• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, February 1, 2017

According to new data from Accenture of almost 26,000 consumers across 26 countries, one-thirdof consumers in every age group are interested in using the voice-enabled digital assistant in their smartphone.

Currently, stand-alone, digital voice-enabled assistants are more exclusively in the hands of early adopters, but a strong majority of early adopters are using them on a daily basis. Such pervasive usage is a positive signal for this category with an adoption pattern than many new product categories recently released, says the report.

Consumers are increasingly comfortable interacting with AI-enabled capabilities, says the report. 50%of all consumers interact with their service providers through live chats or mobile messaging apps on a monthly basis, and 85% of those say it feels like it’s easier to get in touch through these methods.

These live chats and messaging apps are increasingly supported by AI-driven chatbots. While just a few years ago many customers resisted chatbots and other computerized customer service features, says the report, now 62%are comfortable with an AI application responding to their query, says the report. Consumers see big benefits over human advisers, as It’s available any time; it’s less biased; and, it’s faster to engage. In fact, consumers appear to be readily accepting AI-enabled capabilities as long as they get their objective accomplished.

Benefits Of Interacting With Computer Based Applications Rather Than Human Advisors (Percentage Of Respondents Selecting “Completely Agree” Or “Agree”)

• 84% Available anytime
• 68% Less biased
• 68% faster to engage
• 65% Faster to provide service
• 64% Communicate more politely

Source: Accenture, January 2017

The growing acceptance of AI-enabled functionality is one significant indicator that today’s dynamic digital consumers are ready for far-reaching hyper-personalized services, concludes the report. But truly understanding consumer readiness for hyper-personalized services is a more complex algorithm than what is expressed just by interest. Readiness is influenced by attributes such as connectivity, the density of personalized data the consumer generates, how much consumers trust providers and how enthusiastic they are toward services they currently use.

For additional information from Accenture please visit here.