VUX World: Recent Episodes
Kane Simms
VUX World brings the brightest minds from the world’s most innovative companies, all of whom are pushing the boundaries of voice AI, conversational AI, and NLP technologies, to share insights, learnings and guidance that helps business executives and teams create the future of AI-driven customer experience.
We educate business leaders and teams on why and how AI technologies are revolutionising the way consumers engage with businesses and the internet, why that matters and how to implement it properly.
“One of the most consistently insightful and deeply respected podcasts in the industry”
Bradley Metrock, Score Publishing.
Covering topics including speech technology, voice AI, NLP, NLU, chatbots, voice bots, voice assistants, voice user interfaces, conversation design, service automation, and how all of this can be used to create the future of customer experiences for brands and enterprises.
Plenty of AI assistants can answer the question in front of them. Fewer can work out what someone is actually trying to do and help them do it.
In this episode, we're joined by Pete Kowalczyk, AI Conversation Designer at the Government Digital Service (GDS), to talk about designing AI experiences across the vast and complex landscape of UK government services.
Pete explains how GDS is exploring knowledge graphs, persistent state and goal detection to move beyond basic RAG systems. The aim is to connect information with action and guide people through non-linear journeys, such as moving house or registering a birth. One of the key goals is to reduce the burden created by fragmented processes and legacy systems.
We discuss why conversational systems need to track user goals, how small interaction loops can be built into rich experiences over time and why transitions between stages of a conversation carry so much weight for trust and usability.
We also get into progressive disclosure, deciding when an AI should stay concise and when it should offer more, and how to judge whether a link belongs in a response at all. Pete points to a bank surfacing patterns in someone's spending as an example of how organisations can build proactive features from data they already hold, rather than only responding when asked.
Pete shares how the designer role is evolving. Designers now need sufficient technical understanding to prototype and work directly with LLMs through practices like vibe coding, while maintaining the creative ability to understand experiences beyond incremental chatbot improvements.
He closes with a warning against the industry's current resolution rut, where success gets defined too narrowly as fast ticket resolution rather than genuinely useful, proactive AI.
Show notes
Follow Pete on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/petekowalczyk
Video of Pete's talk at the Conversational AI Meetup in London: https://youtu.be/001PeZv3N0k
Lead with Tempo 2026: https://www.leadwithtempo.com/2026schedule
London Design Festival: https://londondesignfestival.com
Follow Kane on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Find out more about VUX:
https://vux.ai
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Almost a third of Simplyhealth's incoming calls are now resolved by AI, and email handling time has fallen from 12 minutes to 2. The company is achieving those gains while maintaining the service standards that placed it 31st in KPMG UK's Customer Experience Excellence report.
In this episode, we're joined by Paul Atkins, Head of Business Optimisation at Simplyhealth, the UK's member-owned health cash plan provider serving around 2.5 million customers. Paul explains how Simplyhealth introduced voice AI gradually, tested more than 1,000 real customer calls and built trust across a highly regulated organisation.
We also get into how Simplyhealth measures resolution, quality and customer effort, why intensive human listening still matters during rollout, and the organisational call to define what "good enough" looks like rather than letting advisors over-engineer every reply. Paul talks through the role of business readiness teams in driving adoption and why knowledge management could become the next major challenge in making AI work at scale.
Show notes
Follow Paul on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-atkins-1nsight
Follow Kane on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Find out more about VUX:
https://vux.ai
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Safe, reliable, production-ready AI agents don't come from the model. They come from everything built around it.
Rasmus Hauch is CTO of Boost.ai, one of the enterprise platforms banks, insurers and public sector organisations use to build customer-facing AI agents. His work sits one layer below every deployment: the orchestration, the guardrails, the testing infrastructure and the model choices that decide whether an agent holds up in front of millions of customers.
In this episode, Rasmus opens that layer, explaining why conversational AI is shifting away from traditional conversation flows towards orchestration, testing and continuous evaluation. He walks through how Boost approaches it in practice: persona-based simulation across thousands of digital and voice conversations, predefined test suites for jailbreaking attempts and financial advice, layered guardrails inside and outside the agent, and a trust loop that feeds production results back into the build.
Rasmus is direct about the hard parts. We touch on why the big LLM providers can't yet deliver the consistent response times voice demands, which is why Boost runs fine-tuned smaller models on its own infrastructure for latency-critical voice work. Rasmus explains why he advises clients against plugging in their own models.
We also discuss where liability sits under the EU AI Act when an agent gets it wrong, and why a volcano eruption in Iceland is a good example of what no model can be trained for.
Towards the end, Rasmus shares what's exciting him right now, including adaptive voice, real-time language switching and where agent-to-agent protocols are heading.
Show notes
Discover more about boost.ai
Follow Rasmus on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rasmushauch
Follow Kane on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
A traditional mortgage can take weeks to process. Every application moves through rounds of document requests, condition checks, and broker queries before a decision is made. ING is using agentic AI to change that.
In this episode, Bahadir Yilmaz, Chief Analytics Officer at ING, explains how one of Europe's largest mortgage lenders has implemented agentic AI in its mortgage process. The system is live in the Netherlands, rolling out to Germany. Applications now complete in days, a full day faster since AI was introduced. The goal: the instant mortgage, within the next couple of years.
We cover why ING chose its highest-stakes product for its first agentic deployment, why the agent handles operational work while underwriting remains with traditional machine learning, and how the team built a golden dataset of 400 mortgage applications to test a system no one had tested before.
Furthermore, Bahadir shares how ING scaled to 114 AI initiatives with 42,000 employees using AI. We discuss why risk management came before ambition, and why only 10 of his 600 experts were ready to build agentic systems.
Show notes
Follow Bahadir on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bahadir-yilmaz-21170479/
Follow Kane on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Take our AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
In this episode, recorded at the CCW UK Summit, we’re joined by Jordan Anglin from Vodafone to explore the company's approach to customer experience and how AI supports faster, more seamless issue resolution across digital and human channels.
Jordan explains how Vodafone combines its AI assistant, TOBi, asynchronous messaging, and dedicated resolution teams to reduce customer effort, eliminate repetitive conversations, and create genuine ownership from start to finish. Jordan also shares how AI is improving frontline performance through agent assistance, conversation summaries, quality assurance and real-time guidance, while offering a practical perspective on where large language models deliver real value and where they fall short.
Jordan closes with his take on where AI attention in customer experience is currently misplaced, and where he sees low-hanging fruit that's easy to miss.
