Voice Tech Podcast: Master AI for B2B Audio Content Marketing in 2025 (Carl Robinson)
Explorez tous les épisodes de Voice Tech Podcast: Master AI for B2B Audio Content Marketing in 2025
| Date | Titre | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Mar 2019 | Biometric Authentication - Alexey Khitrov, ID R&D | 00:59:39 | |
Alexey Khitrov is President at ID R&D, who increase the security of interactions with digital products such as conversational interfaces using voice authentication and behavioural biometrics. Their products add hands-free, zero-authentication to any voice enabled device, heralding a new era in frictionless, ubiquitous computing services. We discuss how voice biometrics move us towards a future where we communicate with technology just like we communicate with our friends. Alexey gives us an overview on the state of voice authentication today, who's using it, and its limitations. We also cover the technical features of voice authentication, such as modal enrichment for continuous enhancement of the authentication accuracy. We hear about the design challenges faced when introducing zero-authentication to your application, and get advice for implementing this technology into your own voice apps. To wrap things up, we look ahead to the voice technology features we are likely to see emerge in 2019 and beyond, and tackle the risks around data privacy, security, and the evolving arms race between hackers and software security firms. This episode is one the most interesting conversations I've had doing this podcast and it's a real pleasure to be able to share it with you. Links from the show:
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| 14 Apr 2019 | Voice Actors & Synthetics - David Ciccarelli, Voices.com | 01:00:37 | |
David Ciccarelli is the CEO of Voices.com, the online marketplace where brand managers and marketers discover, audition and hire professional voice actors. In our conversation, you'll learn all about how to find and hire a voice actor to represent your brand in marketing campaigns or for use in voice development projects, how projects are priced, and what rights you have to use the audio you purchase.
David is a seasoned professional in the voice space with decades of experience and advice to share, so whatever your interest in voice you're sure to get a lot of value from this conversation. Links from the show:
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| 28 Apr 2019 | Sound Recognition - Dr. Chris Mitchell, Audio Analytic | 01:06:45 | |
Dr Chris Mitchell is the CEO and Founder of Audio Analytic, who develop sound recognition software that adds context-based intelligence into consumer technology products. In our conversation, you'll learn what the state of the art sound recognition systems can do, the types of sound events that are typically recognised, which consumer products they're integrated into, and the many benefits and new possibilities the technology affords to developers and users. We discover the difference between sound recognition and speech recognition, how sound recognition provides the all important context for voice enabled devices to make the right decisions, and how smart devices can take advantage of this contextual knowledge. Then we dive into some of the technical details of how it all works, including 'better than real-time processing', edge computing vs the cloud, the need to train custom acoustic models, and how these machine learning models can run on low-resource devices like headphones using TinyML. Chris briefly explains the process of integrating the AI3 framework into your products, then we tackle the all important question of data privacy and security. Many of the smart devices of future will rely on sound recognition to understand the context of their environments. Chris and his team are at the cutting edge of the sound recognition field and are long-time experts in the domain, so there's no better person to introduce us to this important technology. Links from the show:
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| 12 May 2019 | Usability Testing for Voice - Dylan Zwick, Pulse Labs | 01:11:36 | |
Dylan Zwick is the Chief Product Officer at Pulse Labs, a Seattle-based startup that offers a remote testing and analytics platform for voice app developers. The Pulse Labs team are leaders in the field of voice application testing, and are official partners with both Google and Amazon, helping them to define and improve the state of the art in voice application design. We cover the different types of testing, including unit testing, functional testing, certification testing and usability testing. Then Dylan explains how remote usability testing works, how to build your panel of testers, how and when to conduct usability tests, and how to interpret the results. You will also discover to become a Pulse Labs remote usability tester yourself, giving you early access to the latest voice apps and earning you some money too. Dylan shares the design lessons learned from testing hundreds of voice apps for both Google and Amazon, including the importance of always moving forwards in the flow, why variation of word and sentence structure can maintain attention, and how to add variety without increasing complexity. The number of insights per minute in this conversation is off the charts - you'll learn so much from Dylan you'll definitely want to keep a pen and paper handy! Links from the show:
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| 26 May 2019 | VivaTech 2019 - Startups, Google, Macron, Ma | 01:49:06 | |
This is a special episode for VivaTech 2019, Europe's biggest technology conference. You'll hear me talk with 5 of the best voice startups I came across, plus my interview with the communication manager of Google France, where we discuss the new assistant features announced at Google I/O 2019, as well as the new version of Google Duplex for the Web. As a bonus, I also bring you two presentations. In the first, President Emmanuel Macron fields questions from a panel of successful European startup founders concerning the big issues in the European startup scene. After listening, you will better understand the European mindset and the strategies that Europe hopes to employ in order to try and compete with the US and China. Finally, you'll hear an inspirational talk from Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of the Alibaba group. Currently on the verge of retirement, he reflects on his successes and failures, and shares his advice for would-be founders. I hope you enjoy the conversations, and look forward to talking with you too at a future event! Interviews with:
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| 09 Jun 2019 | Digital Forensics - Tyler Hatch, DFI Forensics | 00:51:40 | |
The whole world is dependent on digital technology. It has improved lives, but made us vulnerable to exploitation. Hackers and cybercriminals have no fear of getting caught. They’re organized, sophisticated, and know how to remain anonymous. Cybercrime is now the most profitable criminal enterprise in the world. Tyler Hatch is the founder and CEO of DFI Forensics Inc., a digital forensics and cybersecurity provider based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Tyler is a certified forensics examiner for computers and mobile phones, as well as a former practicing lawyer. In our conversation, you’ll learn how cybercrime has evolved from simply stealing and selling data and information via the “Dark Web.” Now, it targets specific organizations by penetrating IT networks to encrypt and disable entire networks; forcing a ransom to be paid using untraceable cryptocurrency to get the network back. Links from the show:
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| 22 Jun 2019 | Voice Trends & Design Tips - BBC, BMW | 01:09:03 | |
This is a special episode in which you'll hear three presentations given at Voice Connected Home 2019 event, which took place in Cologne, Germany on May 7th this year. First you'll hear my quick 15 minute talk on 'The Voice Technology Trends of 2019, What We are Likely to See, and How it Will Affect Customer Interaction'. This is essentially a summary of many of the products and ideas I've discovered over the past year of podcast interviews, and with the voice industry moving as fast as it is, some of these are already fast becoming reality. Then you'll hear Nicky Birch, Executive Producer at BBC R&D, give an informative and entertaining presentation, 'How to Design Your Experiences - A Producers Guide'. This presentation gives you lots of practical advice from the trenches, plus there's an accompanying PDF that contains this advice, the link to which is in the show notes. Finally you'll hear from Marion Sardone, who is the Senior Content & Character Designer of the Intelligent Personal Assistant at BMW, Germany. In her presentation, 'From Speech Output to a Truly Intelligent Assistant', she explains why it's important for a voice assistant to be given a personality, and how they went about creating one for their in-car assistant. I hope you enjoy the presentations, and look forward to meeting you at a future event! Links from the show:
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| 07 Jul 2019 | The Bot Builder - Dr. Andrey Esaulov, BotTalk | 00:50:21 | |
The voice space is much bigger than just Google and Amazon, and there are many ways to develop voice applications. What’s missing in the voice design space? A simple markup language. Dr. Andrey Esaulov is the CEO of SmartHouse Technologies and co-founder of BotTalk. SmartHouse Technologies specialises in consulting and development of voice applications and mobile apps. The company’s BotTalk product is a platform for creating Alexa Skills and Google Actions with a simple markup language. From this conversation you’ll learn that you don’t need to be a developer to build sophisticated, context-aware voice applications that can benefit your business, or even become your business. Links from the show:
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| 22 Jul 2019 | Talk with your Data - Adrien Schmidt, Aristotle | 00:48:21 | |
Adrien Schmidt is the CEO and co-founder of Aristotle by Bouquet.ai, a conversational analytics platform that lets you chat with your data through voice and text. Aristotle makes your data available to the whole company, and makes it faster and easier to perform complex queries.
Then we get into the technical aspects of training an NLP model on custom company data, and the security measures taken to ensure data privacy. This is an especially interesting episode that touches on many important issues in the voice space, and one you won't want to miss! Links from the show:
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| 05 Aug 2019 | Interactive Voice Ads - Stas Tushinskiy, Instreamatic | 00:44:11 | |
Stas Tushinskiy is the co-founder and CEO of Instreamatic, a San-francisco based company that enables voice interactivity and measurability in the audio ad market. In this episode we introduce you to a new concept that you'll very likely be hearing much more about soon; interactive voice advertisements. An innovative use of STT, TTS, natural language understanding and audio content channels, interactive voice ads are an important new channel for monetising audio content such as radio shows, audiobooks and podcasts. We discuss the problem with traditional audio ads today, then dive into the workings of interactive ads, and the huge benefits for advertisers, publishers and listeners alike. Stas shares some of the incredible engagement stats these ads are getting, 10-15% engagement levels in many cases, which are enormous compared to traditional audio adverts. Certainly one of the most exciting concepts I've come across in a while, this is an episode you'll do well not to miss. Links from the show:
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| 12 Aug 2019 | Chatbot Vacations - Pranas Kiziela, Eddy Travels | 00:47:37 | |
Pranas Kiziela is the CTO of Eddy Travels, a personal travel advisor that connects travellers with travel products and services. Eddy Travels is available in popular chat apps like Messenger, Telegram, Viber and Slack, and supports both text and voice based interaction. We discuss the benefits of booking travel though a conversational interface, and the big voice-AI opportunities in the travel space right now. We tackle some of the major design considerations faced during the product build, including the limitations of the big chatbot platforms, the different challenges of working with voice and text, and how to incorporate a bot into a text conversation between two humans.
