Artificial intelligence powered digital assistants are being touted as the next big thing in computing and the battle to succeed in this space is set to define the consumer technology agenda for at least the next decade. Voice-first speakers such as Amazon’ Alexa and Google’s Assistant are currently capturing most of the attention in the market. However, winners and losers in the race to control the user interface in the home will be decided by a company’s ability to rapidly improve its AI capabilities while building out a strong ecosystem of services, device compatibility and partnerships.
This report lays out the issues at stake within the nascent digital home assistant market and outlines the challenges lying in wait and questions that industry players must address in order to succeed in this new era of voice computing.