The Voice of Commerce: How Smart Speakers Reshape Digital Content Consumption and Preferences

The present study investigates the effects of smart speaker usage on consumers’ digital content search, purchase, and consumption behaviors. Using a unique panel data set comprising information on household patterns of digital content (e.g., video on demand [VOD]) transactions and consumption and smart speaker usage, we found that the adoption of smart speakers is positively associated with the increased purchase of digital content but negatively related to the average rate of content completion. More specifically, we found that VOD content-related expenditures increased by 21.5% following smart speaker adoption but the average consumption of VOD content purchased decreased by 3.0%. We also examined millions of data points on TV remote-control use and conducted a survey via MTurk to support the validity of the findings. Smart speaker usage can reduce search costs, which subsequently increases search incidence and conversion rates, behavioral changes that can lead to a rise in purchases. We further show that the use of smart speakers for purposes other than information seeking is positively associated with purchases. We develop insights on how to elicit economic value from voice recognition technologies and provide implications for the design and implementation of effective voice commerce strategies.