Smart speakers have become so popular, more than half of all U.S. homes will be equipped with Alexa, Google or Siri by 2022, according to Juniper Research.
Juniper predicts upwards of 70 million U.S. households will be using 175 million voice-activated devices within five years -- raising even more questions about privacy.
“There are hundreds of millions of people potentially using these things,that's a lot of homes to monitor,” says Michael Garfield, 'The High-Tech Texan.' “I think Amazon, Google who also has it too. Apple who also has it too. They've got better things to do.”
But Garfield says there's always a trade off when it comes to convenience.
“You have to look at all of these end-user license agreements to see what are you giving up? What privacy are you giving up before you use these types of functions?” he asks. “But in terms of voice activation, I cannot actually go back and see one specific instance where this is true.”
Juniper believes advertising is the biggest revenue opportunity for voice assistants and forecasts ad spend will reach nearly $19 billion globally by 2022. But the study says there will be challenges because not all voice interactions are product searches, meaning advertisers will need to adjust their strategies.
“If you are worried or concerned about these voice-activated speakers like Alexa, Siri or Google, there's nothing in the United States Constitution that says we need to get these,” says Garfield.