Voice Search Is Taking Off

A recent report from Stone Temple Consulting compiled some very interesting data related to voice search. You can read their full study here but here’s the takeaways:

Those under 24 are 33% more likely to use voice search in public (51.6% will).
70% of people say they use voice search because it’s fast and less than 20% don’t use it.
Another 70% of people (likely some serious overlap) use voice search to avoid typing.
Over 60% of people want more results available via voice search and to avoid having to visit a web page.

There are a lot of other interesting findings in the study but those above relate to what we’re talking about here. Voice search is becoming easier, more common, and more intuitive, and perhaps most importantly — more effective. As searchers find that their questions can be answered well with a voice search and arguably easier than typing (certainly for someone like me with fat thumbs and a tiny little Android keyboard), its use is destined to continue its climb. This is not to suggest it will replace keyboards altogether; there are environments where it’s socially unacceptable to speak your query but even that will change as it continues to gain in popularity and becomes more common.