Bottom Line. Alexa has 70-80% smart speaker market share and is pedal to the metal in expanding the market beyond the consumer today, being the first company to target the business opportunity. While we expect Alexa will continue to be the market share leader, we believe Google will close the gap in the next 3-5 years as AI becomes foundational to the future of smart speakers.
News. Amazon announced Alexa for Business today. The basic idea is Amazon is building skills around everyday business activities like conference calls, scheduling meetings, keeping track of tasks and ordering supplies. This includes integrations with Salesforce, Concur, SuccessFactors, Polycom and Crestron to name a few. They are also selling a hardware starter bundle which includes 3 Echo’s, 2 Dots and 2 Echo Show’s.
Bravo Alexa. Today’s Alexa for Business announcement is further evidence Alexa is leading the smart speaker market. Alexa is the market share leader for good reason. First, Alexa is smart, and now has over 25k skills compared to 12k that we counted in April (Google does not have skills rather actions). Second, Alexa 3rd party hardware integration is expanding and earlier this year we estimated there were about 100 manufactures with integrated Alexa IP.
AI, the elephant in the smart speaker room. While it may look like Alexa is running away with the smart speaker market, Google is gaining ground. In October at the Google Hardware Event, Google explained how hardware products will facilitate AI first computing. In 2017 CEO Sundar Pichai has opened each of his public remarks stating Google’s goal of becoming an AI first company. This has obvious implications for Google’s advertising, Maps, YouTube, cloud business and now hardware.
Google likely to gain smart speaker share in 3-5 years, but Alexa will still be a share leader. Google’s efforts in the next few years could yield a measurable increase in market share. As mentioned, today we estimate various forms of Alexa account for roughly 70-80% smart speaker share and we envision Google’s share increasing from about 25% today to greater than 35% in the next 3-5 years.
Why Google’s in a good position. While Google is lightyears behind Alexa’s install base, we believe Google has the best AI (see our comparison here), and their more robust product line could catch up quickly. Google is going toe-to-toe with Alexa in terms of hardware pricing (Echo Dot and Google Home Mini starting at $29). More importantly, we expect Google will weave their AI Assistant into the fabric of the device ecosystem. This is important because integrating an array of devices (i.e. the handoff between the home and the road) is what will push users toward the next generation of our interaction with machines.
Disclaimer: We actively write about the themes in which we invest: artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, and augmented reality. From time to time, we will write about companies that are in our portfolio. Content on this site including opinions on specific themes in technology, market estimates, and estimates and commentary regarding publicly traded or private companies is not intended for use in making investment decisions. We hold no obligation to update any of our projections. We express no warranties about any estimates or opinions we make.