The Future of Visual and Voice Search
October 4, 2017
From the perspective of the digital marketers they are, GeoMarketing ponders, “How Will Visual and Voice Search Evolve?” Writer David Kaplan consulted Bing Ads’ Purna Virji on what to expect going forward. For example, though companies are not yet doing much to monetize visual search, Virji says that could change as AIs continue to improve their image-recognition abilities. She also emphasizes the potential of visual search for product discovery—If, for example, someone can locate and buy a pair of shoes just by snapping a picture of a stranger’s feet, sales should benefit handsomely. Virji had this to say about traditional, voice, and image search functionalities working together:
A prediction that Andrew Ng had made when he was still with Baidu was that that ‘by 2020, 50 percent of all search will be image or voice.’ Typing will likely never go away. But now, we have more options. Just like mobile didn’t kill the desktop, apps didn’t kill the browser, the mix of visual, voice, and text will combine in ways that are natural extensions of user behavior. We’ll use those tools depending on the specific need and situation at the moment. For example, you could ‘show’ Cortana a picture of a dress in a magazine via your phone camera and say ‘Hey Cortana, I’d love to buy a dress like this,’ and she can go find where to buy it online. In this way, you used voice and images to find what you were looking for.
The interview also touches on the impact of visual search on local marketing and how its growing use in social media offers data analysts a wealth of targeted-advertising potential.
Cynthia Murrell, October 4, 2017
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Hey there deliah!