The Rise of the Voice Machines - Voice Commerce Dynamics

Authored by Smita Khanna, Chief Operating Officer, Newton Consulting India.

During my recent stay in Gangtok, I had the privilege of working from an absolutely beautiful location with breath taking view. The only discomfort faced during this work from Gangtok stint was the extreme cold temperature. In fact, it became a habit for me to wake up and ask Google Assistant what the weather would be like for that day, and invariably the answer would be, “There is a high of 4 degree and a low of 1 degree.”

This example of using voice for assistance is actually becoming a rampant phenomenon where combination of Vernaculars and Voice technology is driving information dissemination and commerce on different fronts.

Voice shopping is fast becoming a centrepiece in all kinds of businesses and the integration of Vernaculars has fuelled the growth quite rapidly in context to India. For those new to the terminology of what Voice Commerce means, it refers to a type of conversational commerce technology by which the user or consumer interacts and purchases using voice recognition technology. In Voice Commerce, users use voice commands to browse and search for products and services or information instead of typing the query or clicking the scrolled-on content.

Voice Commerce or V-commerce has been getting popular for a few years now and is powered by voice assistants which use NLP, i.e, Natural Language Processing, a specialty stream of Artificial Intelligence (AI). NLP enables machine learning to analyse and comprehend the languages we read, write and speak. Internet of Things (IoT) devices use NLP and act as an interface between the user and the digital platforms. Data from the voice combines and aligns with the key word-based identifieddata of the online sites, allowing the commands given to take an action and land on the required data set of information. Voice Commerceacts to influence and show up pre-existing digital data structures and the use ofAI’s NLP assures flawless processing of the commands.

When users or consumers comment on a specific activation command, say, "Hey Siri" or "OK Google", it activates the device to interpret the speech command using Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology. The data seeps into Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to create responses by executing the voice-search commands in the backend using internal and external API links.

The key players in Voice Commerce are - Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, Google Assistant and Apple Siri. Digital voice assistants have largely been used for relatively simpler activities such as checking the weather, playing songs or identifying locations on Google maps, but the growing usage of voice assistance for online shopping is witnessing a steady growth too. It is also interesting to note that the most popular of their functions in recent times include controlling smart home appliances and gadgets, answering general questions and setting alarms and reminders.

However, the use of voice on digital platforms is rapid, and the industry implications for these applicationsare limitless. As voice recognition technology is rising, voice search no longer includes only digital assistants. We are witnessing an era where using voice search and other voice enabled capabilities on tablets, in stores, smart-watches and smart TVs is a common phenomenon.

In the brick-and-mortar, retail-selling representatives bring in the benefit of having human interaction that enables customers to understand the products and thereafter induce the purchase. This human interaction while shopping has been an integral part of the Indian system. But the pandemic did bring in certain behavioural changes amongst the customers and with the rise of e-commerce; a lot of this experience has been lost. This is where Voice Commerce proves to be beneficial as it is a unique means to bridge the gap between the two, by putting in a layer of dialogue on top of a computerised or digital system.

When Google Assistance decided to use John Legend as its first celebrity voice or when Amazon signed the Bollywood bigwig Amitabh Bachchan for its Alexa voice assistant, these organizations clearly understood that developing the brand’s voice personality will have far greater impact and a much wider connectivity with the target audience. It will be interesting to understand how India with its vernacular expansiveness, immense smartphone penetration, affordable data rates and growing digital literacy, could further explore regional language integration by involving locally recognized personalitiesto depict the voice-on-internet in order to have a higher connect inthose geographies.

As voice assistants are getting better at comprehending consumer tendencies and preferences, they are increasingly influencing consumer behaviour as well. In doing this, voice assistants are assuming a central multi-dimensional part in the growth of e-commerce GMV by arbitrating consumers with market connect interactions.

These fast-changing market dynamics within the context of Voice Commerce are showing an overwhelming effect on consumer brands and retailers. Voice Commerce has become a game-changer for B2C and B2B e-commerce. However, customer concerns revolving around privacy and data protection and security have been some of the key concern areas. This is a digital experience paradox.

Legislations around the processing of personal data are increasing globally, like the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that came into effect in May 2018. Such topicalities cause more conversations around data protection, and these movements/ shifts in privacy protection has made internet consumersmore aware of the need to protect their data online.

Buyers in both B2C and B2B want privacy on the Internet. If companies want to boost the adoption of Voice Commerce, a solution to maximize the security of the consumer needs to be found to keep the information required minimalistic and just enough to enable purchase. It should be the responsibility of the B2C or B2B corporations to educate their shoppers and give them the required satisfaction that there is safety in the useof voice-enabled devices and its e-commerce.

In response to “machine behaviours”, safety of usage, privacy of data and other potent dynamics; researchers are studying the interactions and meshing to align the dynamics between consumers, businesses, brands, retailers and their data characteristics.

Voice Commerce usage is expected to soar to 8 billion devices by 2023; this is nearly 2.5 times since the last Voice Commerce data-points identified in 2019 and interestingly, Voice Commerce market produced by digital assistants is expected to top $80 billion per year. According to Google, 20% of all searches are being made through voice commands.

When I witness my house help using her voice assistant to shop for a birthday gift for her daughter via an e-commerce site, that too using her authentic Bengali dialect, I am apprised of the fact that Voice Commerce is becoming an ordinary part of everyday life as people have begun using the function more regularly to explore, research and carve relationships with brands and businesses.