Coresight Research: Consumers show AI voice preferences
Who a consumer is can have a large impact on how they want their artificial intelligence voice assistant to sound.
Overall, U.S. consumers would prefer a prefer a female-sounding voice for an AI persona (37%) over a male-sounding voice (28%). However, a new consumer survey from research and advisory firm Coresight Research reveals 49% of female respondents indicated a preference for female-sounding voices and 47% of male respondents said they prefer an AI assistant with a male-sounding voice.
Slightly more than one-third (35%) of respondents said they would not use AI in voice mode. The survey also reveals that consumers prefer AI voice assistant accents that are associated with the region where they live.
For example, Midwestern respondents (22%) leaned toward Midwestern accents, Northern respondents (34%) tended to pick Northern accents, and Southern (19%) respondents were most likely to pick Southern accents.
The most popular response among respondents overall for accent preference was no accent at all (27%). Among international options, the leading accents were British (10%) followed by Australian (7%). In addition, Coresight Research data indicates that close to six-in-10 (58%) surveyed U.S. consumers have used, plan to use, or will use generative AI to shop.
"Consumers have embraced GenAI for shopping, but they want these tools to feel personable and aligned with who they are," said Deborah Weinswig, Coresight Research CEO and founder. "As this technology becomes more accessible, there is now a race to see who can integrate it best. Our research shows that customizable AI personas can strengthen engagement and comfort at a point when retailers are deciding the best path forward."
Voice, personalization lead business AI goals
According to a recent report based on surveys of businesses and consumers from communications platform Sinch, 97% of business respondents planned to use AI in their customer communications, with top investment areas including AI voice assistants (63%), as well as AI-powered video chats (48%) and AI-driven chatbots (43%).
[READ MORE: Survey: Businesses to continue AI investment with voice assistants, chatbots]
In addition, during this year, almost half (46%) of all business respondents said they plan to focus on improving the way communications integrate with their tech stacks. A similar percentage (43%) will prioritize adopting emerging technologies, with personalization and optimization of existing communications channels (40%) and implementation of more AI and automation into communications (35%) being the two top investment areas.
