New Delhi, Jan 9 (IANS): Standalone voice assistants -- or smart speakers -- are one of the fastest adopted technologies in India and have a 97 per cent satisfaction rate among Indian consumers, according to a report from Accenture.

Half of online consumers globally now use digital voice assistants, led by emerging markets such as India with 72 per cent adoption, said the report titled "Reshape to Relevance".

"With increasing adoption and satisfaction levels of smart speaker technology in India, we will see digital voice assistants influencing the whole consumer technology and service ecosystem in a way that no other device, including smartphones, has done before," said Aditya Chaudhuri, Managing Director and lead in Accenture's Communications, Media & Technology practice in India.

"As consumers shift behaviours from smartphones to voice assistants, there's a clear expectation that smart speakers will take on progressively complex workloads in the future," Chaudhuri added.

The findings are based on a global survey of 22,500 consumers across 21 countries, including 1,000 consumers from India.

The survey showed that 96 per cent of Indian consumers expect their home device purchases, such as smart TVs or computers, to be based on ease of integration with their standalone smart speaker.

The relevance of smart speakers is reflected in consumers' expectations to use these devices for more advanced tasks beyond routine activities like voice calling, playing music or reading eBooks, and accessing news.

In the US, the use of smart speakers such as Amazon Echo, Google Home and Apple HomePod has already outstripped embedded digital voice assistant (DVA) use in smartphones and other devices, the findings showed.

Globally, consumers see value in voice assistants managing home security (61 per cent of respondents), providing connected home automation (59 per cent), paying bills and providing payment alerts (55 per cent) -- even making restaurant reservations (53 per cent) and providing access to virtual medical advice (52 per cent).

However, trust is a potential impediment to greater adoption of smart speakers, with 41 per cent of consumers globally citing privacy concerns and 40 per cent citing security concerns with the technology, the results showed.