The global market for voice recognition technologies was valued at $90.3 billion in 2015 and $104.4 billion in 2016, but it is expected to reach $184.9 billion in 2021, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.1 percent, according to a report from BCC Research.
Of that amount, the consumer market is expected to grow from $54.4 billion in 2016 to $95.9 billion in 2021 at a CAGR of 12 percent. The enterprise market is expected to grow from $44 billion in 2016 to $79 billion at a CAGR of 12.4 percent.
In the three years since BCC Research issued its last report on voice recognition technologies, the market has continued to expand due to the growing demand for enhanced enterprise, consumer, and healthcare applications that feature speech as a primary user interface. Among the reasons for the increases, according to the report, are the recent advances in machine learning, statistical data-mining techniques, ubiquitous mobile devices, and other technologies.
The report includes consumer entertainment, telematics, and home applications, as well as enterprise applications within the military, legal, contact center, and warehouse sectors. The healthcare segment's use of interactive voice response, assistive technology, and transcription applications are also included.
Technologies covered include overall hardware, software, and devices as well as automatic speech recognition, text-to-speech, speaker verification, speech analytics, call center, interactive voice response, voice-enabled mobile search, games and set top boxes, digital signal processors, gateways, microelectromechanical systems, and Bluetooth technology. Device applications, including voice-integrated navigation systems and wearable devices, are considered a key driver of current demand for voice recognition.