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| By Michael A. Robinson |
Spend any time with me and you might think I’m crazy.
That’s because I appear to talk to myself … a lot.
You see, I hate typing on my smartphone.
So, I usually dictate ideas for things like stories and to-do lists.
I’ll also speak into the phone when drafting a text message.
Sometimes, it yields odd results.
Like when my wife got a text from me reminding her to “pick up a six-pack of money” for World Series snacks …
Or an attempt to add “make progress on my painting” to my to-do list, only for it to read “Hi Grace, I’m painting.”
It seems that some voice assistants could use some AI help.
I’m happy to report that a tech giant is leading the charge into this sector.
Over the past five years, it has gained some 260%.
Let me show you why this great AI voice play has so much upside still ahead.
The Stats on Voice Tech
Misunderstandings aside, one thing is clear: Voice technology is becoming the primary way we get things done.
We use voice tech to browse the web and send text messages.
But we also ask for help from voice tech assistants like Siri, Alexa and Claude.
These helpers can do things like setting a timer or checking the weather.
The stats on voice tech usage are eye-popping.
More than half of all online searches are voice-based.
About 71% of consumers prefer voice search over typing.
And 65% of people, ages 25 to 49, speak to voice-enabled devices daily.
Very quickly, voice is becoming the preferred way to complete tasks, replacing touch controls and typing.
That’s made the voice and speech recognition market worth $20 billion. It’s forecast to surpass $53 billion by 2030.
The thing is that the effectiveness of voice technology depends largely on how smart these voices sound.
And that’s where AI can really come in handy these days.
AI’s Role in Voice Tech
As with most things, AI is flooding the voice-tech market.
Voice assistants are using AI to grow smarter and offer more precise, personalized responses.
This is intentional by the companies behind these platforms.
That’s because AI is expected to change the way big firms interact with customers and employes.
According to Andreessen Horowitz, the AI voice market reached $5.4 billion in 2024. That’s a 25% jump from 2023.
And according to Grand View Research, the AI voice market will reach $21.8 billion by 2030.
To invest in this market, we have a few options.
For starters, we could look at a niche player.
These are smaller companies whose AI voice technologies are used for cars and call centers.
SoundHound AI (SOUN) and Cerence AI (CRNC) are two good examples.
But while both are great companies, small-caps like these have shown a lot of choppy trading of late.
That makes them poor options to play this trend.
So, let’s instead turn toward one of the leading players in this market that has been racking up steady AI gains.
The Search King Goes AI
That company is Alphabet (GOOGL).
Alphabet is the world’s third-biggest company by sales. But you probably know it by its popular search engine: Google.
Much like other tech giants, Alphabet views voice and AI as key to future growth.
And it plans to meld them together.
It sees voice tech as the entry point for AI.
It wants to use it via products equipped with voice and camera capabilities.
At the same time, it sees AI as the “engine” behind new voice-centric experiences.
Let’s look at how Alphabet is meshing these two technologies …
Voice + AI
First, there’s Google’s virtual assistant. It’s called Google Assistant. And it’s very popular.
It uses AI to understand commands and questions.
Google is also enabling smart displays users to interact through voice and touch.
Google Cloud offers conversational AI solutions.
These help companies build voice bots and call-center agents.
There’s also Dialogflow. This is Google’s way of building voice and chat interfaces across apps and services.
Google even has its own phone service. It’s called Google Voice.
It’s a free service for managing calls and texts using a Google number.
Even More AI
Of course, Google uses AI in nearly every part of its business.
Its search function is probably its most popular.
Here, AI powers everything from ranking results to a newer feature called “AI Overview.”
This is a quick snapshot of the most relevant result to a question or search.
AI is used to figure out intent and summarize information.
AI also plays a role in the firm’s advertising business. This is Google’s biggest source of revenue.
AI models optimize ad placement in real time.
Tools like Performance Max use AI to evaluate creative assets and predict audience behavior.
They also deliver ads across all Google surfaces. These include Google Search, YouTube, Maps and Gmail.
Not to be outdone, Google even uses AI internally to detect fraud and predict campaign performance.
A Double in the Making
Over the past five years, Google’s stock is up about 260%.
That’s three times the S&P 500’s returns during that stretch.
The thing is this dominance isn’t going away any time soon.
As I shared with you, voice AI is not yet perfect. But the field is improving daily. And millions of us want in.
That’s why Google is investing heavily into this field, fusing AI and voice tech into many of its offerings.
That’s why I see plenty of upside ahead for this tech giant.
Over the past three years, per-share profits grew 28%.
At that rate, we’d see earnings double in just 2.5 years. And when earnings grow, stock prices do, too.
Add it all up and you can see that Google has a chance to become the voice of a new generation.
Or at least the voice tech of a new generation.
And that sets us up for a nice opportunity to profit.
Best,
Michael A. Robinson
P.S. AI is also at the heart of our biggest upgrade in more than two decades.
Director of Research and Ratings Gavin Magor will announce the launch of “Weiss 3.0” in just four days.
He’ll take part in a special unveiling event on Tuesday, Dec. 16, at 2 p.m.
I’ll be watching. I hope you will, too. To do that, you’ll need to grab the link by clicking here.