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| 18 Aug 2019 | The Emotion Machine - Rana Gujral, Behavioral Signals | 00:56:30 | |
Rana Gujral is the CEO of Behavioral Signals, a company that allows developers to add speech emotion and behavioral recognition AI to their products. We discuss the many reasons why it's important that machines can recognise and express human emotion, including improving human computer interaction and boosting business KPIs. We discover why voice is the best modality for analysing emotion, then highlight some of the many business and consumer use-cases for this technology. Finally we dive into the signal processing pipeline that makes it all work, and Rana shares his advice for working with this technology. This is one of my favourite conversations of the year so far. It's a topic close to my heart, having previously worked on voice emotion transformation in the lab, and I feel it's one of the most important technologies to close the gap between humans and machines. Rana is also a very articulate and inspirational speaker, which makes this an unmissable conversation. Links from the show:
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| 26 Aug 2019 | Echo Echo Chamber - Adam Greenwood, Greenwood Campbell | 00:54:55 | |
Adam Greenwood is the founder of the award winning digital agency, Greenwood Campbell. We discuss his experiences building chatbot and voicebot applications, as well as the wider implications of these technologies, specifically the echo chambers they are so good at creating.
We then tackle the design and development of chatbots and voicebots, discussing the different ways they can be built, and the benefits and challenges of each. Adam also reveals some of the big surprises his team have had during their many successful implementations. This is a thought-provoking episode that will inform and inspire in equal measure. Links from the show:
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| 09 Sep 2019 | Questions & Answers - Don White, Satisfi Labs | 00:48:25 | |
Don White is CEO and Co-Founder of Satisfi Labs, an AI-powered Knowledge Management Platform that offers conversational search and commerce solutions for fan, guest, and customer engagement. Don describes the types of companies and industries most interested in implementing question and answer solutions, and reveals the number #1 question their customers ask. We cover how these Q&A models work, how scalable they are, and how they are deployed to clients. We also discuss the benefits of voice search, and how ready consumers are for the transition. Don also shares some design tips too, such as how to handle unexpected user queries, the reasons for response bias, and the importance of asking follow up questions. And we answer the most crucial question of all: where to buy Bacon on a Stick. Links from the show:
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| 15 Sep 2019 | Speech-to-Text Selection - David Borish, PRIMO AI | 00:47:27 | |
David Borish is Chief Creative at PRIMO AI, a New York startup that recommends the highest performing Speech-to-text (STT) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) services for a particular dataset and geographical region. We discover what the biggest problem with speech to text systems is today, and why trying to solve it by hiring data scientists can be prohibitively expensive. We also discuss the advantages of acquiring a technology patent, why David chose to recently enter the voice space, and the approach he takes when selecting his next entrepreneurial challenge. David is a seasoned startup veteran who believes passionately in the future of voice, and our conversation contains many valuable lessons to take away. Links from the show:
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| 23 Sep 2019 | High-tech Interpreters - Jonathan Rechtman, Cadence Translate | 01:01:37 | |
Jonathan Rechtman is the co-founder of Cadence Translate, a language services company that help corporations and financial firms conduct business and investment research across the language barrier. Jonathan is a true expert in the field, having worked for the UN, celebrities and businesspeople alike. He explains the state of translation and interpretation today, how the process works, the skills and technology interpreters use, and how the profession is being impacted by the latest developments in technology. We discuss the do's and don't when hiring interpreters, how you can get the most value from your translated audio, some skills that interpreters have that you can use in your daily life, automatic interpretation devices, unified communications as a service (UCAAS), and much more.
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| 30 Sep 2019 | Surveys by Voice - Stuart Crane, SurveyLine | 00:54:20 | |
Stuart Crane is the founder and CEO of SurveyLine, a new product that lets you create voice based surveys. Stuart presents the many use cases of voice surveys, and their advantages over traditional methods. He also shares some design tips for creating effective voice surveys, including how to personalise the questions for users and use a custom voice for branding. Stuart is also the founder of VoiceMetrics, a product that lets businesses access their own database information by voice. We discuss the reasons for his decision to pivot the business to SurveyLine, the major startup opportunities in voice right now, and the ultimate potential of voice interfaces. Links from the show:
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| 08 Oct 2019 | Airbnb Hospitality by Voice - Petar Ojdrovic, Home Service | 01:01:48 | |
Petar Ojdrovic is the founder of Home Service, a voice-based solution for vacation rental management that Improves the guest experience while helping hosts save time and drive 5 star reviews. I'm also joined by my co-host, the inimitable Charlie Cadbury, CEO of Say It Now, who elevates the discussion with his vast experience of building apps for the travel and hospitality industries. In this episode we learn about the typical problems vacation rental hosts and guests face during their stays in vacation rentals like Airbnb, and how hosts can use voice to tackle these. We cover designing a human into the loop, the ways multimodal should be used, how to improve intent resolution. Charlie introduces us to the concept of a crap wizard, and how you can avoid having your voice app users feel like one, and Petar shares advice for budding voice developers and startup founders. This in-depth conversation really showcases the potential of voice to gather data and offer value to users. Links from the show:
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| 14 Oct 2019 | Voice Search for eCommerce - Mike Page, Phebi Inc | 01:01:44 | |
Mike Page is the co-founder and CEO of Phebi, Inc, a voice search SaaS solution that makes it easy for customers to talk to e-commerce websites. We discuss how and why adding contextual voice search to your website can increase user engagement and sales, improve data privacy and regulatory compliance, and help you develop a closer relationship with your customers. We discover that training custom speech-to-text models (STT) such as Phebi's allows for some interesting use cases outside of e-commerce, and how having access to the raw audio allows us to customise search results using gender and emotion detection. We learn how audio data quality can affect STT results, and how to use analytics to improve STT and NLU performance. Finally, Mike explains why it's wise for companies to opt-out of the surveillance economy. Links from the show:
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| 22 Oct 2019 | Voice Box Office - Micah Hollingworth, Broadw.ai | 00:58:39 | |
Micah Hollingworth is CEO and co-founder of Broadw.ai, an AI powered ticketing agent and integrated marketing platform for live Broadway events and theatre-goers. We discover how voice and conversational AI are being used in the theatre industry, helping to tackle the most pressing challenges faced by consumers and ticket sellers. Conversational interfaces capture huge amounts of data, which is key to targeting the right customers in outbound campaigns, personalising the offer, and selling tickets quickly. Hear Micah's vision for the future of voice tech in entertainment, including conversational ticket sales, integration with our content feeds, and even appearing in mainstream media. This conversation demonstrates the huge impact conversational technology is having on every industry, even those typically seen as slow to adopt new technologies. Prepare to change the way you see the theatre! Links from the show:
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| 28 Oct 2019 | Dialogflow Chatbots for Websites - Rob Lubow, Botcopy | 00:57:41 | |
Rob Lubow is the co-founder of Botcopy, a tool that lets you build custom chatbots for your website, powered by Dialogflow. Rob explains the benefits of text-based chatbots, shares some chatbot design tips, and explains how to quickly build your own using Dialogflow and Botcopy. We discover the major uses for website chatbots, and a new trend for full screen bot landing pages. Rob explains some of the limitations of voice bots, such as high cognitive load, and the many advantages multimodal chatbots have over voice bots. An experienced startup founder and bot developer, Rob shares his advice for people building a conversational UI products and startups, such as not trying to emulate a human with a voice-only interface. Finally we learn why Rob considers himself a transhumanist, more interested in putting the best of humanity into a bot than creating a new sentient species. Links from the show:
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| 04 Nov 2019 | The Wix of Voice - Bob Stolzberg, VoiceXP | 00:48:50 | |
Bob Stolzberg is the founder of VoiceXP, a platform that lets you build engaging voice experiences for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Samsung Bixby without writing a line of code. Find out how VoiceXP's super simple form based approach lets users have build multimodal voice apps with custom voices and API integrations for a wide variety of use cases. We also learn about some of the big trends in voice, such as why now is the perfect time to set up a flash briefing, what the word on the ground in Silicon Valley is, and how all websites will soon have a voice interface. This is an energetic conversation packed with useful insights and fun demos, so don't miss it! Links from the show:
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| 11 Nov 2019 | Voice UX for Self-driving Cars - Adam Emfield, Cerence | 01:10:23 | |
Adam Emfield is the Head of User Experience at Cerence, formerly known as Nuance Automotive. Join us for a fascinating conversation about voice UX in the automobiles of the future. Discover Cerence's vision for a multi-modal, multi-sensor, multi-assistant driving experience, plus the many advantages voice brings to drivers and manufacturers. Then dive into the latest design concepts of voice in the car, including personalisation and contextual awareness, and how speech anthropomorphism and emotion detection can increase user trust. To round off, you'll hear about the future of autonomous vehicles, with the various levels of autonomy explained, and how voice plays a role in each. This conversation a highlight reel of insights and revelations, and brings together two of the most exciting and transformative technologies of our lifetimes; voice and self-driving cars. Enjoy! Links from the show:
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| 24 Nov 2019 | Slush 2019, Helsinki, Finland | 00:58:56 | |
In this episode, you'll hear me talk with six of the hottest startups at the Slush 2019 tech conference in Helsinki, Finland. These include: a mobile app and Alexa skill to track your carbon footprint from your purchases; an automatic podcast creation product that uses text to speech to transform your blog posts into full podcast episodes; a wonderful UK startup that helps children to say what's on their minds and report abuse; an ID verification system that makes you pull funny faces to authenticate; a multimodal human emotion detection system from Russia that measures speech, gesture, heart rate and breathing to outperform some of the big tech players; and a super cool tactile sensor that lets you communicate with your autonomous car by touching it in different ways. It was an amazing event, and the Finns are justifiably proud of Slush, with over 25,000 attendees from around the world, and easily taking the title for best looking tech conference. It was surprising how few voice startups there were at the event, until I realised that both Alexa and Google Assistant do not support the Finnish language. And while they all speak perfect english, their accent can cause problems with the speech recognition. Links from the show:
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| 02 Dec 2019 | Voice & Chatbots in Healthcare - Nathan Treloar, Orbita | 00:59:49 | |
Today on the VoiceTech Podcast we welcome Nathan Treloar, who is the founder and president of Orbita. Orbita is a Boston-based company that provides software to improve patient engagement in digital health through voice-first and artificial intelligence solutions. Nathan is a highly respected speaker and authority in the field of voice-first healthcare technology and has advised many large-scale companies and government agencies on the subject. This in-depth and fascinating conversation covers the current state of voice and chatbots in the healthcare sector, the many ways that voice services can improve the quality of medical delivery and much more. We talk about some of Orbita’s case studies, the advantage of voice technologies and a few of the product features of the company. We also get into the security and privacy issues that are so prevalent in fields that require ‘always-on’ devices and how the HIPAA regulations aim to curb hazards in this regard.