Show notes
Discover the CCW Europe Summit in Amsterdam: https://europe.customercontactweekdigital.com/events-ccweurope/?utm_source=vux.world&utm_medium=Media%20Partner&utm_campaign=27400.010_VUX_Podcast%20episodes%20post%20event&utm_term=&utm_content=&disc=&extTreatId=7638147
Follow Jordan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-anglin-a2672610b/
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Take our AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
We recorded this episode at the CCW UK Summit in May, capturing some of the key conversations shaping customer experience, service and AI.
AI is everywhere in customer experience, yet few organisations are turning that excitement into measurable business outcomes.
We're joined by Paul Cuglietta, Customer Services Director at Simplyhealth, and Paul Atkins, Head of Business Optimisation at Simplyhealth, alongside Shane Lynn, CEO and Founder of EdgeTier, to explore what successful AI adoption really looks like.
We discuss how Simplyhealth scaled generative voice AI with PolyAI from 5% to 50% of interactions and how the company uses EdgeTier's conversational intelligence platform to turn everyday customer conversations into actionable business insights. We also cover why organisations should start with real business problems rather than chasing the latest AI trends.
Simplyhealth funnels its conversational data through a prioritisation process to decide which customer journey improvements to make first. The team explains why progress comes from small measurable iterations and how they keep a human in the loop to handle the moments that automation should not touch.
We also weigh in on where the AI narrative is overhyped, where its real value remains underutilised, and why the unglamorous work of digging through conversations to fix broken policies and processes is where genuine impact happens.
Show notes
Discover the CCW Europe Summit in Amsterdam: https://europe.customercontactweekdigital.com/events-ccweurope/?utm_source=vux.world&utm_medium=Media%20Partner&utm_campaign=27400.010_VUX_Podcast%20episodes%20post%20event&utm_term=&utm_content=&disc=&extTreatId=7638147
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Take our AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
When you switch off your call centre, AI has no safety net to fall back on. RVU did exactly that, building an AI-first customer operations function that serves millions of UK consumers.
In this episode, we’re joined by Anna Fedorchuk, Customer Operations Manager at RVU, the company behind brands including Uswitch, Confused.com and Money.co.uk. Anna shares how her team transformed customer support from a traditional contact centre into an AI-first operation, achieving AI resolution rates of 65-70% while maintaining a strong customer experience.
We discuss how RVU rolled out AI across chat, email and social media without relying on engineering teams, and why building the right knowledge base mattered far more than chasing the latest model. Anna walks us through how AI categorisation and carefully designed workflows lifted resolution rates across genuinely complex customer journeys, where similar keywords across energy, broadband and mobile made accurate routing a real challenge. Anna also describes how Claude and Intercom now work together to analyse conversations and surface operational insights in the team's own language.
People are a big part of this conversation. Anna explains how involving her team early gave each agent their own vertical to run and a real sense of ownership, and how AI even softened the stress of handling difficult complaints. She closes on what's next: data connectors and more agentic customer experiences.
Show notes
Follow Anna on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-fedorchuk-b84232102/
Follow Kane on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Take our AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to VUX World:
https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack:
https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Japan has one of the lowest average NPS scores in the world, and the reason is cultural: Japanese customers expect more.
Daniel Orenes Ferrández, Senior Manager of Customer Experience at Uber, discusses Omotenashi, the Japanese philosophy of anticipating customer needs and apologising sincerely before resolving a problem.
Daniel has lived and worked in Japan for over a decade, including five years leading conversational AI initiatives at Rakuten. He explains why the Japanese language has between ten and fifteen ways of saying sorry, why choosing the right level matters as much as solving the issue, and how generative AI prompts can now select an apology tone based on contact type and severity, something fixed NLU responses could never do.
The conversation covers Aimai, the Japanese concept of ambiguity used to maintain conversational harmony. Japanese speakers rarely say no directly, and AI systems need specific prompting to catch these signals in sentiment analysis.
We also discuss the escalation strategy, digital mascots, integration with the Japanese messaging app Line, and practical guidance for global brands deploying conversational AI in Japan.
Show notes
Read Daniel's Substack, Japan CX Insider: https://danielferrandez.substack.com/
Follow Daniel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielorenesferrandez/
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Take our AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
What happens when customers stop opening banking apps and start managing their finances through AI assistants?
In this episode, we sit down with Mathias Fanschek, Head of Digital Transformation and Retail Strategy at Raiffeisen Bank International, to explore how one of Europe's largest banking groups is preparing for a future of headless banking, agentic commerce and AI-powered customer experiences.
With 18 million customers across 11 markets and managing over €200 billion in assets, Mathias shares what it really takes to move generative AI from experimentation to production. We had a good discussion about virtual mobile assistants, transforming legacy data infrastructure, and managing executive expectations in a rapidly changing, highly regulated landscape.
You'll also hear Mathias' perspective on Revolut's new PRAGMA model, why context is the missing ingredient in today's AI experiences and how banks can remain trusted intermediaries as customers increasingly interact through AI-powered distribution channels.
We sit down with Henry Vaage Iversen, Co-Founder and CCO at boost.ai, to explore why voice AI is finally reaching mainstream deployment across banks, insurers, telcos and other regulated industries.We dig into what's changed in the technology, why phone volumes continue to rise and how large language models are reshaping what's possible on the voice channel. Henry shares practical lessons from deploying conversational AI at scale, including how some customers are now achieving 60-75% voice automation. We also discuss why the gap between chat and voice experiences still catches companies off guard, and what it really takes to get voice AI right in terms of testing, latency, and conversation design.We explore why layering AI onto legacy channels only gets you so far, and why the real opportunity lies in rethinking customer journeys from scratch. The conversation wraps with a story about what happens when AI agents start calling other AI agents, something our team recently experienced firsthand.
Show notes
- Find out more about boost.ai
- Follow Henry on LinkedIn
- Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment
- Subscribe to our newsletter
- Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack
Five years after his first appearance on the podcast, PolyAI CEO Nikola Mrkšić returns to VUX World to discuss how conversational AI has evolved from intent-based systems into enterprise-scale AI agents handling millions of customer interactions.
PolyAI began as a research-led spinout from Cambridge University with a singular focus on making automated voice conversations genuinely useful. Since then, the company has grown from a handful of pilot deployments to powering customer service operations for nearly 200 enterprises worldwide, including highly regulated industries such as banking, healthcare, insurance and utilities.
In this episode, we explore what it actually takes to build production-ready conversational AI systems at scale. We go deep into PolyAI's proprietary Raven model, the realities of building and training purpose-built language models for enterprise customer service. We also talk about why most businesses underestimate the complexity of deploying AI agents into real-world operations.
