Cognitive technologies, the secret to improving customer experience

The internet of things is a key element leading the new industrial revolution, together with virtual reality, robotics, cognitive technology and others. Its wide adoption has changed the way businesses and consumers interact and will disrupt the way we live.

Although regions such as Silicon Valley and, broadly, North America are far ahead in deployment and there are still barriers which hold it back in certain areas, research shows “the average UK consumer spends double the amount of time online than they did ten years ago.” IoT is on the right track to win over the entire household, as we step by step move our lives online.

Consumers show growing interest in the internet of things even though some 70 percent of respondents in a Deloitte survey on the UK had no desire to purchase a connected device in the following year. Out of the 2,000 British consumers surveyed, as many as two thirds claim IoT could improve their day-to-day activities.

This year is expected to be a significant one for cognitive technologies. With 25 percent growth over 2015, most top 100 companies will have integrated cognitive technologies into their products by 2020 to improve customer experience with a focus on machine learning, natural language processing (NLP) and speech recognition, Deloitte found. After appliances that work based on voice recognition or apps that use facial recognition, brands are taking customer service to a whole new level.

“The average UK household owned 7.4 connected devices in 2015,” Deloitte said. Following the surge of wearable technology and connected devices for the living room, specialists expect home monitoring and security to be next, with impressive growth of the connected kitchen.

Besides security, privacy and establishing some universal standards, a top goal for businesses will be to convince consumers to actually make a purchase by replacing their devices with new, high-tech connected appliances.