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| 09 Dec 2019 | Sound of the Police - Anthony Tassone, Green Key | 00:57:59 | |
Today’s guest is Anthony Tassone, founder of Green Key, a startup that builds artificial intelligence to optimize sales, trading, and a growing list of other services. Green Key uses voice technology to structure conversations into actionable data toward the end aim of generating insights and powering automation. They also work with police officers and first responders, helping them to leverage the power of voice to go hands-free, thereby improving the speed and safety of operations. Our conversation focusses mostly on the topic of how Green Key voice-assists the police. He explains how NLP is transforming the emergency services sector by enabling officers to use voice technology to fill out reports or conduct searches and queries in a hands-free manner. It then enables them to access that data later while at the wheel or on the street. We also talk about some privacy implications and how Green Key avoids them through the provision of an on-premises solution. In the example of the Police, it provides an on-demand recording microphone rather than one which is always listening. Anthony covers some machine learning processes which enable Green Key to construct its collections of domain-specific jargon libraries as well. You’ll also discover why voice isn’t always the best output method, and how Green Key scaled up from its initial role in the financial sector to servicing new markets. This is a great episode and one you are going to want to hear. Links from the show:
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| 26 Dec 2019 | Project Voice 2020 - Bradley Metrock, Score Publishing | 00:59:55 | |
Today on the VoiceTech Podcast we welcome Bradley Metrock, the organizer of Project Voice 2020. Bradley is CEO of Nashville-based Score Publishing, which helps creators find their voice. He founded podcast network VoiceFirst.FM hosts the popular show This Week In Voice, published More Than Just Weather And Music: 200 Ways To Use Alexa, and produces the company's series of VoiceFirst Events. Bradley has been cited as a leading thought leader on voice-first technology and AI, speaking regularly on its profound impact on our world. Our conversation today mostly revolves around Project Voice 2020, we also discuss some of Bradley’s above-mentioned ventures. He talks about his views on what he sees as the trends in Voice at the moment and lays out his predictions for 2020. It’s a really interesting and intriguing conversation we had, so be sure to keep listening! Also, check out the link below for 30% off Project Voice 2020 tickets. Links from the show:
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| 07 Jan 2020 | Conversation Design Mastery - Hans van Dam, Robocopy | 00:50:24 | |
On the show today we welcome Hans van Dam, the co-founder of Robocopy, a company that trains and certifies conversation designers all around the world. Hans begins by explaining to listeners what exactly conversation design entails and why it is important in the context of conversational AI technologies. We cover the various areas that conversation designers need to understand and consider, including technology, psychology, language and empathy, and then Hans gives us a breakdown of the Robocopy process that he and his team have refined by working with brands over the years. Tuning in to this episode, listeners will also hear more about starting a career in conversation design and how we can apply this function in teams. We talk about the online conversation design course itself – a program that teaches you to write natural language dialog for chatbots and voice assistants. Links from the show:
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| 13 Jan 2020 | Automotive Voice Design - Shyamala Prayaga, Ford Motor | 00:52:54 | |
Today on the show we welcome Shyamala Prayaga, the product owner for the Autonomous Digital Assistant at Ford Motor. In this episode, listeners will gain some insight into where voice tech is heading from the auto manufacturer’s point of view. Shyamala will share about her background in design and why she moved into the voice field, and then she outlines some of the major use cases for voice in the car and the current challenges with the implementation of voice. She discusses the factors to consider when designing for car voice assistants, introduces us to the idea of full-size remote-controlled cars that operate through teleoperation, and gives her take on integrating with parties versus developing your own assistant from scratch. Tuning into this episode, you will also learn more about biometric identification, data privacy and security, and much more. Shyamala has also launched a new book called Emotionally Engaged Digital Assistant, so be sure to check that out! Links from the show:
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| 21 Jan 2020 | Payments & Voice - Checkout.com & Adyen | 00:36:55 | |
Today we bring you two in-depth conversations from the Slush Mega Conference in Helsinki, Finland. In this episode, we’ll be talking with two giants in the payments space, Guillaume Pousaz the founder and CEO of checkout.com and Pieter van der Does, the CEO of Adyen.
We also discussed whether they plan to integrate their systems with the voice platforms for the foreseeable future, diving into biometrics, two-factor authentication, and much much more! A huge number of insights were shared in our conversations and we are really excited to bring it to you today. Links from the show:
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| 27 Jan 2020 | Auspices of Agencies - Skilled Creative, Vixen Labs, Seedcube | 01:05:13 | |
Three of the world's leading digital agencies share their experiences in the world of voice, at the Project Voice 2020 conference.
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| 03 Feb 2020 | Social Robot Counsellors - Jackie Andrade, Uni. Plymouth | 01:02:28 | |
Today on the show we welcome Jackie Andrade, Professor of Psychology at the University of Plymouth, and Leonie Cooper, a Ph.D. candidate at the university who is researching robot-delivered intervention to reduce procrastination. In this episode, we talk about how people communicate with robots, the role that robots can play in healthcare, and how robots can change human behaviour and influence us to take the right actions. We begin this discussion by taking a broad look at the psychological support that can be delivered through humans, and how that can be delivered through technology. We then dive into the motivational interviewing concept – a counselling method that helps people resolve thoughts, feelings, and insecurities to help them find the internal motivation they need to change their behaviour. We then take a look at Jackie and Leonie’s study, which involves an adorable-looking NAO Robot. We head into all the details around their paper which looks at how motivational interviewing using a NAO Robot was received by patients. One of the most fascinating parts of this conversation is learning more about the technological design decisions made for voice, movement, expression, and interaction of the NAO Robot and why Jackie and Leonie specifically decided against using speech detection. We also unpack the debate about whether social robots will ever replace human therapists, as well as the surprising benefits and the challenges that come with talking to robots as opposed to humans. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a better understanding as to why we need social robot counsellors in the first place, leaving you with the question: How does this make you feel? Links from the show:
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| 10 Feb 2020 | Giving Voice to Brands - Tobias Dengel, WillowTree | 00:58:37 | |
How do you choose a voice for your brand? Why is it important for brands to have a voice in the first place? And what are the things you need to consider when choosing a voice? Today on the show, we welcome the CEO of WillowTree, Tobias Dengel, to answer these questions and give us a deeper insight into what the feeling is amongst the top tech execs about voice technology today. WillowTree is a leading mobile strategy, design, and app development company servicing Fortune 500 and Fortune 5000 clients like Pepsi, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and Time Warner (to name-drop a few!). In this episode, we discover the demand, the debates, and the challenges facing the world of voice technology and the importance of using multi-modal interfaces. One of the most fascinating parts of this interview looks at designing the voice identity of a brand and how companies are deciding on the voice they use. Human or robot? Samuel L. Jackson or Angelina Jolie? Male? Female? Or non-binary voices? Here, we get into an interesting discussion on how stereotypes can be perpetuated by using certain voices and the push toward promoting the use of more neutral and non-binary voices in apps today. We also take a dive into the topic of commerce, looking specifically at voice payments and how it is going to transform the future of mobile transactions. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a behind-the-scenes look at the conversations and questions that top agency and company execs are having right now, and a clearer view of the future of voice.
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| 17 Feb 2020 | 7 French Pioneers - Voice Tech Paris 2019 | 00:54:04 | |
Today on the show we talk with seven leading French companies in the burgeoning European voice space. The Voice Tech Paris 2019 Conference took place just last November and was the first B2B event dedicated to voice technology in France. But with over 50 speakers and 700 participants who attended, it’s safe to say that it’s certainly not going to be the last! In this episode, we hear from seven pioneering startups, ranging in specializations from speech analytics, to real-time voice transformation, to developing custom digital spokespeople, to a number of agencies as well. These companies give us a great cross-section of the types of attendees at the Voice Tech Paris 2019 Conference, as well as a panoramic view of what’s happening on the ground in the voice space in France, right now. The companies we speak with today are Allo-Media, Airudit, Candy Voice, Acapela Group, Insign, Speak UX!, and Loui Tech. Interest around voice interface is steadily growing in France, and if you’re wondering what the European market looks like today, and what it might look like in the near future, this is a great episode for keeping your finger on the pulse! By the end of this episode, you’ll be floored by the innovative solutions these seven diverse startups are providing for a kaleidoscope of users, from pilots to submarine workers, students, top brands, video gamers, telecommunicators, national train lines, to the medical world, and many more!