The conversation also touches on PolyAI's brand campaign starring Gordon Ramsay. Ramsay's restaurants have been a PolyAI client for a few years, and the company launched a campaign timed to the Super Bowl in February 2026 with Ramsay dramatising the contrast between legacy phone menus and PolyAI's voice agents. Nikola explains how the partnership came about and why Ramsay's standards made him a fitting brand ambassador for the company.
Show notes
Find out more about PolyAI: https://poly.ai/
Follow Nikola on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikola-mrksic
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Sign up for our upcoming webinar - Cutting headcount isn't an AI strategy: https://events.vux.ai/getvocal?utm_source=podcast_network&utm_medium=podcast
Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast_network&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to our newsletter: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW/?utm_source=podcast_network&utm_medium=podcast
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Enterprise AI projects fail more often than they succeed. The MIT figure Thomas Schaefer cites puts that at 95%. The reasons are rarely the model. They are the architecture beneath it, the data that feeds it, and the use case selection that determines whether any of it was worth starting.
Thomas Schaefer is Director of Sales Engineering at Uniphore, based in Germany. He has over 20 years in enterprise technology, including 12 years at Jacada across solution architecture, professional services and presales leadership across EMEA and APAC. He joined Uniphore in 2021 and works with enterprise clients on AI transformation, agentic workflow design and the operationalisation of business AI at scale.
Show notes
Discover more about the CCW UK Summit: https://europe.customercontactweekdig...
Find out more about Uniphore: https://www.uniphore.com/
Follow Thomas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-schaefer-4027a611/
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: / kanesimms
Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26b...
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5...
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Enterprise AI tools can spin up a prototype in an hour. Getting that prototype to production with the accuracy, security, and scale a real business needs still takes months for most companies. Inbenta says its new Encore platform closes that gap in days or even hours.
Merlin Bise, CTO at Inbenta, returns to VUX World to walk through how Encore builds production-grade AI agents on the fly when a customer deploys a use case. The platform ingests content from websites, documents, recordings and connected systems like SharePoint, then combines large language models with Inbenta's proprietary NLP, customer-specific lexicons and real-time intent generation to deliver near-zero hallucination rates.
The hallucination numbers from raw models remain striking. We discuss a report that shows hallucination rates across different LLMs, including those from companies such as OpenAI, Google, and xAI. Inbenta's approach constrains the model to verified content and context, then layers intent-based NLP on top. In one customer test of 200 questions, they found a single hallucination, caused by a query that fell outside the content boundaries.
We also discuss the broader trajectory of enterprise AI. Most deployments today focus on replacing existing activities or functions. The bigger opportunity lies in using AI to imagine entirely new kinds of value. Merlin predicts that hyper-automation, which combines agentic intelligence with robotic process automation, will be the defining shift in the next 12 months.
Show notesFind out more about The European Chatbot & Conversational AI Summit: https://europe.customercontactweekdigital.com/events-ccw-uk/agenda-mc/?utm_source=VUX%20World&utm_medium=Media%20Partner&utm_campaign=47758.003_VUX_Social_Post_Agenda&utm_term=&utm_content=&disc=&extTreatId=7634824
Find out more about Inbenta: https://www.inbenta.com
Follow Merlin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merlin-bise-8277696b
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Most teams are still asking where to use AI. The better question is where not to.
In this episode, Adrian Matei, Product Manager from Jaja Finance, breaks down what actually happens when generative AI meets real users and real constraints. The result is far less hype, far more discipline, and a clear view of what it takes to ship AI that works.
We talk about Jaja’s chatbot, Airi, which is a RAG-based agentic system with six agents in production, serving customers who often face sensitive financial situations, such as debt.
Adrian explains the design philosophy behind Airi’s tone, which was developed in collaboration with Jaja's commercial and communications teams to ensure it matches the brand across every customer touchpoint.
A significant part of the conversation focuses on the practical realities of building production-grade generative AI systems. Adrian shares his thinking on when to use generative AI and when deterministic, rule-based approaches are simply the better choice.
We also touch on broader themes, including the future of AI at the edge and the emerging role of personal AI assistants.
Show notesDiscover more about the CCW UK Summit: https://europe.customercontactweekdigital.com/events-ccw-uk/agenda-mc/?utm_source=VUX%20World&utm_medium=Media%20Partner&utm_campaign=47758.003_VUX_Social_Post_Agenda&utm_term=&utm_content=&disc=&extTreatId=7634824
Follow Adrian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriangmatei
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
We hit the floor at the European Chatbot and Conversational AI Summit in Edinburgh with a mic and a simple rule: answer a question, then leave one for the next person. What unfolds is a chain of questions and answers from practitioners at Lebara, Lloyds Banking Group, Uber, ElevenLabs, Carrefour, Virgin Money, Tesco, Jaja Finance and more. The result is an organic, unscripted snapshot of what the conversational AI community is actually thinking about right now.
Topics spiral from enterprise AI adoption and the talent crunch, through agentic banking and agent metrics, to some surprisingly personal territory, including AI for mental health support, cardiac research and simplifying the mundane parts of everyday life.
Chapters00:00 Intro
02:24 Chris Miles, Group Product Lead - Chatbots & AI at Lebara
03:12 Kellin Sjoerds, AI Engineer at Essent & Willeke van de Wetering, AI Engineer at Essent
04:39 Andrew Lavis, Chatbot Analyst at Virgin Money
05:08 Mathias Fanschek, Head Retail Strategy & Digital Transformation at Raiffeisen Bank International AG
06:12 Andrei Spiridon, Head Retail Strategy & Business Transformation at Raiffeisen Conversational AI Lab
08:20 Alan Nichol, CTO at RASA
09:44 Adrian Matei, AI Product Manager at Jaja Finance
11:00 Nikoletta Ventoura, Senior AI Conversation Designer at Tesco
11:37 Maria Guermonprez, CX and Product Manager at Spix Industry
12:19 Damien Bird, Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft
13:12 Gabriele Iuculano, Senior Test Platform Engineer, Schindler Group & Salvatore Raieli, Senior Data Scientist at Oncodesign
14:53 Jared Browne, Group Head of AI Governance & Privacy at Fexco
15:32 Laura Brady, GTM at ElevenLabs
16:20 Laura Ball, Global AI CX GTM and Sales Lead at Zoom
16:50 Sabrina Brunner, Technical Lead at Allianz Direct
18:10 Lorraine Burrell, Conversation Design Lead at Lloyds Banking Group
19:00 Jana Richter, Executive VP AI and Innovation at NFON AG
19:44 Daniel Orenes Ferrandez, Senior Manager - Customer Experience at Uber
21:06 Guillaume Blaquiere, Group Data Architect at Carrefour
21:42 Laura Macleod, Business Applications, Centre of Excellence Lead at Virgin Money
21:57 Kane’s closing thoughts
Show notesFind out more about The European Chatbot & Conversational AI Summit: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Most companies sit on a goldmine of customer insight and do almost nothing with it. Every conversation holds signals about frustration, churn risk, and broken experiences, yet extracting that value can be a slow and manual effort.
