The Future of Voice Search (key stats)

As voice recognition continues to improve and we get more comfortable with speaking to our devices like they are other humans (and more lazy to type things by hand), voice searches are rising fast. Not only does this this have potential to change the way we interact with machines, it also changes how we structure our searches.

As an example, a typed search for flights to Asia might look like this: "Cheap flights Asia". A voice search the same thing is typically more conversational: "Can you find me some flights to Asia that are good value?". So what does this major shift in how we interact with search mean for the future? We took a look at the stats...

The Near Future for Voice Search

1. 50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020, per comScore.

2. About 30% of all searches will be done without a screen by 2020, per Gartner.

3. 13% of all households in the United States owned a smart speaker in 2017, per OC&C Strategy Consultants. That number is predicted to rise to 55% by 2022.

4. There will be an estimated 21.4 million smart speakers in the US by 2020, per Activate.

5. The voice recognition market will be a $601 million industry by 2019, per Technavio.

6. One-in-six Americans (16%) own a voice activated smart-speaker, per Edison Research and NPR.

7. As of January 2018, there were an estimated one billion voice searches per month, per Alpine.AI.

Voice Search Usage Statistics

1. 52% of people keep their voice-activated speakers in their living rooms, per Google. 25% keep them in their bedrooms, while 22% keep them in their kitchens.

2. 35.6 million Americans used a voice-activated assistant device at least once a month in 2017, per eMarketer—a year-over-year increase of 128.9 percent.

3. 1 in 4 shoppers used voice assistants in their holiday shopping during the 2017 season, per CTA.

4. 72% of people who own voice-activated speakers say that their devices are used as part of their daily routines, per Google.

5. Mobile voice-related searches are 3X more likely to be local-based than text-related searches, per Search Engine Watch.

6. 65 percent of people who own an Amazon Echo or Google Home can’t imagine to going back to the days before they had a smart speaker, per GeoMarketing.

7. 41% of people who own a voice-activated speaker say it feels like talking to a friend or another person, per Google.
   

Voice Search Demographic Statistics

1. 35.8% of millennials use voice-enabled digital assistants at least once a month, per eMarketer; this compared to just 10.1% of baby boomers.

2. The number of millennials who use voice-enabled digital assistants will climb to 39.3% in 2019, per eMarketer.

3. 2 in 5 adults use voice search once daily, per Location World.

4. About 1 in 5 adults use mobile voice search at least once monthly, per Global Web Index.

5. 25% of individuals ages 16-24 use voice search on mobile, per Global Web Index.

6. Individuals ages 26-35 represent the highest percentage of smart home device owners, per Walker Sands.

Voice Search Device Statistics

1. 70.6% of Americans who used a voice-enabled speaker at least once a month in 2017 used an Amazon Echo, per eMarketer. 23.8% used a Google Home.

2. Voice search accounts for 25% of searches conducted on Windows 10 taskbar, per Purna Virji of Microsoft.

3. The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on all of Amazon in the 2018 holiday season, per Techcrunch.

4. Amazon and Google account for 94% of all smart speakers in use, per Strategy Analytics.

5. Google Assistant is now available on more than 400 million devices, per Google.

6. 82 percent of Amazon Echo smart speaker owners subscribe to Amazon Prime, per GeoMarketing.

7. While the Apple HomePod understands 99.4 percent of all queries, it only answers 52.3 percent correctly, putting it behind Amazon Echo (64%), Google Home (81%), and Harman Kardon Invoke (57%) in that regard, per Loup Ventures.

Voice Commerce Statistics

1. Voice commerce sales reached $1.8 billion last year, per OC&C Strategy Consultants. They’re predicted to reach $40 billion by 2022.

2. 22% of U.S. smart speaker owners have purchased something using their devices, per Edison Research.

3. 5% of consumers use voice shopping, but that number could reach 50% by 2022, per MoffettNathanson.

4. Grocery shopping accounted for 20% of voice shopping in 2017, per OC&C Strategy Consultants. This compared to clothes shopping, which accounted for just 8%.

5. 52% of voice-activated speaker owners would like to receive information about deals, sales, and promotions from brands, per Google. 39% would like to receive options to find business information.

6. One in five consumers (19%) have made a voice purchase through Amazon Echo or another digital home assistant, and another third (33 percent) plan to do so in the next year, per Walker Sands.