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| 24 Feb 2020 | Banking on Voice - ENACOMM & Bank Independent | 00:49:57 | |
On the show this week, we welcome Stacey Zuniga, the VP of Financial Services at ENACOMM, a FinTech provider of intelligent interactions and customer authentication for banks and financial services companies. Also joining us for the conversation is Kelly Burdette, the Senior Vice President of Digital and Product at Bank Independent – a customer of ENACOMM. Talking with both the technology provider and the client about how voice banking was implemented on Alexa makes for a well-rounded discussion. You will learn about the rationale behind the project and, from Kelly’s perspective, what it is like to compete with other banks and stay ahead of the curve. Our guests explain the benefits of voice banking, including improved accessibility, convenience, security, and human connection. Then Stacey explains the challenges of building financial-grade authentication with the platforms, the bidirectional exchange of information and the necessary changes to integrate the voice platform with the existing systems. We also cover some of the security issues of voice banking and payments, the latest technologies such as voice biometrics, and the importance of multi-factor authentication. This conversation is particularly relevant considering that it revolves around a service that most of us will inevitably engage, and listeners will hear use cases for how this technology is expected to change the lives of both young and old. Links from the show:
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| 02 Mar 2020 | Voice Commerce: FMCG Shopping - Krish Velkar, Ogilvy | 00:49:39 | |
As voice-assistant technologies become more frequent in many different industries, questions of its influence on those industries themselves become more pertinent. Today’s guest is Krish Velkar from Ogilvy, who joins us to discuss his recent master's dissertation which explored the influence of voice assistants on the purchasing of FMCG products (fast-moving consumer goods). In this episode, we discuss the history of voice technology and the ways people are beginning to use it more frequently in India as well as globally. Krish gets into what voice tech promises for accessibility, speaking to his grandparents’ adoption of smartphones due to the intuitiveness of voice tech as a UI. He speaks about the idea of low and high involvement purchases, and where voice purchasing is most effective. We then get into Krish’s actual research, and he takes us through the hypotheses, methods, discoveries, and insights that can be found in his dissertation. He talks about the surveys he made regarding the buying process and the likelihood of repurchase using the Ariel detergent virtual assistant. He also discusses ways companies can optimize the voice-assisted experience, stressing the value of early brand adoption and more anthropomorphic chatbots. We could be looking at significant developments in the FMCG retail space over the next few years, so Krish’s research couldn’t come at a better time. Tune in to hear more about it.
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| 09 Mar 2020 | Security, Content, Utilities, Students - IDRnD, Trinity Audio, ICF, Park | 00:56:00 | |
In today’s episode, you’ll hear four of my favorite conversations with brands and providers recorded at the recent Project Voice conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee. First up is Alexey Khitrov from IDR&D, who comes back on the show to give us an update on recent features, including their prizewinning results on liveness checks, a five-step behind-the-scenes authentication system, and their recent adoption of face technology too. Next up are Ron Jaworski and Noa Eshed from Trinity Audio who present the innovative features of their audio content solution. The team notably lists their CMS platform and the higher agency it provides their clients as far as content management. Laura Frantz from ICF also joins us to tell the story of how she built a voice app for a utilities company. She speaks about the functionality of the app and its hopes to integrate billing services in the future. Lastly, we speak to Zac Jarrard, project manager at Park University in Missouri, who talks about how students are not only using Alexa to access university services but are also learning to build Alexa apps in his voice development club.
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| 16 Mar 2020 | Samsung Bixby In-Depth - Roger Kibbe, Viv Labs | 01:17:53 | |
Bixby 2, Samsung’s new voice assistant, is poised to become a major player in the voice ecosystem. With 500m devices sold each year, it represents an enormous opportunity for voice developers. Bixby’s Lead Developer Evangelist, Roger Kibbe, introduces us to the new product and what it means for developers, users, and the frontier of voice. In this episode, Roger talks about the coming paradigm shift voice presents in the way we will interact with our devices. He gets into what using Bixby will be like, including how their team have incorporated multimodality, and what that might look like while watching TV or booking a hotel.
We hear about the genius AI behind its use of templates to refine searches and access spreadsheets, and its smart use of categories for third party apps, to deliver the best possible experience. In our bonus questions, Roger tells us his background story, and shares his advice for budding voice developers. This is an in-depth interview that gets into a range of exciting topics, making for an unmissable episode.
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| 23 Mar 2020 | Testing Voice Apps - Emerson Sklar, Bespoken | 00:55:28 | |
Emerson Sklar is the Chief Evangelist at Bespoken, a company with a popular toolkit for testing and monitoring voice apps. We start by unpacking the fundamentals of testing and the various types, from the unit and end-to-end testing to continuous and usability performance testing. Emerson talks to us through the product features of Bespoken and how it works. We discover the surprising fact that their system uses text-to-speech to generate audio, which is then fed to a virtual Alexa on the servers to generate a response. They are thus able to modify the input in order to measure what effect that has on the output. Tuning in, listeners will also learn from case studies involving The Mars Agency and Mercedes, we cover the vital elements of a testing strategy and how it should be approached, and then we look at ways to better understand voice app users through monitoring and analytics. We have included a bonus section at the end comprising a run-down of all the tools that we can recommend for the various stages of the voice development process, including prototyping, skill building, coding frameworks, testing, and analytics.
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| 06 Apr 2020 | One Million Conversations - Braden Ream, Voiceflow | 00:52:02 | |
Braden Ream is the CEO of Voiceflow, a collaborative design platform for voice app development. Voiceflow is currently responsible for powering one million conversations a month and 6% of the world’s Alexa Skills are built on their platform. In this episode, we discover how to build Alexa Skills and Google Actions without coding, using Voiceflow’s drag and drop interface. First off, we dive into conversation design on Voiceflow, the difference between using flowcharts and stateful design, the limitations of Voiceflow versus coding from scratch, and how Braden views the parity gap between what their platform can produce and what you can produce on the core platforms. We also get into industry topics such as what it is like to build a voice startup in the context of today’s funding, competition, and timing challenges; whether Braden considers voice to be an interface or platform; and his thoughts on the discovery issue and how it can be improved. You will also hear Braden’s predictions for 2020 – specifically the rise of intent-less voice app structures, the debate about whether apps are the right model for voice interfaces, and then he shares how he has managed to build such a strong community. There are also a number of bonus questions that reveal more about Braden’s background and the advice he has for newcomers.
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| 13 Apr 2020 | Setting the Standard - Jon Stine, Open Voice Network | 00:45:46 | |
Jon is the leader of the Open Voice Network, an organization that seeks to create a future of AI voice that is standards-based, interoperable, accessible, and data protected. While the voice movement is growing rapidly, it is still very much in a fledgling state. This makes the task of setting up governance and standards in the space highly relevant, and one which Jon is working hard to address. In today’s episode, we talk about why we need a network like OVN at all, and what happens if we don’t create such an organization. Jon explains why he is focusing on shopping and retail in particular. He dives into how this category of the market presents a research case that raises many of the relevant issues arising by the introduction of voice technology into a particular field. We cover conflicts of interest and groupthink too; between users, developers, enterprises, platform companies, and thought leaders, there are clearly many voices with different vested interests in what the standards look like and who they benefit. We hear about the five main areas which the research at OVN will focus on. Our conversation also covers some of the ethical issues raised by just how much data can be captured in a moment in which a customer's voice gets recorded, and how standardization can address the responsibility this places the company which hears it in. In the bonus questions for Pro listeners, Jon reflects on his storied career in technology, and what led him to launch the Open Voice Network. Links from the show:
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| 27 Apr 2020 | Voice Dating - Marek Mis, OnlyOne | 00:46:27 | |
Marek Mis is the founder of OnlyOne, the first ever voice-dating application. Only One helps users find their true love using only their voice. We explore the fascinating concept of without images, diving into the product features, and how the platform matches you up with your perfect partner. We discuss dating apps in general, typical behavioral patterns seen on dating apps today, as well as the benefits of having voice-only matchmakers, as opposed to the more multi-modal features seen in ‘traditional’ dating apps, like Tinder today. We also hear what Marek has learned from the initial data generated by platform’s users; what he’s learned about human connection, what he has been most surprised by, and the types of metrics that he tracks. We also get into the nuts and bolts of this app development process itself; everything from Dialogflow, to FireBase, to Web App JS, and how you can become an expert in these technologies.
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| 11 May 2020 | Inside Voice - Carl Robinson | 00:20:42 | |
Today on the show, we welcome Carl Robinson. Yep, the script has been flipped, and your favorite Voice Tech Podcast host is now on the other side of the mic as today’s guest! Interviewing Carl live from Project Voice is the brilliant Keri Roberts – host of the Inside Voice Podcast. In this episode, we find out more about Carl’s background as a data scientist, how he got interested in voice tech through emotion detection technology, and the fascinating array of projects he has worked on since those earlier days. We also discover why the Voice Tech Podcast was started, how it has progressed since its inception in 2018, and the many insights Carl has gleaned from the array of guests and conversations he has had on this very podcast show to date. From the boom in voice tech education, to hearables and wearables, biometric smart speaker detection, and the remarkable advancements being made in emotion detection – Carl also shares the technology he is most excited about right now, and his predictions for future trends. Whether you are new or old to the world of voice tech, or perhaps just seeking some great tips for your own podcast – this is a fantastic episode that will connect you to the heart of your host and the latest in voice tech! Links from the show:
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| 25 May 2020 | Getting Started - Steve Tingiris, Dabble Lab | 00:48:32 | |
Today on the show, we welcome Steve Tingiris. Steve is a leader in the field of voice development, a serial entrepreneur, and amazingly he still codes everyday. He’s the founder of Dabble Lab, which builds tech products and tools to automate business workflows with a strong focus on AI-powered digital assistants and voice. He also runs the hugely popular DabbleLab YouTube channel. The topic of today’s show is getting started with voice development. Here, we hear from Steve about the various stages of his entrepreneurial journey, his experience working with clients, the many challenges he’s faced in the industry, as well as his deep expertise in the Twilio system and developing IVR solutions. Steve also describes what the state of natural language understanding is today and shares his advice for budding voice developers entering the field. We also get stuck into his YouTube channel and all the tutorials he’s consistently put out over the years to help new and experienced developers hone their craft. If you are just getting started in voice development, this episode is packed with great advice, resources, and motivation to get you going!
