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All sorts of articles have documented the slow but steady decline of the mobile app.
After switching from iPhone to Android a couple of years ago, I think I’ve downloaded a total of 2 or 3 new apps over that time period. One a year sounds right.
The apps I use the most - Gmail, Spotify, and Twitter - probably haven’t benefited that much from the lack of new app downloads. Rather, that time has gone elsewhere.
Our relationship with mobile apps was changing well before the pandemic set in, as the velocity of innovation of mobile phones had slowed down our collective need to upgrade every year.
And once COVID showed up, we collectively stopped caring at all about upgrading phones, contributing to further erosion of the app market.
My mobile phone usage has shifted decidedly toward being voice-first, as I regularly use the mainstream voice assistants (Google Assistant, Alexa, and Bixby) along with voice integration built into Spotify.
In fact, I routinely hold up Spotify as the single best integration of voice into a mobile app that I’ve ever seen.
It’s intuitive, deeply functional, and so good it elevates the entire experience of the Spotify app just by being there.
Spotify is so good, it actually provides a blueprint for all mobile app developers on where they’ll eventually need to take their own apps, if they intend to compete within this much more competitive environment:
Voice needs to be there, and it better work well.
Mobile apps already sit on strike 2 as it is. One false move, it’s deletion off the phone.
Voice integration not only helps stave that off, but can help breathe all new life into a tired experience.
I’d argue that sooner, rather than later, it will become an expectation.
Looking to add voice to your mobile app? Let’s look at some of the players:
Aiqudo has the approach of creating a voice layer over many popular existing mobile apps on your smartphone. They call this Q, or the Q Actions Platform, and it’s an interesting, unique, and successful approach.
Alan allows app developers to create and deploy their own voice assistant within their own mobile application, using a suite of tools called Alan Studio.
Jovo is the leading open source provider of conversational tools that allow creation of voice experiences that can be easily integrated across platforms and devices, including iOS and Android.
SoundHound brings their robust conversational AI and expertise from integrating voice/AI into their own music app to third-party app developers, emphasizing the need to retain ownership and control of data.
Speechly enables voice integration into mobile apps, with a decidedly multimodal approach baked in from the ground up.
Spokestack integrates their voice/AI technology into existing mobile apps via Spokestack Tray, which installs a convenient tray UI for easy, efficient voice integration. Like SoundHound, they did this with their own mobile app first - read Why We Built Spokestack Tray.
And not to be left out, Amazon has recently rolled out Alexa for Apps, which enables deep integration between Alexa and your mobile app to provide users with voice functionality. To even try this out, you have to apply for a developer preview.
There are nearly 9 million mobile apps in existence across the world. Even 1% is roughly 100,000 companies that will need voice-enablement services.
The pitch to app developers that they don’t have to relinquish their valuable user data to Apple, Amazon, or Google by using one of these independent options has, so far, been a compelling one. Will it remain that way?
If it does, this may end up being the most competitive voice/AI space of all, over the next 24-36 months.
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