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Up to 64% of users have activated a smart assistant by accident

Smart assistant activation can result in embarrassing situations. (Source: The Manifest)
Smart assistant activation can result in embarrassing situations. (Source: The Manifest)
A new study of those who use voice-activated searches have found that 64% of this group set the assistant in question off by mistake during December 2019. An accidental press of a hardware button was found to be the culprit in 49% of these cases. In others, an AI "mishearing" a user's speech resulted in these mishaps.
by Deirdre O Donnell, 2020/01/08
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The Manifest has published the results of a study in which it polled a group of 501 voice-search users about issues and failures associated with them and the technology (such as Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri) behind them. They found that 64% of these respondents reported that they had activated their functions by mistake in the space of 1 month.

Of this sub-group, 49% put their accidental activations down to dedicated hardware buttons. They may be as susceptible to accidental presses as any other, and yet tend not to result in potentially disruptive voices from a pocket: this may be why Samsung is rumored to drop the Bixby (or Neon?) button in the Galaxy S20 series.

However, for others, additional factors were responsible: for example, 29% reported that they had said something the AI in question had "mistaken" for its name. These are not the only issues and gripes users had with these "helpful" systems.

Only 5% of the study's cohort denied that they had ever been "frustrated" with voice-searches in the past. For the other 95%, the inability to understand a request for information, in addition to all the accidental activations, were the main reasons for negative experiences while using these interfaces.

Some more stats from the "assistant fail" study. (Source: The Manifest)
Some more stats from the "assistant fail" study. (Source: The Manifest)

Source(s)

The Manifest

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Deirdre O Donnell, 2020-01- 8 (Update: 2020-01- 8)
Deirdre O'Donnell
I became a professional writer and editor shortly after graduation. My degrees are in biomedical sciences; however, they led to some experience in the biotech area, which convinced me of its potential to revolutionize our health, environment and lives in general. This developed into an all-consuming interest in more aspects of tech over time: I can never write enough on the latest electronics, gadgets and innovations. My other interests include imaging, astronomy, and streaming all the things. Oh, and coffee.