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| 08 Jun 2020 | The Voice Layer - Jan König, Jovo | 00:57:50 | |
Today on the show, we welcome Jan König, co-founder of Jovo. Jovo is an open source layer that lets you build and run voice experiences across multiple devices and platforms including, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Samsung Bixby, mobile phone and web apps, and many more! In this episode, we get an inside look into Jovo’s architecture and business model, as well as the latest and greatest version of the build-once deploy-everywhere solution for voice. Jovo version 3 has just been released, and it expands the number of channels you can build for, which now includes Twilio, Facebook Messenger, and even Samsung Bixby. The product has significantly matured and is used by many top brands to build world-class apps today. Not only do we dig into all the new Jovo v3 features, but we speak about the challenges involved with building an open source startup. On the dev side, we take a look at standards, software patterns, and the design considerations between voice bots versus chat bots. On the industry side, we explore best practices, where the voice market is going beyond the big platforms, and much, much more. Jan is a highly concentrated source of information, and the insights per minute in this episode is off the charts! So, if you’re looking to have your mind-blown in multiple directions, then take a listen! Links from the show:
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| 22 Jun 2020 | Investing in Voice - Yannick Oswald, Mangrove Capital | 00:51:06 | |
As the number of voice tech innovations continues to rise, how are investors responding? Is there interest in this potential investment niche or has it not yet penetrated the investor psyche enough for serious capital injection? Today's guest, Yannick Oswald of Mangrove Capital Partners, shares his investor insights into the voice tech space. Mangrove Capital is a venture capital firm chasing transformational ideas around the world, with a focus on early-stage companies before product launch. They have several very successful seed investments such as Skype and Wix, and are very bullish on voice tech. We kick off this episode with Yannick explaining the firm’s interest in the voice space. With a relatively new interest of only a year and a half, they feel that voice can catalyze a shift in technological social interaction. While conventional social media is a solitary, private experience, voice has the potential to take away the fake façade of other social platforms and reestablish the authentic connection. From there, we learn more about Mangrove’s voice investment, Sybel, and how the platform seeks to reinvent audio entertainment. Yannick found that listening to a documentary provided the same entertainment experience as watching it on screen, which is what sparked his interest. We then move onto podcasts and audio content, and where Yannick sees opportunities for investors. He talks about how this niche will branch off into different genres and the likely determining factors of success. The lockdown has changed the way that people interact with voice and audio platforms, and companies can use this time to cement their places in users’ lives.
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| 06 Jul 2020 | Conversational Components - Yaki Dunietz, CoCo | 00:58:15 | |
As the voice industry continues to grow in leaps and bounds, conversational components stand out as a key development moving forward. What are these conversational components? Simply put, they are modular blocks of customizable, reusable conversational services, accessible via APIs that can fit together in a myriad of ways to form larger, conversational flows. Conversational Components, known as CoCo are leading the charge with this modular-based component approach. In this episode, Yaki Dunietz, the company's CEO, who has been working in conversational AI for more than 20 years, and Jason Gilbert, lead conversation designer at CoCo, who has designed text-to-voice experiences across a range of conversational channels, join us to share more about the company and its unique approach to chatbots. We kick the show off by diving into CoCo’s service as a hub and directory for conversational components. We learn about how the components are accessed, vendor publishing, and how searches on the platform work. From there, we move onto how the bots handle queries, both in and out of context. It is vitally important for these bots to engage in small talk, which requires a few thousand smaller bots all to fire at the same time. Through increasing access, CoCo hopes to encourage collaboration and in doing so, propel developments in the space forward.
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| 13 Jul 2020 | Someone to Practice With - Elie Dordek, ShanenLi | 00:43:00 | |
This is a special bonus episode recorded on the new Rumble Studio audio platform that I’ve created. Rumble Studio is a conversational A.I. SaaS for businesses to plan, record, publish and distribute audio for content marketing, and in a fraction of the time it takes today. The conversations are recorded asynchronously, so I’ve coined the new term, BotcastTM. The very first BotcastTM to be published on the Voice Tech Podcast is with Rabbi Elijah C Dordek! Elijah (Elie) is the founder of ShanenLi, an app that uses speech recognition to create personal tutor for text based tasks. It’s being first used to help children in the Ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jewish community learn to read and speak Hebrew, and Elie has plans to expand this to any language and any type of text. We discuss the unique teaching methods Elie has developed, and the value of distance learning during the COVID crisis. We also explore the challenges involved in training speech-to-text models with children, and how technology in general can be used to address cultural pain points. Elie is looking for excited educators and inspired investors who would like to start pilot programs in schools, for any text based reading tasks. He is in search of a technical co-founder who can help with the programming and/or speech engine technology. If you are interested in joining Elie, or know anyone who might be, please reach out to him at elijahcdordek@shanen.li As this is the first interview of this kind, please let me know what you liked or disliked by tweeting @VoiceTechCarl, or email me at carl@voicetechpodcast.com.
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| 20 Jul 2020 | Text-to-Speech Wizardry - Niclas Bergstrom, ReadSpeaker | 00:56:53 | |
Brand recognition has long been about logos, taglines, and advertising campaigns, but what if you could use a voice that sounded like your brand to add another level of brand awareness? This is one of the many interesting services ReadSpeaker, an innovative text-to-speech company offers, and its founder and CTO, Niclas Bergström, joins us today. In this episode, we learn more about the company and the variety of products they offer. From web-based SaaS solutions for management and educational systems to hyper-customized voices for brands, their solutions can be deployed to any hardware ranging from embedded systems to high-capacity servers on their cloud. From there, we dive into what it takes to build a voice for brands. There are so many characteristics that make voices what they are, which is why brands and ReadSpeaker need to have a common understanding of what makes a voice what it is.
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| 04 Aug 2020 | Open Source NLU - Alan Nichol, Rasa | 00:57:58 | |
Aside from having an excellent product, one of the best ways to foster adoption is by building community support early on. One company that has reaped the rewards of taking this approach, is Rasa, an open-source, natural language understanding framework that helps companies build mission-critical contextual assistants, and its co-founder and CTO, Alan Nichol, joins us today. We kick this episode off by learning more about Rasa’s mission to become the no-brainer technology for building conversational AI. They are achieving this through their relentless commitment to community, developer empowerment, and by what Alan calls a ‘no fairy-dust attitude.’ Building conversational AI is not easy, which is why Rasa is inviting developers along for the journey. From there, we move onto why Alan believes it’s important to get products in front of users at soon as you can. Rather than waiting for full development, if you get what you can into people’s hands and let them use it, the feedback will be much richer, culminating in a better outcome. We then move into discussing the benefits of open-source. There are almost an infinite number of advantages according to Alan, from increased innovation surface area to the ability to squeeze out extra performance. However, the financial realities are important, and we discuss how Rasa’s enterprise products fulfill these needs. We round the show off by diving into the five levels of conversational AI and where we currently are, why intents are hindering the scalability of these products, and what’s in the pipeline for Rasa. Links from the show:
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| 17 Aug 2020 | The Fourth Age - Byron Reese, Gigaom | 00:56:08 | |
When we talk about the way that AI will shape the future, there are such polarized beliefs, with one camp fearing it and the other vehemently dismissing these fear-filled claims. Today’s guest, Byron Reese, believes that these opposing views stem from fundamentally different world views. Byron is the former CEO of Gigaom, a well-respected technology publication and tech research company that writes about trends and tech that business leaders need to know about and understand. He is also a prolific author, host of the Voices in AI podcast, and futurist. This episode covers a wide range of topics, and we kick off by delving into the world of voice tech. As Byron has used many of these platforms, numerous questions have come to the surface for him. We ponder whether our interactions with these technologies may spill over into our daily human to human communication as well as how these platforms may corrode human rights. From there, the discussion moves to whether we, as humans, are machines. As a question Byron asks all his podcast guests, he feels that the reductionist answers he frequently hears do not account for the inexplicable ways our humanity manifests itself. Then, we discuss Byron’s book, The Fourth Age, where he unpacks how this technological period will ultimately shape history. He delves into why the advent of speech, agriculture, and the invention of writing and the wheel, were historical turning points, which depart from the obvious reasons people may think. After this, we get into the hotly contested AI vs jobs debate. Byron’s insights into why the proliferation of this technology will not result in net job losses are refreshing and backed by historical data. Looking at the jobs technology destroys alone does not account for the opportunities created. We round the show off with Byron discussing the importance of following your passion, why the ability to learn new things is the most important skill we have, and what’s in store for him. Be sure to listen to this extra-special episode! Sponsors:
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| 31 Aug 2020 | Interactive Web - Speak2Web & Outgrow | 01:00:52 | |
Today on the show, we welcome Jason Croyle, the Director of Partnerships at Speak2Web, and Dr. Saksham Sharda, the Creative Director at Outgrow, to talk about interactive websites and website marketing through conversational interaction. In this episode, we learn more about the features of both the Speak2Web and Outgrow platforms and how they differ. Speak2Web helps customers create an integrative web and voice experience, whereas Outgrow is focused more on interactive content for your website (think calculators, quizzes, and chatbots). We discuss how you can improve customer experience and accessibility with voice interactivity, and debate whether talking to a desktop or a website will eventually be a thing of the future! On the tech side, we get stuck into the effect of voice applets and widgets on conversion rates, SEO, as well as the importance of gamification in the information age. Speaking with a website is not something that most of us are 100% familiar with just yet, and this episode offers a unique glimpse into the future of the web.
