The Alexa Conference just wrapped. Get top takeaways, Emily’s short livestream interview with VoiceFirst.FM, and the most popular chart of the conference.
Smart Speaker Penetration - Most Powerful Chart
Several people have asked me for this chart from my presentation, How to Crawl into Your Customer’s Ear - The Alexa Conference 2019. Bret Kinsella’s opening keynote included it too, as did a few others. I did not create the chart but I’m sharing it from the publicly available Activate Tech and Media Outlook 2018 Slideshare. If you need to convince your boss that voice is a thing, send them this:
Smart speakers are the fastest growing consumer technology of all time, forecasted in 2018 to reach nearly 50% penetration in the U.S. in less than five years. This chart is tracking to be an accurate prediction. Chart courtesy of Activate, U.S. Census Bureau, World Bank.
Livestream - Emily Binder interview with Ian Utile for VoiceFirst.FM
Click to watch (01:39 minutes) or press play below:
Best takeaways from The Alexa Conference 2019:
#AlexaConf2019
Tweet from Brian Roemmele about my best voice marketing advice: you need a sonic brand ASAP.
Katie McMahon from SoundHound shared some great info about the power of Houndify and the connected car.
Our friends from Nebo Agency came up from Atlanta. Read Founder Brian Easter’s article: The Next Disruption: Voice Tech and the Buyer Journey
“When we have diverse tech teams, racial profiling and gender bias won’t even make it to production.” -Kesha Williams, Senior Software Manager, Chik-Fil-A (overall keynote speaker)
Brielle Nickoloff with Witlingo gets it: we have a pristine, quiet place with voice right now - so take advantage with marketing your brand early. It will get crowded like the bloody red sea that is the rest of the internet - fast. Brielle and I did a live audio Castlingo from the conference - enable the Emily Talks skill then say “Alexa, launch Emily Talks” to hear it.
Jen Lehner shared one of my favorite pieces of content via Brian Roemmele: David Bowie predicting the future in 1999. Powerful.
Notice that Alexa (Echo) isn’t the center of this photo. It’s in the upper corner. Peripheral. That’s where we’re headed: ubiquity of voice assistants. (My reflection on this slide from Paul Cutsinger of Amazon at The Alexa Conference 2019 - Chattanooga, TN).
#VoiceFirst Community and Thank You
It was great meeting so many of the smart, forward-thinking people who make up the #voicefirst community. It is one of the most exciting, supportive, diverse, and pro-women communities in tech. Thank you to Bradley Metrock, Peggy Kilburn, and the VoiceFirst.FM and Score Publishing teams for putting this event together. See you soon!
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