On April 2, senior vice president of digital operations for Walmart US, Tom Ward, introduced in a blog post that they will be rolling out their new service: Walmart Voice Order.
Partnered with Google, this service utilises voice ordering capabilities to allow customers to use their voice to order or add items seamlessly from Walmart to their online grocery cart. Additionally, it uses customers’ historical data to improve accuracy and selection when identifying the right items customers want to purchase. With Google Assistant being the artificial intelligence virtual assistant implemented, the service is available on a broad range of devices that are compatible with Google Assistant. This includes home devices, smartphones, and watches.
The move by Walmart is in response to Amazon’s own Alexa Voice Shopping service that was announced in 2016. It allowed customers to speak to Amazon Alexa and Echo devices to shop, order and track purchases from Amazon. With another big e-commerce player entering the voice shopping market, the industry continues to rapidly grow. In a survey done by OC&C Strategy Consultants, findings show that the voice shopping industry will likely jump from $2 billion in 2018 to $40 billion in 2022.
With this forecasted industry growth, the security of voice biometric data increasingly becomes of an utmost importance. The advancements of voice verification and authentication technologies will be crucial in the success of the industry.