As we reach halfway through 2022, CivicScience continues to track key trends across many consumer products and services. Notable insights across each area are listed below:  

  • Around The Home: Ownership of smart homes and home security cameras continues to rise for a second straight quarter. This is especially interesting considering inflation’s historical impact on the Q2 economy. Despite financial stressors, consumers are still investing in high-end home products.
  • Digital Engagement: Ownership, intent, and awareness of AI voice assistants increased in the second quarter of 2022. The intent to use augmented reality has remained steady, but the awareness is still relatively indicating that there is still room for growth in the market. 
  • Finance: Cryptocurrency saw the largest decrease in intent to use this quarter, which may be due to the risk-averse mindset that investors have adopted after the federal bank’s crackdown on inflation by increasing interest rates. Meanwhile, adoption levels for financial info aggregators have doubled compared to last year, indicating that consumers are becoming more mindful of their finances and financial information. 
  • Health & Wellness: Usage of telemedicine has continued to rise consistently over the past three-quarters while intent to use has returned to pre-pandemic levels. This signals that people prefer in-person appointments whenever possible and consider telemedicine a great temporary alternative. 
  • Food & Beverage: Awareness and usage of oat milk continue to rise in Q2. The strong and consistent growth of oat milk suggests that it has moved beyond the phase of being a health fad and is being adopted by consumers as a permanent part of their dietary choices. 
  • Shopping Behaviors: Augmented reality shopping usage has increased for a second consecutive quarter, but the intent to use it has risen and fallen over the past year, indicating that technology is yet to integrate seamlessly with the current shopping experience of the consumers. 
  • Technology Adoption: 5G saw the largest jump in usage among tech adoption metrics tracked, but awareness and intent have remained steady and decreased, respectively. This indicates that there has been a significant implementation of 5G infrastructure. 
  • Miscellaneous: Electric vehicles saw growth in usage while electric scooters saw an increase in both usage and awareness. This rise in usage and awareness of both of these products signals that people are likely exploring and adopting more fuel-efficient modes of transportation, possibly due to the spike in gas prices in Q2 of 2022.