Gartner Predicts 30% Of Searches Without A Screen In 4 Years

• by Laurie Sullivan, Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, Yesterday, 1:30 PM

About 30% of searches will be done without a screen by 2020. Technology such as Google Assistant for Home, Amazon Alexa for Echo, chatbots and software development kits from Microsoft, Soundhound and others will make this possible.

The Gartner predictions, released Tuesday for 2017 and beyond, show a fundamental shift in the way consumers will find information. The trends examine three fundamental effects of digital innovation: experience and engagement, business innovation, and the secondary effects that result from increased digital capabilities.

In the world of Web search, when Amazon Echo doesn't immediately have an answer to a voice query, Microsoft Bing steps in to provide the response.  

The Bing knowledge and action graph allows Microsoft to provide an answer to a query rather than a set of answers like the 10 blue links on a screen.

What happens when the screen disappears in the case of Amazon Echo and Alexa? Advertisers need to start thinking about places outside of the search box where interactions could occur with consumers. In some cases it takes the feel of traditional search advertising and in other cases it will allow them to go directly into an action, Ryan Gavin, GM of search and Cortana marketing at Microsoft, told Search Marketing Daily during a discussion in September.

Gartner analysts predict that voice interactions will eventually overtake typing a search query. By eliminating the need to use your hands and eyes for browsing, "vocal interactions" become the utility for Web sessions to find content while multitasking — walking, socializing and exercising.

About 20% of brands will abandon their mobile apps by 2019. Gartner says that many brands are finding that the level of adoption, customer engagement and return on investment (ROI) delivered by their mobile applications are significantly less than expected, according to Gartner. Some will replace them with chatbots, interacted voice-responsive snippets of artificial intelligence.

By 2020, algorithms will alter the positive behavior of more than 1 billion global workers, according to Gartner analysts.

Humans can become "emotionally charged and factually drained, causing them to be irrational," per Gartner. Algorithms can alter that behavior in a positive way by augmenting their intelligence with the large collective memory bank containing knowledge that has been socialized.

It may sound a little creepy, but Gartner analysts believe this will help workers stay informed, keeping information at their fingertips. Gartner calls it "just-in-time knowledge" to objectively complete the task, but also to better appreciate life as it unveils.