In this episode, Shane Lynn, CEO and Co-Founder of EdgeTier, unpacks how conversational intelligence is evolving in the age of large language models and what it means for contact centres.
Shane explains how EdgeTier can now model metrics such as resolution rate and customer satisfaction across every interaction, rather than relying on the 10–15% survey response rate most contact centres achieve.
We also get into the organisational challenge that underpins all of this: contact centres often hold the richest customer insights in the business, but lack the tools or organisational standing to act on them. Shane argues that data-driven contact centres can shift from being reactive cost centres to genuine strategic assets, influencing product, policy and process decisions across the wider business.
Finally, we touch on the growing challenge of monitoring AI agent conversations and why automated analysis of those transcripts may actually matter more than it does for human-handled interactions.
Show notesDiscover more about EdgeTier: http://edgetier.com/
Follow Shane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanealynn
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How do you test something that can behave differently every single time?
In this episode, we speak with Amitha Pulijala, Chief Product Officer, and Christoph Börner, VP of Engineering, both at Cyara, about one of the most pressing challenges in conversational AI today. The shift from deterministic, scripted IVRs to generative AI agents is changing how conversational systems are built and tested.
The episode covers how Cyara approaches testing in a non-deterministic world, including using AI agents to test AI agents, and why traditional ideas like test coverage no longer apply in the same way.
Christoph and Amitha share what they are seeing across Cyara’s clients and the wider industry. The discussion unpacks what AI trust means in practice. We talk about hallucinations, model drift, factual accuracy, bias and regulatory compliance.
We explore the economics of generative AI. The cost of running it at scale in production and in testing, and how organisations are rethinking where large language models are necessary versus where smaller, domain-specific models are more effective.
The discussion also highlights how failure can scale in AI systems, where a single bad response can affect thousands of customers.
Show notesGet a free pass to Cyara’s Xchange 2026 in Dallas, TX, using code VUX: https://cyara.com/event/xchange-2026
Find out more about Cyara: https://cyara.com
Follow Amitha on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amitha
Follow Christoph on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christoph-b%C3%B6rner-7721ab147
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Generative AI is changing how customer support chatbots are built, deployed and measured.
In this episode, we sit down with Alia Azim, Product Lead for Chatbots at Citation Group, to discuss the company’s shift from traditional NLU chatbots to generative AI conversational agents.
Alia brings a wealth of experience in conversational AI, including time spent at Lloyds Banking Group, and she gives us an honest account of what it actually looks like to move from NLU-based chatbots to generative AI in a real business environment.
Citation Group provides HR, compliance and business services for thousands of small and medium businesses. Supporting those customers means handling everything from platform troubleshooting to account access issues. Alia explains how their team rebuilt the chatbot strategy around generative AI, focusing on specific use cases, improved knowledge management, and outcomes that actually resolve customer problems.
We explore the limitations of traditional intent-based bots, why generative AI dramatically changes how conversational systems are designed and why success metrics like containment are being replaced by resolution rate.
We also get into the debate around whether conversation design is dead. Designers and engineers still play a critical role, but the work now focuses less on building rigid flows and more on shaping AI behaviour through guidance, knowledge design and customer journey thinking.
Show notesFollow Alia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliaazim/
Follow Kane Simms on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
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What happens when AI stops being treated like a tool and starts being hired like an employee?
In this episode, we sit down with Gabe Larsen, Chief Revenue Officer at Atonom (formerly known as Signals), to explore a bold reframing of AI agents as “cloud employees” hired on salary to perform specific job roles.
Rather than selling software seats or charging per conversation, Atonom packages AI as role-based digital workers. You hire an AI SDR, a customer service rep, or a recruiter. You coach them and you measure their output. And if they do not perform, you let them go.
Gabe explains why the traditional SaaS model failed to deliver outcomes, how AI agents are shifting from tools to teammates, and why pricing AI like a human employee simplifies adoption. We dive into multi-channel AI employees, autonomous multi-agent systems, role-based templates and the realities of scaling AI across sales, customer service and recruiting.
Gabe also shares his views on the broader AI market, where Signals sits relative to other AI players and why he believes multi-channel autonomy is a key differentiator.
Show notesFind out more about Atonom: https://atonom.ai/
Follow Gabe Larsen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabelarsen
Follow Kane Simms on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Download our exclusive report on how AI agents keep CX stable when volume explodes: https://vux.la/scale
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Generative AI has changed how conversations are built and experienced. Georgios Tserdanelis, VP of Conversation Design at JPMorganChase, draws on 15 years of designing voice and chat systems to explain what still holds up, what breaks and why conversation design matters more than ever.
Georgios brings years of hands-on experience designing voice and chat experiences across startups and global enterprises, including JPMorganChase, Cigna and Walgreens. With a background in linguistics, he offers a grounded perspective on how human conversation actually works and why those fundamentals still matter in a world of generative AI.
We explore how conversational AI has evolved from scripted IVR and NLU systems to large language models and agentic experiences. Georgios explains why many current generative AI deployments struggle with basic conversational principles such as turn-taking, acknowledgement, and context management. Georgios shares practical insights on designing effective voice and chat experiences at a massive scale in highly regulated industries, where small error rates translate into real-world risk.
One of the key themes that emerges during our discussion is the changing role of the conversation designer, the balance between deterministic flows and generative systems, voice versus chat design constraints, and why silence, timing and modality choice matter as much as language itself.
We also cover fraud, voice cloning, brand identity in AI assistants and how customer expectations are shifting as people get used to talking to increasingly capable machines.
Show notesFollow Georgios on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tserdanelis/
Follow Kane Simms on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Download our exclusive report on how AI agents keep CX stable when volume explodes: https://vux.world/how-ai-agents-keep-cx-stable-when-volume-explodes/?utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=SurgeHappens
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HBX Group sits in the middle of one of the most complex customer service chains in travel. A single issue can span a traveller, a travel agent, a global booking platform and a hotel on the other side of the world.
In this episode, we explore how HBX Group is leveraging artificial intelligence to transform its global customer service operations with Xavier Godoy Moya, Customer Experience & Automation Director, and Adam Tinsley, Global Customer Service Director.
We break down how HBX uses AI-driven classification to triage hundreds of thousands of monthly cases across voice, chat, email and ticketing systems. The team explains how generative models replaced traditional intent-matching systems, enabling accurate routing across more than 70 case types while supporting deterministic safeguards required at operational scale.
