68% Indians ready to spend more on voice assistants embedded in car: Capgemini

Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant will soon be joining the cacophony on the Indians roads. 

Voice assistants have become a part of the current smartphone experience and a survey now indicates that these services could soon become a part of vehicles, especially in India. 

Worldwide, around 95 % of drivers — that is virtually everyone —will be using a voice assistant in the next three years, according to France-based information technology company, Capgemini’s annual report Voice on the Go.

Indians seem to be more eager to embrace the new technology than others, with 68% of respondents here willing  to pay the highest premium for voice assistants embedded in a car. 

Around a third of consumers (37%) in other countries said they would be willing to pay a premium or monthly subscription price for a voice subscription installed or embedded in their car and 48% said they might consider this in the future. 

Automobile giant Ford is already gearing up to launch models with Alexa as the in-car assistant in India by 2020. Technology giant Amazon is training Alexa to understand Indian dialects.

Security remains a top concern for people looking to pay for these services. Consumers also expect better user experience in the future. 

The current report was developed by Capgemini Research Institute surveyed 7,000 consumers using in-car voice assistants across France, Germany, India, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States and 300 executives from large automotive organizations, across these ten countries, with revenues of more than 1 billion US dollars participated in the survey.

Almost half (49%) of consumers surveyed are currently using voice assistants in their vehicles for a variety of functions like listening to music, navigation, booking appointments, and ordering food.

“Voice assistants are becoming an essential part of how people experience cars, and safely manage their lives while on the move,” said Markus Winkler, Global Head of Automotive at Capgemini.

About 28% of consumers described their experience using in-car voice assistant as “great”, with 59% agreeing that the experience needs to be improved. About 50% of consumers do not trust voice assistants with their personal data, and 48% believe that they are too intrusive and seek too much personal information.