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AI By The Numbers: 33 Facts And Forecasts About Chatbots And Voice Assistants

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Keeping up with all the news about new and improved chatbots is becoming close to impossible, and AI is still not there to summarize it all for us. Recent developments include Amazon bringing out in quick succession the Echo Look and the Echo Show, aiming to improve further its commanding 70% market share (for more on this, see below). Google showed off its AI prowess and raised the stakes by allowing up to six different accounts to control Google Home and Microsoft teamed up with Harman Kardon to produce a voice-activated speaker featuring Cortana.

But the rush to the new voice frontier is not limited to the battle for the smart home and established enterprises are on the voice wagon in full force. At a recent fintech conference, Bank of America executives talked about Erica, an AI assistant it will introduce later this year, allowing consumers using the bank’s mobile app to chat via voice or text message. And Staples plans to turn its red “easy” button into an AI assistant powered by IBM’s Watson, helping you order office supplies by voice and text. “The conversational UI,” Hubspot’s Dharmesh Shah told me last year, “is going to be an even bigger leap in software than we had with the shift to Web-based software. We are all re-thinking now how to build products.”

To help with your chatbot information overload, here’s a handy list of numbers about the rising prominence of online messaging, voice interfaces, and having a conversation with your friendly AI assistant.

In 2017, 35.6 million Americans will use a voice-activated assistant device at least once a month. That’s a jump of 128.9% over last year (eMarketer)

Amazon’s Echo speaker will have 70.6% of users in 2017, with Google Home at 23.8% of the market (eMarketer)

The number of users of virtual assistants in the U.S. will grow 23.1% in 2017 (eMarketer)

60.5 million Americans will use Siri, Cortana or another virtual assistant at least once a month in 2017 (eMarketer)

33 million voice-activated devices will be installed in the U.S. by the end of 2017 (VoiceLabs)

56% of U.S. households own and use a smart speaker (Technalysis Research)

50% of smart-speaker-owning households use it at least daily (Technalysis Research)

Chatbots will be responsible for cost savings of over $8 billion annually by 2022, up from $20 million in 2017 (Juniper Research)

42% of consumers already use digital assistants, while 72% of business execs and 53% of millennials are using them (PwC)

60% of US online adults already use online messaging, voice, or video chat services (Forrester)

55% of consumers would like to select their media by curating a list that draws heavily on AI recommendations or simply have it completely selected by a bot (PwC)

31% of business executives believe “virtual personal assistants” will have the largest impact on their business, more than any other “AI-powered solution” (PwC)

34% of business executives say that the time freed up from using digital assistants allows them to focus on deep thinking and creating (PwC)

27% of consumers weren’t sure if their last customer service interaction was with a human or a chatbot (PwC)

WeChat is China’s most popular chat app, with over 889 million users as of the end of 2016 (Quartz)

50% of WeChat users spend 90 minutes per day inside the app (Quartz)

Chinese messaging platform WeChat accounts for about 35% of time spent on mobile Internet (Business Insider)

Chatbots will power 85% of all customer service interactions by the year 2020 (Gartner)

By 2020, the average person will have more conversations with bots than with their spouse. 30% of web browsing will be done by voice (Gartner)

74% of consumers say they used voice search in the past month, and daily use is up 27% compared to last year (HubSpot)

47% of consumers are open to buying items through a chatbot, and 37% would buy items from Facebook (HubSpot)

As long as they can get help quickly and easily, 40% of consumers don’t care whether a chatbot or a person answers their customer service questions (HubSpot)

67% of consumers worldwide used a chatbot for customer support in the past year (Business Insider)

38% of consumers worldwide rated their overall perception of chatbots as positive and 11% as negative (Business Insider)

56% of consumers worldwide reported still preferring to speak with a human instead of getting assistance from a chatbot (Business Insider)

48% of consumers worldwide said they preferred a chatbot that solved their issue over a chatbot that had a personality (Business Insider)

Half of all searches will be voice searches by 2020. The voice market will grow from $1.6 billion in 2015 to $15.8 billion in 2021 (iProspect)

Google voice search queries in 2016 were up 35x over 2008 (Search Engine Watch)

In 2014, in 2014, Google found that 55% of teens and 41% of adults in the US were using voice search more than once per day (Social Media Today)

By 2019, 75% of workers whose daily tasks involve the use of enterprise applications will have access to intelligent personal assistants to augment their skills and expertise (IDC)

Watch Amazon Echo and Google Home having a friendly conversation:

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