Adoption of voice technology: a qualitative study of Finnish consumers

Abstract

The objective of the study is to identify and find drivers and barriers to adoption of voice technology amongst Finnish consumers. A research framework based on different technology adoption behavioural theories, in particular the theory of resistance to innovation (Ram & Sheth, 1989) and the diffusion of innovations theory (Rogers, 1962) was used to identify what is presently known about the drivers and barriers affecting the adoption of technology, in this case the barriers and drives for voice technology adoption amongst Finnish consumers. Three focus group interviews were held online, with eight participants in total, both female and male, ranging from 18 to 62 in age. This provided a small, but valuable sample that reached fair saturation results, as some topics repeated themselves in different interviews. The research question was “What are the drivers and barriers to adoption of voice technology amongst Finnish consumers?”. The main drivers found were convenience and entertainment. Examples of drivers found were typing when driving, changing songs when listening to music, settings alarms while cooking and helping with spelling in multiple languages. The main barriers found were related to inconvenience and technology issues as well as social settings. Examples of barriers are frustration when technology is not working as intended, misunderstandings and misspellings, fear of sharing private search topics and lack of positive word of mouth creating a social barrier. It can be concluded that the process of voice technology adoption amongst Finnish consumers has started, but there is still not enough value seen in it to drive adoption at a higher speed. The most popular use cases for Finnish consumers are “silly” small everyday tasks such as asking about the weather or changing songs. For businesses it is important to start preparing for voice searches, as they differ drastically from traditional type queries, in order to not be left behind the evolution and loose sales and online visibility once adoption of voice technology takes off in Finland.