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| 15 Sep 2020 | Speech Processing for Disease - Prof. Ami Moyal, President, Afeka Tel Aviv College of Engineering | 00:19:44 | |
Imagine if voice technology could be used to diagnose diseases! This could be a reality if voice tech is used to identify non-speech sounds, such as coughs. This focus is of particular interest at the moment as the world’s governments rally resources to protect populations against COVID-19. This is one area of focus for this week’s guest, Prof. Ami Moyal, President, Afeka Tel Aviv College of Engineering, Israel. Prof. Ami also talks about the future of voice technology and what we should be teaching children for them to be successful in the world. Teaching is the main function of Afeka, but it does focus on research and applied research, in collaboration with industry. This stimulates a culture of creativity. The Afeka Centre for Language Processing has been researching the use of speech processing and artificial intelligence algorithms for providing a quick and readily available pre-diagnostic assessment of COVID-19 infection, without the need for human intervention. When it comes to a rapidly spreading virus such as COVID-19, with millions of potential carriers amongst the global population, it is essential to identify likely carriers of the virus at the early stage of infection in order to prioritize testing efforts and break the chain of transmission. Among the earliest symptoms of COVID-19 are vocal cord edema and vocal cord infection. These affect vocal cord patterns. Afeka is modelling samples of speech, coughing and breathing, from both symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers, to compare with models taken with health subjects. Afeka is also modeling vocalization of subjects that tested negative for COVID-19, yet are exhibiting similar symptoms. This will allow the differentiation between someone who is a carrier, and someone who is not. Prof. Ami says that people were initially hesitant about using voice commands. But this perception has changed, even for simple voice commands. In the not-so-distant-future, we will be able to communicate with any object or machine using our voice. Machines will be able to communicate with humans, using simulated voices. Taking Afeka’s COVID-19 research a step further, Prof. Ami says he imagines one day that our voices will be analyzed continuously by our cell phones, which will notify us in real time when to go and see a doctor, because it has discovered a change in our voice that may result in an ailment. Google, Amazon, and Facebook have defined speech recognition as a strategic goal. This will lead to major advances in the use of speech recognition. Eventually, we will be able to communicate freely with any device, whether it’s our mobile phone, refrigerator, robot, or our car. For content producers, they must think about how they are producing content for the search algorithms of the future. Searches will be instigated through voice recognition. Looking to the future, we need to equip children with both the skills and the knowledge to use speech recognition technology. The current generation must be able to analyze data, and be able to solve unpredictable problems. Sponsors:
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| 28 Sep 2020 | Voice X Design Sprint - Maaike Coppens | 01:11:19 | |
Design Sprint was greeted by Jake Knapp, and the idea is to build and test a prototype in only five days. A small team works for a week to rapidly progress from problem to tested solution, using a proven step-by-step checklist. Jake describes it as fast-forwarding into the future so you can see how customers react before you invest all the time and expense of building a real product. The Design Sprint is a method that has been adopted across digital industries to make better product designs in a faster period of time. The sprint goes from a challenge to a prototype for users. The sprint has strength in the fact that it allows input from users from the very start, and the intense period of everyone working together inevitably results in success. Maaike has been consulting in voice since the beginning. At the start there were challenges because no one knew how much artificial intelligence could do for voice technology. Next, everyone had diverse ideas and team alignment around projects was difficult. Not everyone had the same knowledge, and there was not enough user knowledge. Because of these challenges, Maaike began to look at the methodology around team alignment and speed. That’s where Design Sprint came into play. Maaike Coppens began doing some Design Sprint and quickly saw it solved a lot of problems, but it did not solve the learning gap or learning gap for participants when it came to artificial intelligence. The Voice X Design Sprint was borne of these different elements. It is platform-agnostic and takes into account all different variations and domains voice can be a part of. Voice X Design Sprint leverages what voice technology is about, so that people can not only understand with their mind what voice technology is about, what users are experiencing with their brand. Voice X embodies these things through serious plan, through role play. Links from the show:
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| 12 Oct 2020 | Podcast Tips, Tools and Voice - Carl Robinson, Rumble Studio | 00:59:09 | |
This episode was created by Roger Kibbe, senior developer evangelist for Viv Labs/Samsung, for the Bixby Developers Chat podcast. Roger interviewed me, Carl Robinson, about my new project, Rumble Studio. It’s an innovative new tool for recording podcasts and audio content asynchronously; and yes, we used Rumble Studio to record this podcast! Here’s what Roger wrote in the original podcast description:
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| 02 Nov 2020 | Alexa Skill Numbers - Simon Landry, Voice Market Data | 00:36:28 | |
Simon Landry is the founder of Voice Market Data, a service that makes voice market data more accessible to voice developers. We discover how a macro view of the Alexa marketplace can help us measure app success in different markets, spot new product opportunities and feature ideas, and highlight discoverability issues. Simon’s extensive academic background has given him a unique ability to unearth rich data, and present it in an accessible format that can be understood by all. This is a fascinating look at the true nature of the Amazon Alexa marketplace and makes for essential listening for all voice app developers and creators. Links from the show:
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| 30 Nov 2020 | WordPress to Alexa - Christian Petroske, ShoutWorks | 00:39:31 | |
Christian Petroske is President of Shoutworks, a new Wordpress plugin that lets you publish content to Amazon Alexa with the push of a button. ShoutWorks lets you send notifications through Amazon Alexa, with a 90 percent plus open rate. This helps publishers grow their audience, get more leads, and boost sales in a few clicks. In this episode, Christian and host Carl Robinson discuss the Shoutworks Wordpress plugin, what it is, and how it helps you create an Alexa skill in just one click. Christian also discusses why the pandemic is a good time to launch a voice start-up, and what’s currently holding the voice tech industry back. Christian discusses why his team took a template-first approach, and the benefits to developers and end-users. Voice Tech finds out what Christian believes is holding back the voice industry right now, along with why launching a voice startup during a pandemic is a very smart move! This sophisticated Shoutworks plugin allows smaller publishers to use the content from their blog, and then through the plugin send notifications to Alexa seamlessly. Until now, this accessibility has only been available to larger publishers, including NPR, Coca-Cola, because megabrands such as these can spend thousands of dollars on creating Alexa skills. This has allowed big-name brands to drive significant traffic to their Wordpress sites via Shoutworks. Shoutworks’ goal is to democratize access to Amazon Alexa. It is super easy to use, and takes away the expensive and time-intensive aspects of building an Alexa skill. The real problem Shoutworks is solving is for small businesses and entrepreneurs to build an audience and drive engagement over this new voice tech medium. With voice tech, businesses definitely have less competition, and the possibilities for deeper engagement are actually greater. Shoutworks is changing the playing field for smaller publishers with limited resources, opening up new opportunities for massive engagement. Sponsors:
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| 29 Apr 2018 | Speech to Text - Eric Bolo, Batvoice | 01:06:07 | |
Eric Bolo is the CTO of Batvoice Technologies, a speech analytics startup based in Paris, France. Eric talks about building a custom speech-to-text system for their flagship product, Call Watch.
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| 19 May 2018 | Voice AI for eCommerce - John Fitzpatrick, Voysis | 00:53:01 | |
John Fitzpatrick is the VP of Product & Engineering at Voysis, a leading voice technology company that builds custom Voice AI solutions for businesses. They are currently focused on the ecommerce vertical, helping to voice-enable mobile apps and websites to augment the shopping experience. In our conversation we cover a range of topics including the major components of the Voysis system, the technologies and tools John's team used to build it, and the challenges they faced. We also discuss how Voysis protects a user's privacy and the implications of the GDPR regulation that comes into force soon. It was a pleasure to talk with John and learn from such an experienced engineer. Whether you're currently building voice AI systems or are just interested in learning about how they work, this episode will have plenty for you. Links from the show:
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| 27 May 2018 | Vivatech 2018 Voice Startup Summary | 00:26:41 | |
This episode covers 8 of the most interesting voice startups that I found at the Vivatech technology conference in Paris, France.
