In early February eMarketer released a study on the state of conversational commerce through smart speakers.

Their headline: "Purchases via Smart Speakers Are Not Taking Off."

Hmm.

Those who delved into the details of the report found that purchase activity via smart speakers had actually grown by 18 percent year over year, to a user community of 21.6 million US consumers.

And, with this growth, smart speaker purchase activity should pass an important milestone in 2020: more than 10 percent of all digital buyers will make a purchase using a smart speaker.

Actually, that’s reasonably impressive. But the overall numbers did not meet eMarketer’s original forecast. And thus, the headline.

The tone of the headline led several days later to an interesting discussion among the industry experts of RetailWire. Comments on voice-centric shopping ranged from scorn (“we’re all being sold a bill of goods”) to nuanced conversation that touched on issues of data use and privacy, the limits of voice-only technology, and consumer frustration with anything but the simplest of usage.

Without getting into the details of the dialogue, it’s important to place a contextual frame around any discussion of conversational AI and shopping.

Let me share some thoughts. Six, to be exact.

First: let’s properly understand the growing availability and adoption of AI-enabled voice assistance – which goes well beyond smart speakers. The smart phone (with a screen, folks) is and will be the primary vehicle for AI voice assistance. You’ll use voice assistance in your car, you’ll use it to enter data into enterprise applications (see Salesforce’s good work.) Smart speakers will be a minority subset of voice assistant usage. We must not equate voice assistance with a piece of hardware.

Second, let’s recognize that voice is in its earliest of days, days similar to the Netscape-IE browser war days. Earliest of days in development, in capabilities, in usage. It wasn’t so long ago that all but a fraction of American shoppers weren’t about to transact on the internet for many of the same reasons mentioned in the RetailWire commentary — fear of privacy violations, fear of data theft.

Perhaps others also remember the dismissive comments once applied to internet-based retailing — “it’s no more than a store’s worth of revenue,” or “it’s only for the nerds — women will never use it.” (Yes, I actually once conducted a study for Intel as to the potential of US women using the internet to shop. Fortunately, I concluded “yes.”)

Third, as eMarketer reported a few weeks earlier — not noted in the quoted report -- voice assistance has crossed the chasm in both availability and adoption. In the States, it’s reached early majority-level use. Simple use, for sure — but regular, active use nonetheless.

Fourth, let’s acknowledge – as all retail experts should – that the decision journey stretches from awareness and discovery to post-sale support and service, and that the influence of that journey is critically important. Purchasing is but one element. We must not equate the internet’s impact upon retail with its 10-12 percent slice of current revenue. Likewise, we cannot dismiss the current and potential impact of voice on commerce because of low purchasing numbers.

Fifth, we must try — please, try — to understand what voice can and can’t do. The studies show that we can speak 3X faster than we can type. And that we can read 2X faster than we can listen. Which suggests a microphone, speaker, and a screen. The voice developer community — people who are making money by making money for others — has already moved to the necessity of voice-visual (multi-modal) communication for commerce.

Sixth, let me echo the words of eMarketer’s researchers, and many of the RetailWire experts. There is a significant issue of consumer trust. Much as there was with the internet. Much as there is whenever new consumer technologies emerge. It’s trust in privacy, in data usage (voice is a biometric and a diagnostic), in how to use it. Voice – like the internet -- must be made worthy of consumer trust.

An important step we can take is to develop and bring to voice the type of standards, guidelines, and governance that made the internet the world’s greatest value creator.

Believe it or not, there are none at present.

This is a transformative technology. Coming at us slowly and inexorably, as the tide.

We have the opportunity now to make voice worthy of enterprise and consumer trust.

Contact me, Jon Stine, if you’d like to help.