Voice-based digital assistants like Apple Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa have been reserved for home use, wearable, and smartphones for the longest time. The trend is likely to change in the next few years as more businesses adopt the technology.  Annette Jump, in her recently published report titled ‘Emerging Technologies: Natural Language Processing Patent Growth Insights,’ explains there’s bound to be an explosion in virtual assistants. She calls this expansion as VxA to mean virtual assistants that will substitute almost any job or task. A 2019 survey conducted by 451 Research found that digital assistants and voice UIs will be the most disruptive technologies for enterprises after AI and IoT. The researchers found that four in ten respondents planned to adopt the technology in the next two years. And the good news is that virtual assistants apply to any industry.

Do you know how customers find your business online? Chances are they are using voice searches. It’s estimated that a billion voice searches are conducted each month, and most mobile voice searches focus on local businesses. That’s why every business should optimize its local voice search on platforms like Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google Assistant. It’s not just about optimizing voice searches for general questions but helping customers find your business. A 2018 survey by BrightLocal found that: