Most Americans are cautiously optimistic about voice authentication, according to a new online survey conducted by voice security solution provider Pindrop and Harris Poll. Four out of five American adults believe such technologies provide significant benefits over alternative methods of verifying one’s identify, with nearly half of them being likely to use voice recognition for identification if such an option is presented to them, the survey found.
The study also encompassed the frequency of phone communications with various companies that could benefit from voice authentication, having found that approximately half of Americans contacted entities such as telecom firms, insurance providers, healthcare companies, and financial services in a 12-month period ending November 2017, with every tenth consumer doing so on over five occasions within the same timespan. More than 25-percent of respondents said their experience with verifying their identity over a phone call was negative, finding it burdensome and annoying due to a wide variety of questions companies had to ask them in order to authenticate them. The findings of the research suggest a wide variety of industries in the United States would benefit from investing into voice authentication technologies in the future, thus becoming more effective at verifying the identities of their customers via a phone and providing users with a more convenient experience of doing so.
Pindrop and Harris Poll’s survey encompassed 3,000 American adults, having found that despite the fact that over 80-percent of them say they see major benefits to voice authentication, almost every single consumer believes such technologies also have their shortcomings. The most common concerns cited by consumers were a lack of reliability and accuracy, particularly in scenarios involving background noise. Voice-based authentication systems are still expected to continue gaining traction in the U.S. moving forward, especially as artificial intelligence helpers such as Google Assistant, Alexa, Cortana, and Siri become more ubiquitous and allow for a wider variety of voice shopping opportunities.