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| 15 Jun 2018 | Building Knight Rider's KITT - Charles Cadbury, Champers Advisory | 00:59:49 | |
In this episode I talk with Charles Cadbury, owner of the London-based technology consultancy, Champers Advisory, about his experience building voice applications, and the fascinating future of voice technology. He was great fun to talk to, and had plenty of surprising facts and interesting stories to share. You're going to really enjoy listening to this episode! Charles has built or consulted on over 350 digital products for his clients over the years, covering web, social, mobile, and and now Voice. He has most recently worked with Lola.tech, helping them to create Dazzle.ai, a product that enables personalised digital conversations between travel customers and travel providers across voice and text channels. Charles shares his extensive knowledge and experience on a wide range of topics related to voice. We cover the challenges when working with client data, how payment transactions can and will be handled over voice, and how voice assistants will change the landscape of consumer sales and marketing, and much more. Links from the show:
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| 08 Jul 2018 | The Art of Sound in Motion - Greg Beller, IRCAM | 01:13:43 | |
Greg Beller is the Head of the Interfaces Research and Creation team the leading audio research laboratory IRCAM in France. He is also the founder of SYNEKINE, a live entertainment company which mixes art and science in the spirit of research. We explore the relationship between sound and physical space, and the link between our voices and our gestures. Greg explains what prosody is and its importance in speech and communication. He then demonstrates a number of technological art installations that can modulate the prosody of our speech to augment our capabilities. In the future, this technology will help us to build greater rapport and emotional connection with other humans and voice assistants. Greg is a fascinating guest, who shows us how explorations into new forms of artistic expression can lead to new technologies for use in our daily lives. Links from the show:
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| 22 Jul 2018 | Deaf Person Calling - Benjamin Etienne, Rogervoice | 01:07:14 | |
Benjamin Etienne is a data scientist at Rogervoice, a mobile app that allows deaf and hard-of-hearing people to use the telephone. Ben shares his inspirational story about how he taught himself data science and machine learning in the evenings, so he could work in a more technical role. He tells us why he's not keen on Kaggle competitions, and why getting a job in data science is the best way to master it. Ben introduces us to the challenges faced by the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, and how they can overcome them with the help of voice technology. We cover how Rogervoice works from both functional and technical standpoints, and discuss the pros and cons of using a commercial cloud-based speech API versus developing a custom in-house speech-to-text system. Ben reveals his reasoning behind his choice of machine learning models, and describes the advantages of using connectionist temporal classification (CTC). We then discuss the state of data science today, the limitations of current models and data preprocessing techniques, and how an understanding of the underlying psychology and neurology of users can help us design more effective voice technologies. Links from this episode:
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| 05 Aug 2018 | Perception of Smiles in the Voice - Pablo Arias, IRCAM | 01:14:12 | |
Pablo Arias is a final-year PhD student in perception and cognitive science at the audio research lab, IRCAM, in Paris. We discuss Pablo's work on how people perceive smiling and non-smiling voices. First Pablo explains what cognitive science, neuroscience and perception are, and why research into these areas is so important. He then takes us through the aims, methods, and results of his latest research paper into smiling in the voice, and we discuss the academic and technological implications of his work. Pablo shares his advice for budding PhD researchers, and the importance of having a mentor. Then we 'go deep' on how to learn how to listen, and outline the big unanswered questions in the field of perception right now. Links from the show:
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| 19 Aug 2018 | Signal Processing Basics for Audio - Dogac Basaran, CNRS | 00:34:27 | |
Dogac Basaran is a post-doctoral researcher at CNRS, the French national scientific research centre. Today, in part 1 of 2, Dogac gives us a crash course in signal processing, where we learn what signal processing is and discover some of its many applications. Leveraging his teaching experience, Dogac uses simple language and real-world examples to explain the fundamental signal processing concepts that are used in voice technology today. He defines frequency, period, and stability, and describes how sound cards use sampling and the Nyquist theorem to convert analogue signals into digital. He then recommends some good educational resources and software packages, so you can learn more about signal processing and get started right away on your own programming projects. Correction [21/08/2018]: The term 'stationarity' was cited in the episode, but this should have been 'stability'. Links from the show:
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| 02 Sep 2018 | Hum a Fingerprint, Extract a Melody - Dogac Basaran, CNRS | 00:35:12 | |
This is the second part of my conversation with Dogac Basaran, a post-doctoral researcher at CNRS, the French national scientific research centre. If you missed the first part, you might want to go back and listen to the previous episode on Signal Processing Basics for Audio. Today, in part 2 of 2, we explore Dogac's research into audio fingerprinting, alignment, and melody extraction. By analysing the magnitude of frequency peaks and their relative spacing, Dogac shows us how it's possible to create audio fingerprints that can be used to detect and match audio recordings, even if they contain noise or are incomplete. These fingerprints have a variety of uses, including aligning multiple recordings of a single speaker/performance, and identifying a particular recording. We also discuss query by humming, the state-of-the-art technique that takes an audio fingerprint of a person humming a melody, and matches it to a database of music recordings. Dogac also explains why learning how to build neural networks has become an essential skill in this field. Links from the show:
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| 16 Sep 2018 | Podcasts of the Future - Bryan Colligan, AlphaVoice | 00:51:45 | |
Bryan Colligan is the co-founder of AlphaVoice, the easiest way to get your podcast and audio content onto Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. In an especially fun conversation, Bryan shares his vision of how the podcasting and voice technology worlds are set to collide, and how the implications will be felt by platforms, content producers and consumers alike. He reveals the 4 main business models of content producers, explains why voice is the tech wave that will dominate, and foretells the impending convergence of media. We then explore the AlphaVoice product, and examine his plans to build the ultimate Q&A voice interface using content transcription and indexing. We also touch on how Google entering the podcasting space has influenced his product vision, and tackle the important subject of voice search, including the new paradigms of voice to voice, and voice to video search. Whether you're a publisher, producer or consumer of digital content, this is an unmissable episode! Links from the show:
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| 30 Sep 2018 | Audio Branding & Sound Design - Sebastian Hanfland, Hanfland & Friends | 01:07:26 | |
Sebastian Hanfland is the CEO of the audio branding consultancy, Hanfland and Friends. His team help companies define their their brand in audio form, in order to promote brand recognition, increase the perceived quality of products, and influence customers. Sebastian explains what audio branding is, and how he selects the right voices and sounds for a brand. We explore many interesting examples of audio branding for products, customer service, workplaces and more, and hear a demo of their latest audio branding project for Humanzing Technologies. We also cover the typical challenges faced on audio branding projects, and what brands can do to prepare for the voice technology revolution. This fantastic episode tells you all you need to know about sound design and audio branding. It is essential listening, not only for people working with voice technologies, but also for designers, marketers and content producers from every industry. Links from the show:
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| 23 Mar 2021 | Interactive Storytelling - Christian Mahnke, EarReality | 00:55:18 | |
Christian Mahnke is CEO of EarReality, which helps some of the biggest companies in the world such as Disney, Audible, and Vox create interactive stories for voice marketing. Their stories are published on Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Samsung Bixby and more. Christian shares some of his best practices for interactive voice writers, including why it's important to write characters that people identify with. EarReality is set for success with the upcoming launch of Twist, their interactive storytelling tool for voice technology. Find out more by giving this episode a listen! Recorded asynchronously on Rumble Studio Links from the show:
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| 06 Apr 2021 | Voice Transformation - Marco Liuni, Alta Voce | 00:39:33 | |
Marco Liuni is the co-founder and audio miner at Alta Voce, a research-backed startup based in Paris, France that shapes the emotions in human and artificial voices to enhance communication. Their product, Alta Call, is a voice transformation technology for contact centers, improving both the clarity of speech and enhancing the smile in the voice. Marco explains how their tech works, and we hear samples of audio that have been transformed. We also cover some of the ethical issues of transforming human voice, and how they are tackling this in the product. Marco shares his advice for newcomers to the field of speech transformation, and some of his recommended reading. Links from the show:
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| 14 Oct 2018 | Fast Scalable Voice IoT Apps - Syed Ahmed, PubNub | 00:39:24 | |
Syed Ahmed is a Developer Advocate at PubNub, a global Data Stream Network and real-time infrastructure-as-a-service company based in San Francisco, California. PubNub's products allow developers to build realtime web, mobile, voice and IoT applications. Low network latency is especially important for voice enabled applications that integrate with IoT devices, as any delay during a conversational interaction can affect usability and frustrate users. In this episode, Syed explains how PubNub solves the latency problem by using a serverless architecture of PubNub Blocks, and walks us through a simple real-world example of a voice enabled doorbell. We learn about the publisher-subscriber pattern that underpins this technology, and why building voice apps with PubNub is quicker, easier and much more scalable than other methods. A nice surprise during this conversation was that using PubNub Blocks not only improves the network performance of voice apps, but can be used to add advanced features such as contextual memory between phrases, and even between voice devices on different platforms, allowing developers to build more advanced interactions. It's a great episode, so check it out! Links from the show:
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| 28 Oct 2018 | Open Source Voice Assistants - Joshua Montgomery, Mycroft | 01:20:05 | |
Joshua Montgomery is the CEO of Mycroft, the open source voice assistant. Mycroft is a much needed addition to the range of big tech voice assistants on the market, offering a new level of data privacy and customisation. Their MkII device will be launched soon, and is available for pre-order now on IndieGogo. Josh describes how the MkII improves over previous iterations, takes us through the technical stack, and explains how you can start developing voice applications for the Mycroft ecosystem today.
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| 04 May 2021 | A.I. Service Desks - Muddu Sudhakar, Aisera | 00:13:41 | |
Muddu Sudhakar is the CEO of Aisera, the world’s first solution to use Conversational AI and Conversational RPA to transform the Service Desk in the Enterprise. We discuss how enterprises are using Aisera’s A.I. to automate and auto-resolve service desk requests from both employees and customers. Muddu predicts that service desk tools will be used less over the coming years, to be replaced by self-service AI-powered Conversational platforms on collaboration tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Slack. Links from the show: Sponsors:
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| 18 May 2021 | Real-time Voice Changer - Jaime Bosch & Alex Bordanova, Voicemod | 00:27:53 | |
Jaime Bosch is the co-founder CEO of Voicemod, a massively popular real-time voice manipulation, augmentation & soundboard application for Windows PC. He is joined by Alex Bordanova, Director of Audio Experience at Voicemod. Based in Valencia, Spain, Voicemod has amassed over 17 million registered users & is the number one choice to create a unique & powerful sonic identity, whether it’s for gaming, content creation, dungeon-mastering, or just hanging out with friends online. We hear samples of a range of voice changing effects made by Voicemod & discuss the applications of these in various industries. We also dive into the challenges of real-time audio programming & hear about the lessons learned while building this awesome voice startup. Links from the show:
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| 11 Nov 2018 | Voice Emotion Analytics - Florian Eyben, audEERING | 01:11:24 | |
Florian Eyben is the CTO of audEERING, an audio analysis company that specialises in emotional artificial intelligence. Florian is a leading expert in voice emotion analytics, machine learning and signal processing, and our conversation is a great introduction to harnessing emotion in the voice. We discuss many of the incredible applications of voice emotion analytics, and dive into some projects carried out by audEERING for major brands in market research, call centers, social robotics, health and many more. In the second half of the episode we explore openSMILE, audEERING's open source research toolkit for audio feature extraction. It is currently the state-of-the-art in affective computing for audio, and is the most widely-used tool for emotion recognition tasks in research and industry.
