47% of US Will Interact With Conversational AI in 2022

Conversational AI, in the form of chatbots or virtual assistants, will be used by 123 million US adults at least once a month, or 47 percent of the population. 

That’s according to new research by eMarketer, which predicts that the technology will be used by 130 million US adults by 2025, or about half the population. 

SEE ALSO: Coming: More Chats with AI, Anytime, Anywhere

The primary form of engagement with conversational AI will remain through mobile devices and smart speakers, such as Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa. 

Privacy concerns have led to lower than anticipated adoption over the past five years, but the pandemic led to a 11.8 percent increase in usage. That declined to a 2.9 percent growth in 2021, and eMarketer predicts this will further decline to 2.6 percent growth in 2022. 

Most smart speaker usage remains tied to two key features, inquiries and audio listening. Over 70 million US adults used these two features in 2020. Harder interactions, such as buying an item or controlling smart home features, had much lower usage. 

This may be why 25 percent of Amazon Alexa buyers stop using the device after two weeks, according to internal documents published by Bloomberg. The thrill of asking to play a song or set a timer wares thin quickly, and more complex interactions either aren’t usable without specialized hardware (smart home) or technical setup. 

Other conversational AIs, such as chatbots, will continue to see more adoption by businesses. Up to 70 percent of white collar workers will engage with a chatbot in 2022, according to Gartner.

Breaking the barriers between human and computer language was always going to be a tough task, but we are seeing some progress in that regard on both sides. Humans appear more willing to talk to computers than they were 10 years ago, and the AI talking back is far more intelligent than the earlier versions.