4 out 5 CE products sold will exhibit some form of virtual assistant capability by 2024.

A recent report from Futuresource Consulting highlights the growing popularity of VA (virtual assistant) enabled consumer electronics products. Shipments of products with built-in voice assistant technology will double to 3.0 billion units in 2024, representing a CAGR of 19% across the forecast period.

The impact of COVID-19 dampened VA shipments throughout 2020; however, the effect of lockdowns on consumer purchasing was less pronounced than anticipated, and 2020 saw a 9% increase in shipment volumes overall.

“Voice control has established itself as an essential feature across consumer electronics,” says Simon Forrest, Principal Technology Analyst at Futuresource Consulting. “The audio processing aspects of virtual assistants have largely matured, and focus has shifted towards improving assistant competency and optimising language models. As such, innovation now lies squarely in the hands of the technology giants with knowhow in artificial intelligence.”

Apple, Google and Baidu emerged as the top three VA platform vendors by unit shipments in 2020.

To read the full Futuresource announcement click here