The technology behind virtual assistants, such as Alexa and Siri, keeps rapidly advancing. Not only can we order from our homes. But some voice assistants have come to in-store shopping.
See How Voice Assistants Have Come to In-Store Shopping
As Jen King reports for eMarketer:
“Need help finding a specific item in-store? Just ask Siri for the aisle number. That’s just one of the ways 1,203 U.S. internet users said they would use their voice assistant via their mobile device while shopping in-store. This is according to a May 2018 survey by Voicebot, a media property focusing on the voice-enabled Web. It collaborates with Voysis, a voice artificial intelligence (AI) platform. “
“Nearly 21% of respondents said they would ask their voice assistant for in-store help. While 17.6% would use their voice assistant to self-checkout. And that was a common theme. Out of the five responses given, three indicated that many would turn to their voice assistant rather than a sales associate while shopping in-store.”
I think this is a brilliant idea! When I go to a store and I can’t find a specific item, it usually takes me longer to look around the store for an employee than to actually find it myself. I remember going food shopping at Pathmark and they had screens on the shopping cart where you would type in a specific product and the aisle number would pop up. I would definitely use that in stores!
Technology is growing at a speed that people cannot imagine. It is great that by using Voice Assistant while shopping, many people can save time finding items, asking about the products’ details or waiting in long lines for checkout. However, the innovation of artificial intelligence also brings people to fear their jobs will be replaced by robots one day. People will have to prepare themselves more than ever before for an unimaginably convenient future very different than previous generation.
If you were to have told me that we would have Voice assistance while shopping 10 years ago I would’ve called you crazy and most likely have laughed in your face but at the rate that technology is going at this rate, its safe to say that that is now closer than ever. Voice assistance while shopping sounds like it will be a ton of help especially when locating items instantly instead of going through column by column in order to find it. The future is looking very bright and promising after reading this blog post.