Voice aides like Alexa used by 20% of EU shoppers, survey says

Prompts on how to use Amazon's Alexa personal assistant are seen alongside an Amazon Echo in an Amazon ‘experience center’ in Vallejo, California, U.S., May 8, 2018. Picture taken on May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

One in five consumers in the European Union have shopped using a voice assistant like Amazon.com Inc’s Alexa or a chatbot, a practice that’s set to grow in coming years, according to a study by Mastercard Inc. 

So-called conversational commerce, where customers buy products through talking to a device powered by artificial intelligence, will make up US$40bil (RM159.16bil), or 6%, of all online spending in the US by 2022, payments firm Mastercard said in a statement. Research shows 21% of EU residents have shopped, 16% made payments and 7% did banking using voice or text agents.