Adam and Xavier share results across several key use cases, including an AI classification system that accurately categorises customer inquiries into 70 different intents, automated handling of common requests such as booking confirmations and cancellations, and an innovative workflow that can automatically communicate with hotels on behalf of agents. Their real-time translation solution has enabled 24/7 service across 13 languages, dramatically expanding their global support capabilities.
We also discuss their approach to agent training, which includes an AI simulation system that lets new staff practice handling customer conversations at varying levels of difficulty before taking real calls.
The episode closes with measured business outcomes, including faster case resolution, growing automation rates, operational insights unlocked through AI-native reporting and the next wave of experimentation around sentiment-aware routing and more adaptive voice experiences.
Show notesFind out more about HBX Group: https://www.hbxgroup.com
Follow Kane Simms on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
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From IVRs to multimodal AI experiences, the hardest problems are rarely technical.
In this episode, we dive into the evolving landscape of conversational AI and enterprise automation with Anne Cantera, Senior Product Designer at Optimum. With extensive experience in transforming traditional IVR systems into conversational interfaces, Anne shares valuable insights on the practical implementation of AI in customer service environments.
We explore the concept of 'hybrid architecture' in AI implementation, discussing how combining rule-based automation with generative AI often provides the optimal solution for enterprise needs. Anne explains how her team strategically deploys generative AI in low-risk scenarios while maintaining deterministic approaches where precision is critical, particularly in their recently launched NLU routing system.
The conversation also covers the importance of customer-centric design in AI implementations, with Anne emphasising that the ultimate goal should be making experiences simpler for customers rather than focusing solely on containment metrics. We discuss how different industries approach AI adoption based on their risk profiles and how businesses are navigating the challenges of integrating new technologies with legacy systems.
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AI has moved from pilot projects to boardroom urgency. Companies feel the pressure to act, hire, and keep up. Many start with tools or chase a single unicorn hire. Chris Morrow, Founder of Digitalent, explains why this approach fails and why the real battle is for people who can drive transformation, culture change and long-term value.
In this episode, Chris draws on two decades of experience in tech recruitment and his work with VC-backed startups, global enterprises, and governments. He breaks down why AI hiring is unlike any previous talent cycle. Roles are ill-defined, expectations are inflated, and the best candidates command eye-watering compensation, especially in the US. He describes the AI talent market as an arms race, with startups, big tech and even nations competing for the same small pool of elite engineers and researchers.
The conversation goes beyond salaries and job titles. Chris shares what AI-ready companies do differently, why small proof-point projects matter more than grand 18-month programmes and how misuse of AI can kill belief internally before value is ever realised.
The episode also explores the global picture. The US surge in AI investment and talent density. The UK experiences brain drain and risk-averse capital. Australia’s early-stage market. Chris offers a blunt assessment of government readiness, education systems and why countries that fail to treat AI as a productivity and talent priority will fall behind.
This is the ultimate episode on the AI talent war, covering what companies should fix before hiring, which roles actually matter, how the best teams are built, and why the next decade will reward organisations that treat AI as a people-and-change challenge first and a technology problem second.
Show notesCheck out Digitalent: https://digitalent.agency
Connect with Chris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismorrow/
Discover UKAI: https://ukai.co/
Follow Kane Simms on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=vuxconsulting25
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Cars are becoming one of the most competitive frontiers in AI, and most people don’t realise how complex it really is.
In this episode, we’re joined by BalaKrishna Kolluru, Senior Director of AI at Cerence, the company powering conversational AI in over 500 million vehicles worldwide. With over 25 years of experience in machine learning and speech recognition, Bala brings deep insights into how generative AI is transforming the in-vehicle experience.
We explore how voice AI in vehicles has evolved from basic command-and-control systems to sophisticated conversational interfaces powered by hybrid cloud-edge architectures. Bala explains how Cerence's technology serves around 80 car manufacturers globally, and how their agentic AI approach enables seamless integration with external systems while maintaining functionality even without cloud connectivity.
We address the technical challenges of implementing voice AI in vehicles, from microphone placement to processing capabilities, and explain how Cerence collaborates closely with manufacturers to create systems that minimise cognitive load while keeping drivers connected and safe. We also discuss how generative AI has expanded the capabilities of in-car assistants, enabling more natural, contextual interactions that can anticipate user needs.
Show notesDiscover more about Cerence AI
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What does it really take to build AI that can resolve customer support at scale reliably, safely, and with measurable business impact?
We explore how Intercom has evolved from a traditional customer support platform into an AI-first company, with its AI assistant, Fin, now resolving 65% of customer queries without human intervention. Intercom's Chief AI Officer, Fergal Reid, discusses the company's journey from natural language understanding (NLU) systems to their current retrieval augmented generation (RAG) approach, explaining how they've optimised every component of their AI pipeline with custom-built models.
The conversation covers Intercom's unique approach to AI product development, emphasising standardisation and continuous improvement rather than customisation for individual clients. Fergal explains their outcome-based pricing model, where clients pay for successful resolutions rather than conversations, and how this aligns incentives across the business.
We also discuss Intercom's approach to agentic AI, which enables their systems to perform complex, multi-step tasks, such as processing refunds, by integrating with various APIs. Fergal shares insights on testing methodologies, the balance between customisation and standardisation, and the challenges of building AI products in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
Finally, Fergal shares what excites and honestly freaks him out a bit about where AI is heading next.
Timestamps00:00 - Intro
02:31 - Welcome to Fergal Reid
05:26 - How to train an NLU solution effectively?
08:56 - What gen AI changed for Intercom
10:57 - How would you describe Fin?
14:30 - Fin’s performance increase
17:18 - Intercom’s custom models
22:14 - Large Language Models vs Small Language Models
30:40 - RAG and 'the full stop problem'
40:08 - Agentic AI capabilities at Intercom
50:40 - Intercom’s approach to testing
1:04:46 - About the most exciting things in the AI space
Show notesLearn more about Intercom
Connect with Fergal Reid on LinkedIn
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Article - The full stop problem: RAG’s biggest limitation
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In this episode, Joe Kim, the new CEO of DRUID AI, unpacks what might be the biggest shift in technology since the internet.
We discuss the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence and its growing impact on businesses. Joe, who has been in his role for 70 days, brings fresh perspectives on how DRUID AI positioned itself as a workflow automation platform years before the market caught up, a bet that's now paying off as companies move beyond AI experimentation into real implementation.
The discussion covers the current state of the AI market, including the challenges of customer adoption, why some customers actively prefer interacting with AI over humans, and the importance of maintaining a balance between generative and agentic AI.
