[{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2018\/02\/08\/ai-delivers-opportunities-voice-activated-devices\/#Article","articleBody":"We are no longer passive consumers. Long gone is the one-way, single message broadcast from brand to customer. Today, the relationship between consumers and brands is much more complex. Brand propositions are dynamic, multi-directional, and a multi-channel value exchange where consumers are increasingly able to define the brand proposition based on personalization.\nNothing illustrates this better for me than the fact that me and my family have started instructing a talking cylinder in our living room, telling it to turn lights on, play music, and search for things like holiday deals. Like ours,\u00a0an estimated 2.7 million homes in\u00a0the UK are already actively using an Amazon Echo or a Google Home device. This is all before Apple has even actively entered the UK market with its\u00a0HomePod,\u00a0and we all know its potential to drive adoption of this technology even further.\nBeyond the novelty factor, the appetite for interacting with artificial intelligence-powered voice-activated technology is clearly there. However, asking Alexa to play a favorite song on Spotify is one thing \u2013 are consumers actually proactively interacting with the technology to browse or purchase items?\nThe simple answer is yes.\nToday\u2019s consumers are wholly and undeniably in charge of their shopping experience. People expect to be able to control the information they receive, the choice of products they browse, which channels they shop on, and when. By leveraging data-driven insight, AI is at the forefront of facilitating this as a neat value exchange between brands and consumers.\nIn\u00a0research commissioned by SAP Customer Experience at the end of 2017, of the 1000 UK consumers surveyed, 31% trusted their AI-enabled digital home devices to help make important decisions like gift research and purchasing during the recent Christmas shopping season. This is more than double the number in previous years- with those who used the device for more than a year, considerably more likely to use it to actually research gifts and purchase items.\nWith familiarity, users are clearly getting more comfortable with the idea of interacting with machine learning technology to make important shopping decisions. Significantly, this is also an indication of the level of trust required for people to make the leap of faith to make AI-led technology an integral part of the buyer journey.\nThe path to trust\nTrust has been a well-known friend and adversary for brands, since that first ever brand-to-buyer transaction. It\u2019s no different today. People need to feel like they can trust the person or entity they buy from or interact with. In-store is an obvious human to human interaction and a tangible evidence of the product, online is visually representative of human interaction and a product.\nBut what if the first interaction with a brand or product for a customer is an all-talking, singing, listening (but not yet dancing) device?\nIt\u2019s easy to assume that the quality and \u201ccoolness\u201d of the technology alone will influence people to actually use it. Also factor in the relatively low price points of these devices and the potential omnipresence of the AI \u2013 making itself accessible everywhere and anywhere in the home, office, and now even in\u00a0cars. However, though accessible emerging technology has the potential to make consumer engagement even richer, consumer adoption of technology is not enough and there are still barriers to overcome to turn intent into purchase.\nFor trust in AI to be cemented, it needs to firstly perform as expected. It\u2019s true that only a modest 55% of those who owned a \u2018smart\u2019 in-house device and had shopped with it for a year or more felt that their device knew them well enough to be trusted to recommend gifts to buy. This clearly being a missed opportunity for brands to engage with established users to influence purchase behavior and to recommend new products or services based on preference.\nThis isn\u2019t necessarily a reflection of a lack of faith in the actual technology. It\u2019s worth also noting that that only 26% of those who had only just started using the device to shop, trusted the AI to make gift recommendations. What this means is that familiarity and usage ultimately drives better trust. From a data and technology perspective this can also be attributed to the AI making better recommendations after a longer period of time, with a deeper understanding of the user\u2019s regular behavior and preferences.\nWe also mustn\u2019t forget that when brands first moved to desktop and then to mobile, it took time for people to trust these platforms to shop. Brands need to think about how they best seize the full potential of the technology and data available to harness AI and voice-activated devices in a way that works for today\u2019s shoppers.\nThe age anomaly\nThe impetus is now on brands that create strategies for voice-activated devices to deliver an enhanced version of the responsive, personalised and frictionless experience shoppers expect from the now \u201ctraditional\u201d digital channels.