Are Voice and AI the Future of e-Commerce?

Voice Search and Artificial Intelligence will become more important for e-commerce according to Gartner who predicts that AI will power 95 percent of all customer interactions in 2025. Recently, Microsoft confirmed the acquisition of AI and speech recognition company Nuance Communications. It is Microsoft’s second-largest deal ever after the acquisition of LinkedIn. Nuance is a pioneer and a leading provider of conversational AI and cloud-based ambient clinical intelligence.

Importance of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence opens up the possibilities of how we interact with the world and information around us. So it changes the online customer experience. Firstly, it deepens customer loyalty with personalized experiences. Secondly, it helps to generate more sales. Thirdly, it improves client knowledge thanks to machine learning. AI is currently in use on chatbots, help desk software, email marketing software, and image and voice recognition software.

Importance of Voice Search

According to VynZ Research, the voice shopping market will grow to $40 billion by 2022. Smart devices and voice assistants like Google Assistant, Apple Siri, Windows Cortana, and Amazon Alexa have already shown the importance of voice search. Therefore it is key for brands to start optimizing their product content for such voice platforms soon.

Meanwhile, most of these smart devices use only product titles to match a voice search. For example, the product title “ASUS VivoBook 15 D515DA-BQ708 DDR4-SDRAM Notebook 39.6 cm (15.6″) 1920 x 1080 pixels AMD Ryzen 7 4 GB 1000 GB HDD Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) Silver” in the Icecat catalog is readable, but how does it sound? Would a potential customer really understand what this product is about? Probably not. Such product titles need clearly optimization for voice interfaces.

Google Snippets are a perfect example of answering a question of a voice search. In the future, Amazon is most likely to add a voice search attribute to optimize your product for Voice Search.

Wouter Maatman

Digital Marketing Manager at Icecat N.V.