The voice industry is quite similar to mobile games, both of which existed before the "Mobile Internet Era". They were reborn because of the mobile Internet, and the industry pattern changed in 2013.
The difference is that despite the rapid growth of the voice industry, it has not erupted like a mobile game. Just as Zhang Jidong, deputy general manager of the mobile internet terminal product department of HKUST, said that this industry needs to survive.
In 2013, the voice industry ushered in giants such as Baidu and Tencent. At the same time, opportunities for mobile devices, smart wearable devices, in-vehicle devices, and education and customer service are booming. How many variables does the industry pattern have in 2014? What opportunities will become the flashpoint? For these questions, the answers of manufacturers such as HKUST, Feizhiyun, Yunzhisheng, Spitz, and Smart 360 tend to be consistent.
2013 inventory: the giants are not weak in the initial test of recruits
Compared with the various voice assistants that advocated voice in 2012, the difference between advocating the slow and hot state of voice in the future is that there have been some tangible changes in the voice industry in 2013.
1. The giant enters the war. At the Baidu World Congress on August 22, 2013, Baidu announced that speech recognition technology and capabilities were fully open. In November, WeChat also released an open platform for speech recognition. At the end of December, Sogou voice cloud platform was also launched. At the same time, Baidu and Sogou are also pushing for voice assistants in the second half of the year. The difference is that WeChat hopes to bring more developers to the WeChat ecosystem through open voice technology, while Baidu hopes to root the open platform into more products to consolidate its layout in the mobile Internet field.
2. Veterans set up formations, and recruits counterattack. In 2013, iFLYTEK and the three major operators all reached strategic cooperation. At the same time, the strategic direction was clearly defined as the three major businesses of mobile phones, TV and education, and they began to invest heavily. Yun Zhisheng, a recruit who was killed halfway through, also received 100 million yuan of financing in the second half of the year. Huang Wei, the founder behind the scenes, went to the stage and prepared to show his strength.
3. International giants compete. Apple acquired the startup Topsy for $ 200 million in December. Nick Halstead, CEO of social media analytics company DataSift, believes that the move is Apple's attempt to use its language analysis technology to enhance Siri's understanding. There is also news that Apple will join Siri Image search function, and Google is also investing a lot of resources to improve Android's voice search function, the two companies have begun to invest heavily in voice assistants.
Breaking point: Smart TV will become the biggest force
At present, the recognition rates of the speech technology of companies such as HKUST, Feizhiyun, and Spitz have reached 95%. Although the experience of voice assistants and input methods is still flawed, the overall voice solutions are basically mature and the voice is open The competition of the platform also gives developers full choice, and the voice industry is waiting for the outbreak of its affiliated fields.
Regarding the bursting point in 2014, the fields targeted by several manufacturers are roughly the same, including:
Smart TV. Stimulated by Internet companies such as LeTV and Xiaomi, traditional TV manufacturers such as Skyworth and TCL have cooperated with Internet companies to launch new TV products. From the recent CES, Samsung, Sony and others are also preparing for the smart TV field. At the same time, major Internet companies have also launched TV boxes.
Smart TV hardware and software solutions have matured and costs are decreasing. The joint promotion of Internet companies and traditional TV manufacturers will drive the outbreak of the industry in 2014. For TVs lacking input devices, voice has become the best input solution.
education. XFlytek has listed education as one of the three major businesses. Zhang Jidong said that for Xunfei, the income in the education field may be the top priority this year. In 2013, Xunfei acquired Qiming Technology, a service provider for the education and examination industry, for 480 million yuan This year, Xunfei has won the foreign language speech system of the 2014 college entrance examination, and will start to dig deeper in the education field from the examination field. Yun Zhisheng intends to make efforts in the direction of voice evaluation to make up for the shortcomings of traditional education in voice teaching through ubiquitous voice.
Spicy CEO Gao Shixing said that smart devices have become a carrier of learning, and education must be one of the areas of outbreak, but there are still two barriers in the industry. One is that the expectations of users are too high, and the dependence on equipment and the environment is also relatively high. High, the second is that users need different levels of content, and the content integration capabilities of developers are also high.
Smart customer service. Yun Zhisheng, CMO of Yunzhisheng, said that with the increase in labor costs, the cost burden of call centers has become heavier. Smart customer service in the United States has accounted for 40%, and there is still a big gap in the domestic market. Zhang Jidong believes that subdivisions such as operators, banks, and ticket booking will become the entry point. However, Gao Shixing pointed out that different devices, environments and Mandarin levels of users will become obstacles to intelligent customer service, and this field is still in the entry stage.
Car Equipment. The arrival of the 4G network has given the car a greater imagination space. After having a stable and fast network connection, the voice interaction problem of the vehicle-mounted device can be better solved. On the other hand, many smart cars also appeared at this year's CES. Zhang Jidong introduced that Xunfei's car cooperation manufacturers from Chery to Roewe, and this year's manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi also began to integrate voice solutions. Once the top brands stand It will definitely drive the industry as a whole in this direction.
Slow opportunity: Wearable devices are not favored
Although smart wearable devices are booming, they are not favored by voice manufacturers.
From the experience point of view, voice seems to be the best way to interact with smart wearables, but the smart wearable device itself is still too rough. In 2013, inWatch, husk watches, Turman watches, and 360 children's bracelets all saw jump tickets and went public. Afterwards, the response was mediocre, and devices such as bracelets were not a potential market for voice. The battery problem was not solved, and smart wearable devices were always difficult to break through. At the same time, Zhang Jidong said that although the offline voice package has been optimized to a size of tens of MB, but For smart wearable devices with limited memory, it is still a big cost.
Smart homes that have just emerged are not optimistic about voice manufacturers. On the one hand, there is a lack of unified industry standards. Each manufacturer has its own solution. On the other hand, the price of smart homes also determines that it is difficult to popularize in a short time. At the same time, user habits and actual usage scenarios also limit the application of voice in smart homes.
Lu Yongyi introduced that some range hood manufacturers have tried to control the range hood switch by voice to free their hands. As a result, the operation success rate is very low due to noise and other problems.
On the mobile phone side, voice assistants and input methods are still the strength of voice manufacturers, but as Zhang Jidong said, this is a market that needs to be boiled, and the product maturity, user habits and maturity are not enough. It is reported that after a period of hard push, Sogou and Baidu's voice assistant priority has also been lowered.
Gao Shixing believes that from the perspective of Siri, the voice assistant has undergone three key changes: 1. Integration from self-research + Nuance recognition solution; 2. Integration of content and service providers; 3. Combination of software and hardware.
At present, Spitz has released a context-linked voice solution. In 2014, voice assistants still have room for growth in the vertical fields of life services such as catering and hotels, but they are subject to the technical capabilities of voice manufacturers in search, and Internet vendors in voice recognition With the accumulation of technology, it is difficult for voice assistant products to explode in 2014.
Gao Shixing said that the addition of giants has verified that voice as an interactive channel and even a long-term entrance is an inevitable trend. However, the addition of giants has intensified competition at the same time as the education industry and user recognition. At this time, recognizing the trend will be the key.
The speciality of the voice industry is that it is dependent on other industries to a certain extent, but voice is penetrating into more and more subdivided industries. When these industries break out, it will also drive the overall growth of the voice industry. Looking at the trend, no matter which of the above areas breaks out, it indicates that the voice industry will usher in a new spring in 2014.
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