Gartner predicts that by 2019, 20% of smartphone interactions will be with virtual personal assistants.
Most mobile apps will become dependent on virtual personal assistants

IT advisory firm Gartner Inc. stated that due to advancements in various technologies, the interaction between users and mobile devices is also evolving in an intuitive direction.

Gartner predicted that by 2019, 20% of interactions between smartphones and users will take place through Virtual Personal Assistants (VPAs).

Annette Zimmermann, Vice President of Research at Gartner, said, “Going forward, as VPAs become more common among smartphone users and conversations with smart devices become possible, the role of interaction will become even more important.”

The iPhone's voice recognition service 'Siri' can be used to download apps from the App Store or ask what song is currently playing.


In the fourth quarter, Gartner conducted its annual mobile app survey of 3,021 consumers in the U.S., the U.S., and China. The results showed that 42% of U.S. respondents and 32% of U.S. respondents said they had used a VPA on their smartphone in the past three months. “As new features such as enterprise service integration and support for more languages are added to VPAs, the use of VPAs will accelerate and be used on more devices,” said Jessica Ekholm, a principal research analyst at Gartner.

According to Gartner, VPAs are expected to change the way users interact with devices and become a part of everyday life in 2019. Currently, VPAs are used for simple tasks such as setting alarms or searching for information on the internet. However, before long, VPAs will provide slightly more complex functions, such as processing transactions based on past, present, and anticipated future contexts.

What is reinforcing this trend is the acceleration of conversational commerce. VPAs can utilize various UIs in addition to voice. Facebook Messenger enables users to purchase products from businesses, contact customer service centers, and call Uber taxis. Tencent's WeChat generates $1.1 billion in revenue by providing an all-in-one service to 440 million users. Through these services, WeChat users can handle tasks such as paying bills, calling taxis, and purchasing products via text.

China exhibits the highest level of market maturity. As messaging platforms dominate the market, the traditional app market has reached a point of stagnation. This trend is expected to continue and spread not only among general consumers but also to businesses and prosumers. For example, Microsoft has integrated Cortana into Skype, enabling users to chat with VPAs. In this case, Cortana utilizes third-party apps to support interactions, performing tasks desired by the user, such as booking hotels or flights.

"Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and VPAs will become strategically important battlegrounds after 2017. And in this process, mobile apps will gradually disappear and ultimately become subordinate to VPAs," said Vice President Annette Zimmerman.

By 2020, personal devices are projected to reach 7 billion, wearable devices 1.3 billion, and IoT devices 5.7 billion. Most of these will require no human control or will operate with very minimal operation.

Gartner predicted that by 2020, 2 billion devices and IoT equipment will operate based on a zero-touch UI that can be controlled without pressing.

"Touchscreens will begin to disappear from the process of human-device interaction, and the use of human voice, environment recognition technology, biometrics, motion, and gestures will increase," said Annette Zimmerman, Vice President. "In this situation, as the use of voice assistance systems increases depending on how well the system perceives the user's surroundings, apps that utilize contextual information will become a critical factor in determining user acceptance. Consequently, VPA-related assets and partnerships held by device manufacturers, as well as expertise in natural language processing and deep machine learning, are expected to play a significantly important role."