Nearly Half Of Online Consumers Are Interested In Using Connected Home Devices

“Just like mobile devices have replaced a lot of desktop/laptop devices, I anticipate the voice-activated devices will similarly reduce use of the desktop/laptop devices,” says Magid Advisors’ Mike Vorhaus.

Awareness and interest of voice-activated digital assistants has been rising rapidly in the past year and the shifts among the main devices are reflecting that surge.

With Samsung’s Bixby being rolled out and Apple’s Siri-powered Homepod scheduled to be released at the end of the year, Microsoft and Amazon struck an agreement this week to integrate their respective Connected Intelligence agents, Cortana and Alexa.

While 49 percent of U.S. consumers use their voice assistants on a weekly basis, compared with 31 percent of global respondents, according to a JWT, Mindshare, Innovation Group study, penetration of voice-activated devices is still relatively low. But the interest in such technology has clearly entered the mainstream.

As such, almost half of 2,400 consumers surveyed online by Magid Advisors expressed interest owning such a device. Among the topline findings of its report:

• 25 percent of people who have a connected-home device use voice-activated digital assistants to shop for retail items on the internet
• Siri (not Alexa) dominates both awareness and usage of voice-controlled digital assistant systems
• 42 percent of people who have used a voice-controlled digital assistant said that reason is because they like to have their hands free to do other things

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