Google Adds Voice Query Search to Google Analytics
Google wants to make using its Google Analytics platform even easier by adding voice search capabilities. The new feature is being rolled out this week and will be available on both desktop and mobile devices, including iOS and Android in a few weeks. The idea is to make finding basic data about your website or app as simple as asking a question instead of scrolling through the platform to find the right dashboard to get the answer you need.
Anyone who has used Google Analytics over the past few years can attest that the frequent updates to the platform’s interface can be confusing, even to a regular user. According to AdWeek, this was corroborated by a recent Google-commissioned report from Forrester which surveyed 150 marketing, analytics and information technology executives. The study found that “60 percent of respondents said they felt their existing tools were too difficult for their teams to use.” Another Google report “found that 61 percent of marketing decision makers struggled to access or integrate data in 2016, while the same amount expected the struggle to continue this year.”
Creating a Better User Experience with Voice Search and AI
By using artificial intelligence and voice search, Google is aiming to create a better user experience for its Analytics platform. “Ideally, this will become a new and more accessible interface for analytics,” Google Product Manager Annissa Alusi told TechCrunch. Google has already seen user engagement increase after adding other AI-driven features to the Analytics platform cites AdWeek: “For example, usage increased 55 percent year over year from June 2016 to June 2017, with more than 700,000 users using the app every month.”
This is one of the first instances where Google is using its voice and natural language processing technologies for a business facing tool and is working on adding it to other products. It is also another example of artificial intelligence and voice interfaces being leveraged to make mundane work tasks more efficient, as it will let users spend more time on how to strategically use the data from Google Analytics, rather than just collecting it.“When you think about the applications of this, as the technology further grows, the analysts that are considered precious resources companies can be more focused on strategic questions that only the human mind can answer for quite some time,” said Babak Pahlavan, Google’s senior director of measurement and analytics.