\nThe SAP Hybris survey illustrates this in a powerful way. As was not the case for desktop or mobile fifteen years ago, the 40 \u2013 71+ age group surveyed over Christmas were actually highly engaged with their in-home devices; 44.6% and 54% researched and purchased gifts in the age groups 53-71 and 71+ respectively. Which interestingly, makes the most active shoppers on these digital devices those over the age of fifty.\nSince the younger generation of the Millennium were naturally early adopters of desktop and mobile shopping, it\u2019s easy to assume the \u201cGrey Shopper\u201d to be less likely to adopt AI-powered technology, but the research proves my assumption wrong.\nHowever, going back to the connection between trust, performance and frictionless experience \u2013 the more natural voice-activated prompt of the likes of Echo, and the convenience of home shopping seems to be overwhelmingly appealing to the older age group. Brands would be wise to quickly tap into this, particularly since Baby Boomers have disposable incomes in the way today\u2019s millennials don\u2019t.\nEngaging in the moment\nRegardless of age, brands need to work on encouraging and reassuring the hesitant, inactive home shopper. Modern technology is poised to do this, but businesses must think beyond the technology, and focus first on building consumer trust and an experience that is both relevant and personal.\nWhatever form in-home devices evolve into in the future, with AI at its core, they have the unique ability to leverage both implicit and explicit customer behavior in an unprecedented way. If brands use this insight to develop a single view of customers across a number of channels they will learn to understand their real-time needs, and build this trust. Only then will the curious talking device on our living room table create true value for both brands and shoppers alike.\nDon\u2019t just believe in the exceptional \u2013 create the exceptional. Fast, flexible, mobile-first e-commerce is just a few clicks away.\nThis post was originally published on Engage Customer, and has been republished here with permission.","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2018\/02\/08\/ai-delivers-opportunities-voice-activated-devices\/#Article_Person","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2018\/02\/08\/ai-delivers-opportunities-voice-activated-devices\/#Article_Person_ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/23x6xj3o92m9361dbu2ij362-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Heald_John-150x150.jpg"},"name":"John Heald","sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnHeald72","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jh1972\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/john-heald\/"},"dateModified":"2021-08-09T21:33:20+00:00","datePublished":"2018-02-08T16:30:00+00:00","description":"AI delivers big opportunities to brands via voice-activated devices, like Siri and Alexa, but first they need to establish trust with consumers.","headline":"Talking trust: AI delivers new opportunities with voice-activated devices","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2018\/02\/08\/ai-delivers-opportunities-voice-activated-devices\/#Article_ImageObject","height":"630","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/thumbnail-4774d3a32f10aef5c9bfa0b3e1e11fe5-1200x630.jpeg","width":"1200"},"mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2018\/02\/08\/ai-delivers-opportunities-voice-activated-devices\/","name":"Talking trust: AI delivers new opportunities with voice-activated devices","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/","additionalType":"https:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/wiki\/Q1193236","description":"Relevant, timely information & analysis on commerce trends, both consumer-facing and B2B.","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/23x6xj3o92m9361dbu2ij362-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/themes\/hybris_foc\/assets\/images\/layout\/logo-new-2x.png?_=1","height":"96","url":"https:\/\/23x6xj3o92m9361dbu2ij362-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/themes\/hybris_foc\/assets\/images\/layout\/logo-new-2x.png?_=1","width":"500"},"name":"The Future of Customer Engagement and Experience","sameAs":["https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/a-call-for-a-better-experience\/id1479742201","https:\/\/twitter.com\/FutureOfCEC","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/groups\/4844282","https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/feed\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/"},"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2018\/02\/08\/ai-delivers-opportunities-voice-activated-devices\/#Article"},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2018","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2018\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"02","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2018\/\/02\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"08","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2018\/\/02\/\/08\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Talking trust: AI delivers new opportunities with voice-activated devices","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2018\/02\/08\/ai-delivers-opportunities-voice-activated-devices\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]