, as I'd
ask a number of times and then manually turn them off anyway."
What started out saving her time, she says, quickly became something
that cost time.
The Internet of Things (IoT) - the ever-growing network of physical
objects connected to the internet - is increasingly becoming embedded in
our lives.
There is a wide range of smart devices on the market from light bulbs,
ovens and washing machines, to speakers, fitness trackers, toothbrushes
and baby changing mats.
Voice assistants, such as Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple's
Siri, enable users to control IoT devices by voice command.
It is estimated that this year, the number of voice assistants in
existence will match the global population - at around eight billion.
However, after several boom years, the big tech companies are making
cutbacks, with their voice assistant units in particular trouble.
More technology of business:
Late last year, Amazon began cutting thousands of jobs, with reports
saying that the Alexa voice assistant unit was particularly hard hit,
having been on track to lose a reported $10bn (£8bn) in 2022.
Google also reportedly made the decision to scale back development of
its Google Assistant.
Do these mounting losses and job cuts point to the downfall of the voice
assistant?
When Alexa launched, Amazon pioneered a new business model. The goal
wasn't to make money from selling the devices themselves but for
shoppers to make purchases using the voice assistant.
Just a few years after launching, Amazon saw a billion interactions per
week.
But they were not the money-making opportunities that Amazon was hoping
for. Instead, most were simple tasks like checking the weather or making
a call.
For the past three years voice assistant use has been falling and
adoption continues to slow.
Canvas8
"Voice assistants have not become as socially sticky as promised," says
Helen Jambunathan from consumer insights agency Canvas8.
"A number of factors have fed into this, including concerns about privacy."
According to a 2020 survey, 82% of people are worried about monitoring
by phone microphones, laptop webcams and voice assistants.
Reports of Amazon Alexa sending voice recordings to the wrong person and
employees listening to private conversations only add to this concern.
"Voice assistants have never shaken connotations of invasion and
intrusion," says Ms Jambunathan. "There have also been several
high-profile instances of voice assistants being creepy, racist and
giving dangerous advice - further eroding consumer trust."
Add the cost-of-living crisis to this, she continues, and voice
assistants have become a luxury item "unable to compete with other
aspirational luxury or tech purchases".
However, while voice assistants may be losing their appeal for general
use, in healthcare they are on the rise.
Amazon
When it comes to people with dementia, ADHD (attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder), sight problems and mobility challenges, Alexa
is "a game changer", says Eric Saarnio, international business lead for
Amazon Alexa.
"Smart assistants are evolving - it's early days," he says. "We've come
a long way over the past eight years and we're certainly not stopping.
What we're doing can change people's lives."
Majesticare is one of the UK's first care groups to introduce Alexa
Smart Properties for Senior Living into their homes.
"It's just amazing to walk into a resident's room and know that they are
listening to music they have chosen, or catching up on their favourite
radio shows," says Angela Boxall, CEO of Majesticare.
Residents are able to connect with family and friends. They can ask for
a drink, find out what's on the menu, or ask what activities are planned
that day - simply by talking.
"Video calls with loved ones bring peace of mind," says Ms Boxall, "and
[the residents have such] wonderful smiles when they see the ones they
cherish."
While voice assistants might have found a useful niche in healthcare,
their appeal in the broader market may be on the wane.
Abigail Barnes's Alexa won't be seeing daylight again any time soon.
"I do miss her," she says. "I may revisit her, but [if I do] I'll invest
time in looking into the notification settings, and reading the terms
and conditions."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64371426?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
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