• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, May 14, 2020

I borrowed part of the headline for this post from today’s Think With Google column that leads with a quote from Aki Spicer, chief strategy officer at Leo Burnett.

“I’m finding that the brands with solid foundations — a strong sense of purpose and point of view — can weather this shift with ease,” Spicer says. “Now is your time to demonstrate your purpose to new customers who may be interacting with you for the first time in a long time.”

This statement got me thinking about all the technology that could enhance search -- especially when it comes to voice search.

Those who have spoken with me in the past know you can present me with an idea and I’ll typically take it one step further. It’s what I do.

Vector Media and Carisma recently embraced a mindset shift. For example, when I spoke with Vector Media CEO Marc Borzykowski and Carisma CEO Moshe Gil about how they built face shields for medical workers to protect them against COVID-19, making them IoT-compatible was the first thing that came to mind.

When Gil told me about offering these face shields to cashiers at retail stores and grocery stores, I thought about allowing the data computations to appear on the screen, similar to Google Glass, with help from voice activation and voice search.

Through an opt-in process, the technology could calculate the performance of the advertising campaign by linking the technology in the face shield screen to the consumer’s smartphone, identifying whether an ad brought the consumer into the store to make the purchase -- all powered by voice.

Voice’s time has come in the wake of COVID-19, as people prefer to use their voice to control a variety of smart devices rather than using touchscreens and other tactile interfaces, according to results of a national CARAVAN survey conducted on behalf of Syntiant, a deep-learning tech company.

Think about this: the average voice-search results page loads in 4.6 seconds -- 52% faster than the average web page, according to Syntiant’s data.

There are concerns around voice. Some 50% are concerned about their privacy, 18% cite ease of use, and 15% point to function.

Still, the lasting influence of the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that consumers will opt to use their voice for a hands-free experience.

The findings suggest Gen Z at 60% will be the mostly likely to increase the use of speech controls, followed by millennials at 56%, Gen X at 54%, and Baby Boomers at 43%.

Some 87% of North Americans own one or more smart devices. Consumers rank smartphones, smart TVs and remotes, and home appliances as the top smart devices needing voice control. Half of all those who participated in the survey say privacy and security are their top concerns. 

The online omnibus survey was conducted April 22-24, 2020 by Engine Insights among a statistically viable population of adults 18 years of age and older, weighted by age, gender, geographic region, race and education.