Over the last few months, there seems to have been considerable growth in what is best thought of as speech recognition technology. While Google’s “OK Google” feature has been available for some time, the use of speech recognition and virtual assistants for smartphones, tablets, computers and even watches is growing fast. Microsoft have recently released their version of Google Now as Cortana for Android and only today, Facebook unveiled a similar sort of feature embedded within their Messenger application dubbed M. Although, in fairness, Facebook’s M seems to be more of a text-based virtual assistant than a speech-based one. That said, both Microsoft’s and Google’s voice based virtual assistants are in the process of further evolving with the likes of Snapshots on Tap and Now on Tap respectively. Both look to make the use of speech-based content more fluid and intelligent.
Well, data crunching Tractica has now released a report which suggests this is likely to be a trend which not only continues going forward, but one which will see massive growth compared to some of the other relative methods of mobile phone engagement. For instance, the big takeaway from Tractica’s report is that the company predicts by 2020 as many as 82-percent of mobile phones will make use of native speech recognition. This is in comparison to the current 45-percent which was seen by the close of 2014. Adding to the likelihood that voice-related services will be a more integral part of a mobile phone experience, Tractica also predicts there will be a surge in the use of voice recognition by 2020. Although, this will be less of a surge compared to speech recognition, with voice recognition expected to hit the 36-percent marker by 2020. For those wondering, the main difference between speech and voice recognition, is that the latter will be more used for identification purposes and similar to the recent boom in fingerprint adoption.
In contrast, the Tractica report does also highlight that other means of control, such as gesture recognition will also continue to rise over the next seven years. However, their rise will not be as prevalent as speech or voice recognition. While Tractica expects the rise of gesture recognition to be around the same 36-percent marker, the starting block (current adoption rate) is already much higher with gesture than with voice recognition. Highlighting that although voice recognition has yet to take off substantially, once it does, it will grow much quicker. Those interested can read the full Tractica report by hitting the source link below.
