In this context of voice-based smart applications, India is serving as a major destination for voice smart assistant gadgets and services. Voice-based applications are gaining popularity due to increasing penetration of smart speakers and growing voice searches over smartphones. 

According to a recent survey, half of the internet users globally use digital voice assistants, and India leads the way with 72% adoption rate. For smart speakers alone, Indian users report a 97% satisfaction rate, which is also the highest in the world.

It is for this reason that tech majors like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Samsung (Bixby) are competing hard to capture India’s 300 million smartphone users through their voice assistants either on smartphones or made available through smart speakers.

Enhanced Customer Experience Is The Major Factor For Growth

One of the most important factors for the adoption of voice-based applications is the requirement that companies have for seamless customer experience. To enhance their growth and increase the customer base, organisations have started implementing voice assistant solutions. According to experts, many organisations in India have realised the value of chatbots in customer experience and therefore instead of just using text chatbots, customers are better served using voice bots bandwagon. That way, customers don’t have to go through the hassle of typing their queries. 

Bajaj Allianz General Insurance was the first in the insurance industry to have its chatbot on Alexa. It’s AI chatbot ‘BOING’ answers queries that customers may have at all times, ranging from general queries to policy-specific queries that also relies on authentication of the policyholder. Prior to that, HDFC Bank made available Alexa last year to help its customers check balances, ask when bills are due, and also make payments using voice commands. 

Apart from this, other e-commerce companies like Goibibo, Ola, Freshmenu, Zomato and Ixigo have built-in voice assistants for helping customers with queries as well as making recommendations. Of course, voice-enabled chatbots are making it easy for users to go through otherwise time-consuming queries. Companies are building their own chatbots dedicated to specific customer-directed aims and customise NLP models dependent on their performance needs. This has fuelled the uptick of voice-enabled chatbots and personal assistants in India. 

Indian Enterprises Are Using Smart Voice Applications For Making Processes More Efficient

With the advancement in natural language processing, automatic speech recognition, and artificial intelligence, the business use cases for voice-based chatbots have increased over the years. Experts are betting big on voice becoming the preferred mode of transaction for e-commerce, banking, and payments in the near future, streamlining the business process are the key factors driving the voice assistant application market.

With the enterprise, Indian companies are making use of AI-based virtual agents to automate processes. These processes include things like order placement, general enquiries and other customer services. For example, HDFC Ergo General Insurance Company introduced its AI-enabled chatbot ‘DIA’ on Amazon’s voice platform, Alexa for customer assistance. The chatbot allows the company’s customers to easily access any information relating to their insurance policies and get all their insurance related queries answered simply with the use of voice commands. 

The virtual voice assistants leading the charge today include Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana and Apple’s Siri. Among these Amazon has been making an aggressive push in the Indian market since it announced the expansion of the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) and the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) in October last year, enabling developers around the world to build voice experiences for Alexa customers in India.

Lack Of Datasets For Regional Languages Is A Challenge 

While tech giants see the tremendous value in the voice-enabled smart assistant market, currently the majority of such assistants in India support only English, whereas Hindi and other regional languages remain the dominant form of communication. So if the voice-and-speech recognition market in India has to expand it will have supported by software in multiple regional languages. Global tech majors realise that to draw millions of India’s new internet users their voice assistant, they have to go multilingual. Amazon last year launched a new category of skill called “Cleo” that enables customers in India to help Alexa learn Hindi and other languages. The idea was to improve Alexa’s language model and help her gradually speak in local languages. Google has formally stated that a Hindi version of Google Assistant for its Google Home smart speaker will be rolled out soon. The challenges for such companies is the unavailability of data sets that can be trained for NLP models and the current software is not proficient even for all Hindi speakers, owing to varying accents and contexts within the language across different geographies. 

User Privacy Is Yet Another One

41% of voice assistant users are concerned about trust, privacy and passive listening, according to a report from Microsoft focused on consumer adoption of voice and digital assistants. And perhaps people should be concerned — all the major voice assistants, including those from Google, Amazon, Apple and Samsung, as well as Microsoft, employ humans who review the voice data collected from end-users.

These companies look at data as valuable to train deep learning models and this is a complex problem that needs more attention. User privacy laws such as GDPR restrain tech companies to blatantly collect user data without consent, which is good for individual privacy. But, constant violations of user privacy have damaged the reputation and trust users associate with smart voice assistants. For India, the issue of user privacy does not seem to be a big challenge as found by surveys. Regardless, more user awareness for privacy as well as the upcoming Data Privacy Bill will be a challenge for this technology segment to grow. 

Overview

Some of the early use cases of voice-enabled solutions are limited primarily to seeking information, playing music, accessing customer service, etc. However, with technological advancements in both hardware and software front, one could expect some innovative use cases. The voice assistant applications enhance online communication, enable sophisticated interaction with intuitive response times, improve customer retention, and understand people’s natural language with sharp voice recognition. Clearly, for a country like India, the technology can make it easy for consumers to interact with applications and web services. This can boost multiple industries, including media, banking, e-commerce, education, healthcare and more. 

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