Poll: Smart Assistants Used Most For Music, Weather

Tech’s biggest companies are betting on a slate of new partnerships to put more voice-assisted devices in U.S. households, especially for online purchases, but so far Americans are more likely to use them for playing music or checking the weather.

Thirty-three percent of people who own a voice-activated device such as the Amazon Echo or Google Home said they use it for ordering products and shopping online, according to a Morning Consult poll conducted Aug. 24 through Aug. 26. Fifty-four percent of survey respondents who own a personal device said they use it for playing music, followed by 47 percent who check the weather and 42 percent who ask their device questions.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google may be hoping to push more customers toward shopping with personal devices — and compete with dominant e-commerce player Amazon.com Inc — with a deal announced last month that would let customers place orders using their Google Home devices by tapping into their previous purchase history at Walmart.

The partnerships certainly have potential: Of the 33 percent who use their devices to shop online, 62 percent said they expect them to replace at least some of their purchases at brick-and-mortar stores. But among the broader survey of 2,200 U.S. adults, 63 percent said they still prefer to shop in person, compared with 26 percent who prefer a store’s website and 4 percent who prefer a voice-controlled device.

That low level of engagement for voice-controlled devices is not because consumers are put off by the idea of using artificial intelligence, says Adam Marchick, co-founder of VoiceLabs.co, a San Francisco-based voice analytics company.

“People are using artificial intelligence multiple times a day, it’s just disguised in a useful consumer application,” he said in a phone interview Thursday, when he mentioned how people are more comfortable with AI in their email inbox or their car.

“It’s less about artificial intelligence and more about ingrained user behaviors,” he said, adding that people may start turning to their smart devices to shop, over opening their laptop or a search page on their phone as voice-assisted devices improve the user experience."

Eight in 10 U.S. adults surveyed by Morning Consult said they don’t own a voice-activated device.