Joe also shares his vision of AI as the next major distribution platform. Just as Amazon has tried to make Alexa the operating system of our lives, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and similar platforms could become the primary gateway to accessing services in the future.
Chapters00:00 - Meet Joe Kim
00:33 - Celebrating 70 days at DRUID AI
01:35 - What attracted Joe to DRUID
03:06 - The real value of AI
06:43 - What Joe learnt about the market
11:19 - The AI God Box for enterprises
14:08 - The state of the AI market
20:29 - Why you should learn about AI as much as you can
23:47 - Generative AI adoption among enterprises
27:36 - The concept of agent washing
36:05 - Is AI bigger than the internet?
39:11 - ChatGPT as the new distribution platform
48:52 - Will chatbots replace websites and apps?
50:31 - The next 6–12 months for DRUID AI
56:59 - The biggest AI ultimatum facing businesses today
1:01:29 - AI replacing people is not growth
1:05:33 - The systems of record at enterprises and LLMs
1:08:46 - The future of AI automation
1:14:13 - LLMs could replace apps
Show notesFind out more about DRUID AI
Follow Joe Kim on LinkedIn
Sign up for our webinar: How to run AI like your business depends on it
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Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment
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Everyone's slapping 'agentic' on their AI products, but what does that even mean? Anne Jenkins, Vice President of Solution Architecture at Teneo, helps us separate substance from buzzwords.
In this episode, Anne shares her expertise on agentic AI and the evolution of conversational AI technologies. We explore what truly makes an AI ‘agentic’ versus the marketing hype all over your LinkedIn feed and beyond. Anne explains why Teneo's hybrid approach, combining traditional NLU capabilities with large language models, creates more reliable, cost-effective, and latency-friendly solutions than pure LLM implementations.
We also discuss the challenges organisations face when adopting AI solutions, including the misconception that LLMs alone can solve all problems without proper conversation design or business rule integration. Anne shares valuable insights on how companies can prepare for AI adoption through education, competitive pilots, and architectural considerations.
We touch on many best practices when it comes to implementation, with Anne emphasising the importance of proper context engineering, state management, and dynamic prompting.
Chapters00:00 - Meet Anne Jenkins
05:01 - AI is now a boardroom conversation
06:48 – OpenAI’s agentic AI platform
08:48 – What is an AI agent?
21:38 – The hybrid AI model or end-to-end LLMs
26:49 – AI in debt collection
34:55 – How Teneo helps implement agentic AI
42:39 – Context engineering
47:19 – State management and LLMs
55:40 – How Teneo designs AI experiences
01:00:32 – Demo – teaching Teneo something new
01:10:26 – How businesses should adopt AI
01:16:44 – What sets Teneo apart
Show notesCheck out Teneo
Follow Anne Jenkins on LinkedIn
Read Kane’s article - What agentic AI actually is: a deeply researched and definitive explanation
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Once switched off during busy periods, Lloyds Banking Group’s chatbot now handles more than 15 million conversations a year. Learn what it really takes to build AI solutions that customers trust with their money.
We sit down with Cainan Wright, Senior Product Owner, and John Young, AI Lead - Chatbots and Generative AI, from Lloyds Banking Group, to explore their remarkable nine-year journey in building one of the UK's most successful banking chatbots. From handling 3 million conversations in 2021 to over 15 million in 2025, they share the hard-earned lessons of transforming a rather "unloved" virtual assistant into a mission-critical service for almost 27 million customers.
We cover how the team stabilised their service by focusing on the basics, investing in design expertise, and securing organisational buy-in through demonstrating clear value.
Cainan and John also share valuable insights into their pragmatic approach to generative AI, explaining how they combine deterministic processes with generative language capabilities to deliver the best customer experience while maintaining brand consistency and ensuring regulatory compliance.
The team's journey offers important lessons about perseverance and the importance of striking a balance between innovation and responsibility when deploying AI in a highly regulated industry.
Timestamps00:00 – Intro
01:34 – Meet Lloyds Banking Group
03:18 – The unloved virtual assistant era
05:30 – AI before ChatGPT
06:50 – Stabilising the service and earning trust
14:23 – From underloved to mission critical
16:55 – Buy-in from stakeholders to scale AI capabilities
18:41 – Defining new AI roles in banking
20:51 – Scaling from 3 to 15 million conversations
25:15 – How to handle a 5x increase in three years
27:43 – Experiments with generative AI in banking
30:24 – Using an LLM classifier
31:07 – Improving tools within teams
32:45 – Using generative AI for value and impact
34:56 – Valuable design research sessions
38:56 – Meeting customer expectations with generative AI
46:04 – Maintaining consistency in probabilistic landscape
49:30 – The right tool for the right job in conversational AI
55:26 – How do you measure the impact of generative AI?
56:13 – Responsible AI and proving business value
1:01:10 – The next 12 months
1:07:02 – Magic wand moments
1:11:34 – If the team could start over again
1:14:03 – Closing remarks from Kane
Show notesFollow Kane Simms on LinkedIn
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In this episode, we dive into the art and science of context engineering with Martin Cross, President of Connect, a company that empowers enterprises to transform through the use of AI and automation.
Martin shares how most businesses still approach AI with a technology-first mindset, deploying solutions before clearly defining the customer problem they’re solving. He explains why successful AI experiences begin with understanding the user journey, designing the right interaction, and then selecting the appropriate tools, not the other way around.
We explore different layers of context - from session-level to journey-wide to CRM-integrated, and how they work together to transform generic interactions into deeply personalised, proactive experiences.
We also unpack Connect’s acquisition of Elerian AI and why contact centre voice recordings represent an untapped goldmine of training data. Martin explains how fine-tuning models with real-world conversations, including dialects, accents, and customer intents, can dramatically improve AI accuracy and empathy.
Additionally, we reflect on why the industry continues to repeat old mistakes and how businesses can design AI that truly understands and anticipates customer needs.
Show notesFollow Martin Cross on LinkedIn
Find out more about Connect
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Voice AI is having a breakthrough moment. With large language models delivering unprecedented understanding and next-gen text-to-speech achieving near-human fidelity, the possibilities for immersive, scalable, and personalised customer experiences are greater than ever.
We’re joined by Andrei Papancea (CEO & Co-Founder, NLX) and Kylan Gibbs (CEO & Co-Founder, Inworld), who break down how their companies are working together, making studio-quality voice experiences accessible to developers and enterprises at scale.
The conversation traces how voice technology has progressed from basic assistants to today’s lifelike AI voices. We also discuss the shift from brand voices to brand personalities, and how voice experiences can be tailored to different demographic segments and eventually to individual users.
