Do You See How Search Will Change?

September 5, 2017

Vocal-activated search is a convenient, hands-free way to quickly retrieve information. A number of people who use some form of vocal search, either using a smart speaker or a digital assistant. Scott Monty reports that the voice-activated speaker market has increased by 130% in the article, “Is The Future Of AI-Powered Search Oral Or Visual?” Amazon controls 70% of the smart speaker market, while Google has 23%.

Voice activated search has its perks, but it does not always prove to be the most useful. The problem with voice-activated search is that it does not allow a lot of options:

But here’s the current challenge with voice-activated systems: there’s no menu. There’s no dropdown of options. There’s no visual cue to help you give you a sense of what you can ask the system. Oh sure, you can ask what your query options are, but the voice will simply read back to you what your options are.

Monty points out that humans have been a visually-driven culture for thousands of years, ever since written language was invented. Amazon and Google are already working on projects that combine visual aspects with voice-driven capabilities. Amazon has the Echo Snow that has the same functionality as the regular Echos, except it has a screen. Google is developing the Google Lens; think Google Glasses except not as obtrusive. It can use visual search to augment reality. The main differences between the two companies still leave a big gap between them: Amazon sells stuff, Google finds information.

But here’s the current challenge with voice-activated systems: there’s no menu. There’s no dropdown of options. There’s no visual cue to help you give you a sense of what you can ask the system. Oh sure, you can ask what your query options are, but the voice will simply read back to you what your options are.

Google still remains on top, but Amazon could develop an ecommerce version of the Google Lens. Or would it be easier if the two somehow collaborated on a project to conquer shopping and search?

Whitney Grace, September 5, 2017

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under ECommerce, Google, News, Voice technology

Comments

Comments are closed.

Search the site
Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive

Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.