It's a Whole New World With Alexa

Voice computing is replacing the graphical user interface, Shawn DuBravac, chief economist of the Consumer Technology Association, said early this year at CES.

Digital assistants will be integrated into many household objects, he noted.

About 5 million voice-activated digital voice products had been sold as of January, and Bravac estimated 5 million more would be sold this year.

Amazon's Alexa voice assistant software captured 88 percent of the global intelligent home speaker market in the last quarter of 2016, according to Strategy Analytics.

That widespread acceptance suggests that it could be in Alexa's power to disrupt multiple industries as the world increasingly goes digital and the Internet of Things becomes the norm -- including retail, travel, the automobile industry, customer interactions, e-commerce, security cameras, intelligent homes, and through integration with semiconductors, pretty much everything else.

"Alexa's very popular because of its open platform approach," commented Trip Chowdhry, managing director of equity research at Global Equities Research.

However, its success "depends on a smart company that knows how to integrate it into their platform," he told the E-Commerce Times. "Not every device using Alexa will be successful."