Today, 500M people use a voice search powered digital assistant. That number is expected to skyrocket to over 1.8B people by 2021. In partnership with Bing, this joint-analysis explores the factors that have given rise to the use of digital assistants and voice-based conversational commerce, and offers marketers advice on what to do now.

Key Points:

• Voice is quickly becoming the search method of choice. Half of all searches will be voice searches by 2020. - comscore
• Similar to the mobile revolution, voice-based interaction with digital assistants is ushering in an entirely new set of consumer behavior. By 2020, Gartner predicts 30% of web browsing will be screenless.
• Could relevance factor be the new “quality score” for marketing to the machine?
• Interaction with a digital assistant is not a series of isolated touchpoints – it is an ongoing conversation.
• The keys to effectively marketing with relevance: customer advocacy, brand loyalty, and conversational commerce.
• Estimates show the voice market growing from $1.6B in 2015 to $15.8B in 2021. This entirely new channel has immense revenue potential.
• Digital assistants are now a critical component in building stronger relationships with consumers.