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"Danielle Reubenstein, executive creative director in the mobile division of the ad agency Possible, said she had been urging brands to view smart speakers as a way to connect with people rather than as a means to sell products - at least for now." "These are still early days for marketing on voice devices. Ms. Reubenstein compared it to when brands began making apps for mobile devices. But over time, she said, voice interactions will begin to replace many of the activities that people are conducting on screens."

"There are a few fundamental reasons why voice shopping has huge potential.[...] - It's faster. We can speak faster than we can type, so using voice is typically quicker than any other modality. For example, in 2018, Virgin Trains in the UK launched an Alexa skill that lets customers book train tickets through Alexa. It takes the average booking time down from 7 minutes online to 2 minutes via voice. The potential to save time is always something that appeals to customers. - It's frictionless. No matter how user-friendly you make your website or app, no matter how much you work on your conversion rate, you're always battling the inherent friction that's built into the device itself. [...] [but] there are challenges for retailers, including: - Data ownership. If you choose to use one of the top two platforms, Alexa or Google Assistant, then they'll ultimately have visibility into all of your skill or action activity, including what your users are asking for and buying. That's pretty compelling competitive intelligence. - Commission. For a truly seamless experience, you'll need to use a native payment service, like Amazon Pay or Google Pay. For that, there's a charge. - Competition. Amazon's aim is to be the place where you can buy anything online. That means that, whether or not you compete with Amazon today, you might tomorrow. Second, there are challenges for consumers, including: - Difficulty browsing. Although we can speak faster than we can type, it's quicker to scan a list of search results than it is to listen to those results read back audibly. This means that general browsing, a common product research behavior, is a challenge on voice. - Difficulty discovering possibilities. Discovering voice applications is a challenge. So finding out what shopping facilities exist on voice and understanding how to access them can be a challenge for some. - Cognitive load. There's also a cognitive load placed on the user in order to access a t

"The Internet has overturned how people shop and reshaped the retail industry. Voice assistants are about to unleash another revolution. As people increasingly shop via the likes of Alexa and Siri, they will tend to demand generic products, starting with everyday items such as batteries and eventually including more complex purchases such as electronics. Digital assistants will use algorithms to compare product specifications, make suggestions, and do comparisons, so that customers can find "the longest-lasting battery pack" or "the cheapest bag of flour." If digital assistants with trustworthy recommendations become a significant source of sales - and we think they will - they could chip away at all but the strongest product brands. Competition will become even more brutal as consumers switch between only one or two verbally suggested options offered by digital assistants - one being their own private label or another low-cost product. Companies that have negotiated with retailers for shelf space up to now will have to find ways to convince the digital assistants to put their products at the top of verbal searches."

"At January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a boost to the artificial intelligence (AI) that allows smart speakers like the Echo, Google Home, and Apple Homepod to reliably recognize everyday sounds-and to act on them-is set to lend the devices powerful new capabilities, including the ability to recognize your favorite brands from the noises they make." "Are such activities an invasion of your "soundspace"? Schaub thinks so. He predicts, "People will find the detection of what kind of soft drink they are having, based on the sound of opening the can or bottle, very creepy." "That people are unaware their smart speakers could record activity after the device's wake word is uttered is no surprise to Schaub and his fellow researchers. Their survey of smart speaker users showed that consumer rationalizations for installing smart speakers showed "an incomplete understanding of privacy risks" and that they had a misplaced "trust relationship" with the smart speaker companies. Most users, the researchers said, seemed resigned to losing their privacy and accepted it as a cost of using the technology." "Still, voice assistant makers should harbor no illusions that audio data is any less worthy of protection than other forms of data, says a spokesman for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in London, which drew up of many of the measures in the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which companies the world over now have to comply with if they want to sell into Britain or Europe."

"Voice search may also make it easier for a customer to leave reviews, as well as increase the importance of them. Rather than having to log in and type out a review, it can be as simple as your device asking you, "How do you like the backpack you ordered? How many stars would you give that product?" This becomes important when it comes time to shop: Nearly 85% of voice shoppers are confident in the recommendations given to them by their digital assistants. Having great reviews will be more important than ever -- otherwise, a product runs the risk of never being seen by the voice shopper." "My biggest advice to brands is to start by having a defined voice engine optimization strategy. Once you define your strategy, you should work on building a keyword list specific to voice search. "

"Avec la démocratisation des assistants vocaux, la question du branding sonore refait surface. Mastercard s'accorde à la tendance et dévoile à l'occasion de la semaine des GRAMMY Awards, une pimpante signature mélodique." "Si Mastercard prend ce virage, c'est en parti lié au développement du vocal. Le communiqué de l'annonce souligne que « le shopping vocal va générer 40 milliards de dollars d'ici à 2021« , qu'il est donc "important de connecter les marques avec les consommateurs de manière différente".

"Spotify is about to begin publicly testing its first hardware: a voice-controlled smart assistant for cars, meant to help Spotify learn how people consume audio while they're driving. As part of the test, some Premium users will receive the device for free. The device, called Car Thing, plugs into a vehicle's 12-volt outlet (aka a cigarette lighter) for power and connects to both a person's car and phone over Bluetooth. The device can be activated by saying, "Hey, Spotify," followed by a request for whatever the person wants to hear. It'll be linked to a user's Spotify account, so they can access their playlists." [...] "While smart assistant companies want access to drivers' in-car data, carmakers themselves are developing their own smart assistants and voice controls, too. But in a survey by JD Power, 76 percent of car owners said they're interested in having the same brand voice assistant in their home and in their car. Spotify could face an uphill battle if it wants to convince its users to give up the assistant they're already used to in order to play audio more seamlessly from their Spotify account."

"With "Project Alias," Bjørn Karmann and Tore Knudsen of Denmark demonstrated a simple yet effective way to take back control over our own private sphere, which earned them the STARTS Prize of the European Commission." "None of us had any smart home devices for a long time, and we were certainly not planning to buy one either. But after Bjørn won Google's AI Experiment Challenge back in 2017 he got a Google Home smart device as a gift from the I/O event. Despite the lack of excitement, Bjørn brought it home for a trial period. It did not take long before frustrations started to build up, and empathy towards the uncanny voice disappeared. Every interaction and behavioral pattern felt predetermined. He felt like a passive consumer who just wanted to give the poor assistant a name that was not the company's brand. And then there was the microphone. A direct link to the servers at Google that always was on and ready to be triggered by your command. So the idea of hacking it started to arise. But as makers, we had to face the sad truth that it was yet another device with a completely closed system. To hack it, we would have to get creative. This is when the idea of a "man-in-the-middle-attack" started. A device that we would trust and which has no connection to the internet. Whose job is to take control of the other assistant and whose name it would deserve."