If you’re looking for some new reading material around smart speakers and voice interfaces, try investment firm Mangrove Capital Partners’ new report ‘Voice: Welcoming the Next Generation of Disruptors’.
“Importantly, this shift will go far beyond checking the weather forecast, requesting music or setting a timer,” is how the report summarises the impact of voice technology. “Voice represents both a platform and user interface (UI) shift comparable to the web and smartphones. And as the front door to artificial intelligence and machine learning, voice technology will find powerful new ways to serve us.”
There’s more: “Within three to five years, the conversational capabilities of computers will be vastly more sophisticated and transformative. Rather than spending our time typing on keyboards or tapping on phones, we will simply talk to an omnipresent AI. Importantly, the way we interact with software will change forever– forms will be dead and touchpoints will become ‘listening points’.” And if you want some more predictions to shout at your boss today: “The number of voice assistants will surpass the human population by 2023”; “The keyboard will be largely redundant within 5-10 years”; and “Apple’s launch of SiriOS in 2020 will unleash huge innovation in the voice economy, which will be worth $1 trillion by 2025”.
SiriOS being the report’s prediction that Apple will join Amazon, Google, Baidu and others in fully opening up and allowing developers to create third-party ’skills’ for its voice assistant.
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