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Virtual Digital Assistants to Overtake World Population by 2021

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by Angela Guess

A press release written by Ronan De Renesse of Ovum reports, “Globally, the native digital assistant installed base is set to exceed 7.5 billion active devices by 2021, which is more than the world population according to the US Census Bureau on May 1, 2017. But fear not – Skynet, from the popular Terminator movies, does not feature among the leading digital assistants. Instead, Google Assistant will dominate the voice AI–capable device market with 23.3% market share, followed by Samsung’s Bixby (14.5%), Apple’s Siri (13.1%), Amazon’s Alexa (3.9%), and Microsoft’s Cortana (2.3%).”

The release goes on, “Ovum’s Digital Assistant and Voice AI–Capable Device Forecast: 2016–21 found that smartphones and tablets clearly lead the voice AI–capable device market, with 3.5 billion active devices in 2016, most of which use Google Now and Apple Siri. However, the use of AI in conjunction with other devices greatly increases consumer engagement and is set to unlock new opportunities, particularly in the home. Ovum expects an exponential uptake of voice AI capabilities among new devices, including wearable, smart home, and TV devices, with a combined installed base of 1.63 billion active devices in 2021, a tenfold increase on 2016. Despite all the hype that surrounds AI-capable connected speakers, TV devices (i.e. smart TVs, set-top boxes, and media streamers) offer a larger opportunity, accounting for 57% of that installed base in 2021.”

It adds, “Although most of the AI capabilities will reside on the network rather than in the device, native vendor-led implementations will be critical to gather the contextual and personal data that will feed the AI engines. Newly launched devices from Samsung and Google exemplify this.”

Read more at Ovum.

Photo credit: Ovum

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