The state of voice user interfaces in Latin America

Abstract

This paper describes and analyzes the state of research in Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) in Latin America based on the review of scientific documents published in SCOPUS from 1999 to June 2020, through a bibliometric analysis. We analyzed 419 academic papers. Although a gradual increase is observed over the years, the number of published documents has increased considerably since 2014. Brazil (44%) and Mexico (28%) are the countries with more documents published. Co-authorship occurs between Latin American countries (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, and Costa Rica). However, the mayor collaboration from Latin American countries occurs with the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Japan. The main researched topics are studies of automatic speech recognition, artificial intelligence, speech processing, and human-computer interaction, which have grown over the past few years. Natural language processing, conversational agents, user experience, and chatbots are keywords related to more recent studies. Our analysis reveals that the primary active research developed in the short-term future are personal assistants and assistive technology using voice user interfaces.