This episode is brought to you by NLX.
NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX’s patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand’s digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.
Show notesLearn more about Inworld
Kane Simms on LinkedIn
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What happens when one of the world’s leading analysts on customer service and conversational technologies sits down to unpack the future of AI?
We explore the profound implications of AI adoption with Ian Jacobs, VP, Lead Analyst at Opus Research. We discuss how AI is transforming contact centres and customer service operations, from agent augmentation to process automation.
Ian shares insights on how businesses are navigating the balance between AI efficiency and human empathy, including the fascinating concept of when non-empathetic AI might actually be the more empathetic choice for customers in certain scenarios.
Along the way, the conversation zooms out into deeper territory, touching on human happiness, the future of work, and whether regulation can ever keep pace with innovation.
Show notesLearn more about Opus Research
Kane Simms on LinkedIn
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Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Conversational AI platforms is back in 2025! This is a must-watch for CX leaders seeking to make informed decisions about their AI tech stack.
Here, we provide deep technology market analysis for artificial intelligence in customer experience. Whether you're looking to build AI chatbots, AI agents, Retrieval Augmented Generation applications, these conversational AI platforms are the best of breed.
Show notesKane Simms on LinkedIn
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As one of the world’s largest car manufacturers, Toyota is giving its machines a voice using AI as a trusted partner to transform how cars are built and serviced.
In this episode, we speak with Kordel France, Principal AI Engineer & AI Architect at Toyota, to uncover how artificial intelligence is reshaping production and maintenance globally.
We explore how Toyota has moved from technicians spending hours sifting through thousands of pages of manuals to intelligent systems that can diagnose faults in seconds and even predict breakdowns before they happen. Kordel explains the technical architecture behind these solutions, blending classical machine learning with generative AI, and the challenges of creating specialised systems from general-purpose models.
You’ll also hear why high-quality data ingestion is more important than the model itself, how even a relatively small number of users can drive asymmetric improvements in efficiency, and what Toyota’s collaboration with NLX means for service technicians working across increasingly complex powertrains.
Show notesKane Simms on LinkedIn
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The AI arms race in customer experience just got serious. We’re joined by industry legends Nerys Corfield (Injection Consulting), Jon Arnold (J Arnold & Associates), and Henry Iversen (boost.ai) to unpack one of the biggest AI moves in recent memory: NiCE’s $955M acquisition of Cognigy.
We break down what this deal means for the future of AI-first contact centres, the fate of best-in-class point solutions, and the broader shift toward an AI-led customer experience strategy. From questions of market consolidation and vendor lock-in to the culture clash between product-led innovation and marketing muscle, we share some real, unscripted insights into the implications of the acquisition for enterprises, vendors, and buyers alike.
This episode is brought to you by NLX
Build and deploy sophisticated chat, voice, and multimodal applications for any purpose with NLX. NLX works seamlessly with any LLM and existing tech stack, freeing you to create, not configure. Trusted by individual builders and leading teams at Comcast, Saks Fifth Avenue, Toyota, and United Airlines, NLX helps you turn AI concepts into working conversational experiences.
Show notesFollow the episode guests on LinkedIn:
Nerys Corfield - Director, Injection Consulting
Henry Iversen - CCO & Co-Founder, boost.ai
Jon Arnold - Principal, J Arnold & Associates
Kane Simms on LinkedIn
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From the hype cycle around AI to the real-world constraints enterprises face when adopting new tech, we explore the opportunities shaping the future of business communications in this episode.
We’re joined by Jon Arnold, an independent tech analyst, for a conversation about the shifting landscape of enterprise communications. We talk about analysts' unique role in shaping vendor strategy and market perception.
We discuss the current state of business communications technology, examining what Jon describes as the "three-legged stool" of cloud communications: CCaaS, CPaaS, and UCaaS. We discuss how these previously distinct domains are converging, with vendors increasingly offering capabilities across all three areas.
We also explore how AI is disrupting the traditional communications technology landscape. Jon offers valuable insights into why AI-native companies may have advantages over traditional contact centre vendors who are adding AI capabilities, and why the pace of AI adoption varies significantly across different industries and organisations.
This episode is brought to you by NLX.
NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX’s patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand’s digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.
Shownotes:
Find out more about Jon Arnold: https://www.jarnoldassociates.com/about/jon-arnold
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In this episode of VUX World, we chat with Kellin Sjoerds and Ricky Wekker, Conversational AI Engineers at Essent - the Netherlands’ largest utility provider and part of the E.ON Group to uncover the story behind their groundbreaking agent assist tool, Bolt.
Bolt is an AI-powered agent copilot that has transformed Essent’s call centre operations, shaving an average of 60 seconds off every call and delivering over €1.8 million in savings, not through layoffs, but by reducing dependence on BPOs.
We unpack the full journey behind Essent’s AI copilot, Bolt, starting with a simple observation during a team shadowing session that sparked its creation. What began as a hackathon MVP quickly turned heads, prompting leadership to ask, “How fast can we launch this?”
From there, we uncover how the team tackled complex challenges like cleaning and restructuring their knowledge base, implementing a smart chunking system, and fine-tuning prompts to ensure accurate, reliable outputs. And through a carefully staged rollout, they struck the right balance between innovation and safety, navigating compliance hurdles while delivering impressive business value.
This episode is brought to you by NLX.
NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX’s patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand’s digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.
Shownotes:
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As generative AI redefines the contact centre, ensuring consistent performance across complex telephony networks becomes mission-critical.
In this episode, we speak with Satish Barot, CTO at Klearcom, about the evolution of contact centre technology and the critical role of quality assurance in AI voice systems.
We explore how organisations gradually transition from traditional DTMF-based IVR systems to more sophisticated conversational AI and generative AI solutions. Satish shares insights on why this shift is happening incrementally, with many companies adopting hybrid approaches that run traditional and AI-powered systems side by side while they evaluate performance.
Discover how Klearcom is pushing the boundaries of voice QA with global in-country testing, real-world noise simulation, and accuracy scoring, offering a unique lens into what production-ready means in the age of AI.
We also discuss privacy considerations and why organisations should start small and scale smart when implementing these technologies. Satish emphasises that businesses should focus on great customer experience rather than chasing fancy technology for its own sake.
This episode is brought to you by NLX.
NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX’s patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand’s digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.
Shownotes:
Check out Klearcom: https://klearcom.com
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW
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Get in touch with Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
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74% of CEOs think their jobs are on the line because of AI. Not because AI might replace them, but because failing to implement it successfully could cost them everything.
