ReviewJMIR AI2025
Identification of Use Cases, Target Groups, and Motivations Around Adopting Smart Speakers for Health Care and Social Care Settings: Scoping Review.
Review in JMIR AI, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundConversational agents (CAs) are finding increasing application in health and social care, not least due to their growing use in the home. Recent developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing have enabled a variety of new uses for CAs. One type of CA that has received increasing attention recently is smart speakers.
objectiveThe aim of our study was to identify the use cases, user groups, and settings of smart speakers in health and social care. We also wanted to identify the key motivations for developers and designers to use this particular type of technology.
methodsWe conducted a scoping review to provide an overview of the literature on smart speakers in health and social care. The literature search was conducted between February 2023 and March 2023 and included 3 databases (PubMed, Scopus, and Sociological Abstracts), supplemented by Google Scholar. Several keywords were used, including technology (eg, voice assistant), product name (eg, Amazon Alexa), and setting (health care or social care). Publications were included if they met the predefined inclusion criteria: (1) published after 2015 and (2) used a smart speaker in a health care or social care setting. Publications were excluded if they met one of the following criteria: (1) did not report on the specific devices used, (2) did not focus specifically on smart speakers, (3) were systematic reviews and other forms of literature-based publications, and (4) were not published in English. Two reviewers collected, reviewed, abstracted, and analyzed the data using qualitative content analysis.
resultsA total of 27 articles were included in the final review. These articles covered a wide range of use cases in different settings, such as private homes, hospitals, long-term care facilities, and outpatient services. The main target group was patients, especially older users, followed by doctors and other medical staff members.
conclusionsThe results show that smart speakers have diverse applications in health and social care, addressing different contexts and audiences. Their affordability and easy-to-use interfaces make them attractive to various stakeholders. It seems likely that, due to technical advances in artificial intelligence and the market power of the companies behind the devices, there will be more use cases for smart speakers in the near future.
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.