{
  "schema_version": "1.1",
  "id": "50-percent-searches-voice-by-2020",
  "slug": "50-percent-searches-voice-by-2020",
  "url": "https://groundedkit.com/claims/50-percent-searches-voice-by-2020/",
  "api_url": "https://groundedkit.com/api/claims/50-percent-searches-voice-by-2020.json",
  "claim": "50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020 (comScore)",
  "commonly_cited_as": "\"comScore: 50% of searches will be voice by 2020\"",
  "verdict": "misquoted",
  "verdict_definition": "Primary source found, but the way it is quoted changes the subject, metric, population or precision.",
  "confidence": "high",
  "rating": {
    "value": 2,
    "best": 5,
    "worst": 1
  },
  "origin": {
    "publisher": "Andrew Ng (then Baidu chief scientist), interview in Fast Company",
    "title": "Inside Baidu's Plan To Beat Google By Taking Search Out Of The Text Era (Sept. 17, 2014)",
    "year": "2014 (prediction)"
  },
  "quote": "At the moment, around 10% of Baidu search queries are done by voice ... Ng forecasts that \"in five years time at least 50% of all searches are going to be either through images or speech.\"",
  "method": "A personal forecast in an interview, about Baidu search in China; no data.",
  "drift": [
    "Attribution: credited to comScore, which says it never published it",
    "Subject: 'images or speech', rewritten as voice only",
    "Scope: Baidu/China, applied to all search",
    "Type: a 2014 forecast quoted as fact"
  ],
  "interest": "n/a",
  "safe_rephrasing": "The '50% voice by 2020' figure traces to a 2014 forecast by Baidu's Andrew Ng that half of searches would use images or speech within five years; it was never a comScore finding.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Fast Company, Sept. 17, 2014 (Internet Archive copy)",
      "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/2015/https://www.fastcompany.com/3035721/baidu-is-taking-search-out-of-text-era-and-taking-on-google-with-deep-learning",
      "primary": true
    },
    {
      "title": "Brodie Clark — comScore's reply on the statistic (trace)",
      "url": "https://brodieclark.com/stop-using-comscores-2020-voice-search-stat/",
      "primary": false
    },
    {
      "title": "Econsultancy — trace of the prediction",
      "url": "https://econsultancy.com/the-future-of-voice-search-2020-and-beyond/",
      "primary": false
    }
  ],
  "kind": "stat_check",
  "as_of": "Prediction from 2014",
  "last_checked": "2026-10-16",
  "stale": false,
  "date_reviewed": "2026-10-16",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}