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| 07 Jun 2021 | Conversation Design Festival - Hans van Dam, CDI | 00:58:41 | |
Hans van Dam is the CEO of Conversation Design Institute, a company that teaches a human-centric workflow to conversation design which has proven itself in organisations around the world. This is Hans’s second appearance on the show, the first one being in episode 51 back in January. Hans explains what exactly conversation design means and focuses on its importance regarding conversational AI technologies. He shares his vast experience with training conversation designers at CDI, in order to successfully automate conversations in 2021. CDI’s Conversation Design Festival is coming up on June 15th. Attendees will learn from AI Trainers, Conversation Designers and Conversational Copywriters who will share their professional experiences and give advice on optimizing AI assistants like chatbots and voice assistants. We hope to see you at the Conversation Design Festival on June 15th. Grab a ticket now using our discount code! Links from the show:
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| 25 Nov 2018 | Conversational Marketing - Andy Mauro, Automat | 01:33:26 | |
Andy Mauro, CEO and co-founder of Automat, a company that helps brands deliver personalised one-to-one voice and messaging experiences to their customers. Andy has been helping to shape the voice industry for almost two decades now, having spent 16 years at Nuance, the most successful speech recognition company in history, and then TellMe, which was acquired by Microsoft. In this episode we discuss Conversational Marketing and why it represents a fundamental shift in digital marketing. Andy explains how voice assistants will change the landscape of consumer sales & marketing, and the implications of voice search on brands' content marketing strategies. He founded Automat because the sales experience on web and mobile customer lack the personal touch, and he believes voice is the answer to this problem. We also discuss the role of influencers in conversational marketing, and how conversational marketing could impact brick and mortar shopping on the high street. We also cover the history of the voice industry and how we got to where we are today, some of the lessons Andy has learned over his time in the industry, and why voice assistants might be heading for the trough of disillusionment in 2019. Thanks to Andy's wealth of experience it's an exceptionally interesting conversation, and highly relevant to anyone involved in the field. Links from the show:
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| 24 Jun 2021 | 5 Fantastic French Startups - Vivatech 2021 | 00:46:20 | |
Five different french audio startups explain what their companies’ missions are as they’re interviewed at the Vivatech 2021 mega-conference in Paris, France. One french company that stood out was Cogneed, which focuses on the power of AI specifically when it comes to Inside Sales, Customer Care & Sales Development Reps, assisting them with dynamic display of relevant information, triggered by audio detection. Then comes Storyfox, a video interview tool that companies can use to create structured interviews using templates. This could especially be beneficial for companies that are looking to hire new employees as it makes the process much quicker.
Afterwards, we learn all about Sonup, a startup that’s based in Montpellier. It’s an innovative and reliable solution for healthcare professionals wishing to offer their patients a hearing assessment service. They explain why their solution is important for people with hearing problems.
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| 09 Dec 2018 | Your First Voice App - Hillary Long, Citro Digital | 00:51:57 | |
Hillary Long is the General Manager and Partner at CITRO Digital, a digital marketing agency, based in Allentown, PA, United States. Hillary takes us through the design and build process of their first voice app, the 'Naughty or Nice Quiz' for children. As an experienced technologist that's new to voice development, Hillary shares her experience from 'in the trenches', and the lessons her team learned. We discuss content creation for a voice application, including the importance of iteration and beta testing, especially when working with children! Hillary shares her strategy for leveraging existing content held in a headless CMS, and how this was integrated with her voice application. We also cover the Alexa freetime program for Alexa kids devices, the Jovo cross platform framework for fast deployment to both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and the significant differences between the release processes on both platforms. Hillary also tells us about the creative ideas her team used to market their new voice app, including a competition for an Otterbox Google Assistant cover for kids, which you can enter if you're quick. It's a fun and relaxed interview that's packed with useful information for new and experienced voice developers alike. Have a listen and let me know what you think! Links from the show:
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| 23 Dec 2018 | Conversation Analysis - E. Stokoe, L’boro, S. Albert, Tufts | 01:11:39 | |
Elizabeth Stokoe is Professor of Social Interaction at Loughborough Uni in the UK, and Saul Albert is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Tufts University in Massachusetts, United States. Their latest research shows us how to influence the outcomes of conversational interactions, and we discuss the implications of this for voice technology. We cover what conversation analysis is, with examples from different conversation settings such as first dates, crisis negotiation, and sales calls. Then we discuss the use of nudging to encourage action, and the ethical implications of persuasive voice interfaces. We also arrive at a shocking discovery that today's conversational interfaces are, in fact, not conversational at all! This is a thought provoking episode that explores the fundamental mechanisms of conversation that we as technologists are trying to emulate. it's especially useful for anyone involved in designing or promoting conversational interfaces, and will make you think about conversation in a whole new way. Subscribe to the podcast and listen now! Links from the show:
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| 06 Jan 2019 | Prototypes & Personas - Kasia Ryniak & Rafal Cymerys, Upside | 01:02:26 | |
Kasia Ryniak & Rafal Cymerys are the co-founders of Upside, a voice app development agency based in Krakow, Poland, that offer voice interaction design, voice strategy and voice app development. In this episode, you will learn how experienced voice app developers create innovative prototypes, improve voice app engagement, and sell products and services via voice. First, we explore the creation of prototype of an Alexa skill for StarCraft II, which lets players use voice commands to trigger complex actions. We cover the importance of imbuing your voice assistant with a persona, how voice and visuals fit together to create multi-modal experiences, and a quick walkthrough of building the Alexa skill using the Alexa Skills Kit. Then Kasia and Rafal introduce us to voicecommerce.js, Upside's new open-source voice framework for integrating an eCommerce storefront with voice-enabled assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant. We cover the benefits of voice commerce to the consumers, Progressive Web Apps (PWA), and a case study for the fashion industry. It was a really fun conversation with Kasia and Rafal, and our conversation is packed full of interesting ideas and practical advice. You'll definitely want to listen to it all the way through, and keep a notebook handy! Links from the show:
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| 20 Jan 2019 | Elevated Voice Design - Vasili Shynkarenka, Invocable | 01:02:39 | |
Vasili Shynkarenka is CEO and co-founder of Invocable, an online tool that lets you prototype voice applications without coding. Formerly known as Storyline, the company has now pivoted from an Alexa skill builder into a first-class voice application design tool. In our conversation, you'll learn all about the reasons behind the pivot, the main differences between Invocable and Storyline, and how you can use Invocable to design better voice apps. Vasili shares his experience of seeing thousands of voice applications developed on Storyline, and his advice to voice interaction designers for what works and what doesn't. We discuss the power of multi-modal interaction, and how to design visual interfaces in Invocable. We also discuss predictions for 2019, the major problems with in the voice industry right now, copy cat startups and much more. Links from the show:
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| 02 Feb 2019 | Machine Learning Signals - Christopher Oates, audEERING | 00:57:05 | |
Christopher Oates is a Senior Audio DSP Engineer at audEERING, an audio analysis company that specialises in emotional artificial intelligence. Chris explains how the human voice production system works, and introduces us to a technique called linear predictive coding (LPC) which can extract the features of the voice. We then focus on machine learning for audio, including using expert audio knowledge along with machine learning methods, leveraging the openSMILE toolkit for feature extraction, and signal processing techniques. Chris explains things really well and even brought along some audio clips to help illustrate the signal concepts. He then reveals some of the latest projects at audEERING, including using speech analytics in gaming applications, such as whisper detection in a ninja game! It's an awesome episode that is jam-packed with useful and interesting information. Enjoy! Links from the show:
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| 16 Feb 2019 | Nanocasting - Sean Gilligan, Sound Branch | 00:34:44 | |
Sean Gilligan is the founder of Sound Branch, a team communication app and voice-based social network in which where users create smart voice notes. Sean introduces us to the concept of nanocasting, and explains how it can be used for public broadcasting, team status updates, recruiting new staff, and more. We discuss the benefits of audio over other mediums, including greater privacy and accountability for content creators, and improved speed and convenience for content consumers. Sean also explains how audio is unique in providing the perfect combination of authenticity of message and auditability of content, thanks to the combination of speech to text and search technologies. Sound Branch is a feature rich application that could well be the Twitter for voice that so many have been predicting, and this episode will help deepen your understanding of this emerging form of communication. Highlights from the show: [22:40] "A massive conversation determines what is right." Links from the show:
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| 02 Mar 2019 | Voice Retail - Shilp Agarwal, Blutag | 00:50:08 | |
Shilp Agarwal is the CEO of Blutag, a voice retail solution that lets customers search/browse a product catalog on Alexa and Google Assistant. We get to hear some product demos showing how customers can quickly reorder products they've bought before, and also browse new options before making an informed choice. Blutag recently graduated from the Techstars incubator, and are backed by Amazon's Alexa Fund, so we discuss how he got into the programs, and the benefits of the experience. Shilp has a long history in the retail space, and shares many insights, including how multimodal interfaces, and especially voice enabled TVs, will soon revolutionise online shopping. He reveals the pain points most retailers are trying to solve with voice, Amazon's vision for voice retail, and how the rise of voice search will affect product discoverability. Links from the show:
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| 16 Mar 2019 | Voice Search Results - Dustin Coates, Algolia | 00:58:06 | |
Dustin Coates is the Voice Search Go-to-market Lead at Algolia, a Search-as-a-Service provider based in Paris, France. Algolia processes up to 4 billion searches a month for over 6500 client products, including big names such as Twitch and NPR. In our conversation, you'll learn all about the 4 pillars of a search system; the indexing of data, relevance configuration, search queries, and the display of results. We discuss the nuances of voice search, context dependent searches, and the differences between searching on mobile vs a smart speaker. We also cover the challenges of talking to websites, discovery vs search, and much more. Dustin shares his advice for voice search developers, including how to integrate voice search into your apps, and the most useful tools and technical resources. Dustin's deep technical experience really shines though in this interview, as one of the few true voice search experts. Links from the show:
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