Merlin Bise, CTO of Inbenta and former Head of Technology at a firm acquired by the London Stock Exchange, joins us to share how Inbenta is helping enterprises modernise their customer experience.
Merlin explains that so many AI deployments fail, not because the technology is lacking, but because companies often bet on the wrong frameworks, overlook data foundations, or underestimate the importance of testing.
We explore how traditional rules-based systems give way to agentic frameworks that can reason, triage ambiguous queries, and even correct automation gaps in real time. Merlin walks us through the journey many enterprises take: beginning with deterministic rules, evolving to AI-powered agents, and ultimately orchestrating complex automation through agentic manager systems that oversee and improve themselves.
Security and customer experience are front and centre in this episode. Merlin breaks down the cybersecurity concerns that make enterprises hesitate and why, in most cases, those fears are rooted more in perception than reality.
Finally, we reflect on the broader trajectory of AI. While the race toward AGI dominates headlines, Merlin argues that the tools enterprises need to radically improve productivity are already here. The challenge is implementing what exists with purpose and precision.
This episode is brought to you by NLX.
NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX’s patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand’s digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.
Shownotes:
Check out Inbenta: https://www.inbenta.com/
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In this special episode, recorded live at Boost Camp, we have three industry leaders who are shaping the future of conversational AI: Ben Maxim, CTO at Michigan State University Federal Credit Union (MSUFCU), Åse Marthinsen, who leads generative AI at Norway’s largest bank, DNB and Nick Mitchell, Chief Revenue Officer at boost.ai.
We cover the ever-changing landscape of conversational AI, including aligning teams, integrating data across channels and designing experiences that are on brand and human-centric.
We look at how organisations are managing thousands of conversational intents with lean teams, thanks to hybrid AI models and smarter content workflows. There’s a growing focus on data governance and trust, especially in highly regulated industries like banking. But DNB and MSUFCU show that you can scale responsibly, with MSUFCU’s chatbot Fran now handling 79% of customer chats without escalation.
As AI gets faster, so do the expectations from customers and leadership. We talk about the shifting role of contact centres from answering FAQs to driving strategic initiatives and the importance of staying ahead through continuous testing, experimentation and AI-driven insights.
Shownotes:
Check out boost.ai: https://boost.ai/
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Get in touch with Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
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In this episode, we explore how True Classic, a men's apparel brand, is leveraging AI to transform its customer support with Jordan Gesky, Senior Customer Experience Manager.
We look at True Classic’s journey from rule-based automation to generative AI across multiple channels. Jordan talks about how their AI assistant, Crue, now handles customer service inquiries through chat, email and phone channels and how that’s reduced costs and time to resolve.
We get into the practicalities of AI in customer service, including continuous auditing, clear guidelines and giving AI a brand voice. Jordan explains how True Classic trains their AI using agent conversations and FAQs and how they integrate it with their Shopify account, returns portal and product catalogue to create a self-service solution.
We also talk about the challenges of AI implementation, from hallucinations to customer data security and how True Classic approaches AI governance through transcript reviews and CSAT monitoring.
Shownotes:
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Get in touch with Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
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In this episode, we talk to Guillaume Laporte, Chief AI Officer at Foundever - a $4 billion BPO giant with 150,000 employees worldwide. Guillaume explains the massive impact of generative AI on the BPO industry, why it’s the biggest threat and the biggest opportunity for contact centres today.
From deciding whether to buy, build or partner on AI solutions to navigating multiple client systems and languages, Guillaume shares how Foundever is transforming its workforce with AI-powered tools like EverAssist. Guillaume also explains why Foundever built its own internal version of ChatGPT rather than licensing OpenAI’s solution, saving millions of dollars a year while retaining control over features, latency and performance.
Find out how Foundever has been tackling challenges like the AI adoption gap, balancing cost, speed and accuracy in AI models and using talent to scale solutions globally.
If you want to know how generative AI is being used in a complex, multilingual, multi-client environment, this episode has the answers. Whether you’re in BPO or exploring enterprise AI, Guillaume’s honest insights are valuable for any organisation looking to stay ahead in the AI age.
Shownotes:
Find out more about Foundever: https://foundever.com
The voice dictation tool recommended by Guillaume: https://wisprflow.ai
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Get in touch with Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
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Generative AI has changed everything - from how we build to how we design. In this episode, we’re joined by Alex Shin, Senior Product Designer at Prudential Financial, to talk about how UX is evolving in the age of LLMs.
Alex shares his journey from studying Social Policy to UX and conversation design, including how he helped launch Prudential’s first customer-facing chatbot in 2022.
We talk about how Prudential’s NLU-based chatbot is consistently getting customer satisfaction scores above industry standards and how the company is exploring generative AI solutions for both internal and customer-facing services.
We also dive into the collaboration between design and tech teams at Prudential, and how this partnership ensures solutions are technically feasible while prioritising user needs. This episode is for designers navigating the transition to generative AI, tech leaders trying to balance innovation with user experience and anyone interested in how big financial institutions are using AI to improve customer service.
This episode is brought to you by NLX.
NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX’s patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand’s digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.
Shownotes:
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW
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Get in touch with Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms/
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What if the most exciting AI agent innovation isn’t happening in the enterprise, but in the mid-market?
In this episode, we unpack Voiceflow’s explosive growth, the shift from flowcharts to frameworks, and why success today isn’t about having the smartest model, but about how you deploy it.
We explore how to build reliable, production-grade agents, the rise of self-improving systems, and the emergence of agent-to-agent orchestration.
And while mid-market companies are moving fast, Braden explains why enterprise adoption is inevitable, and what it’ll take to reach that tipping point.
Congratulations to Braden on making his fourth appearance on the VUX World podcast!
This episode is brought to you by NLX.
NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX’s patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand’s digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.
Shownotes:
Discover Voiceflow: https://www.voiceflow.com/
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Get in touch with Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms/
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In this episode, Kane Simms is joined by Katherine Munro, Conversational AI Engineer at Swisscom, for a deep dive into what might sound like an odd pairing: using LLMs to classify customer intents.
Large Language Models (LLMs) are powerful, multi-purpose tools. But would you trust one to handle the precision of a classification task?
It’s an unlikely fit for an LLM. Classifiers typically need to be fast, accurate, and interpretable. LLMs are slow, random black-boxes. Classifiers need to output a single label. LLMs never stop talking.
And yet, there are good reasons to use LLMs for such tasks, and emerging architectures and techniques. Many real-world use cases need a classifier, and many data and product development teams will soon find themselves wondering: could GPT handle that?
If that sounds like you, then check out this extended episode to explore how Switzerland’s largest telecommunications provider tackles this issue while building a next-generation AI assistant.
This episode is brought to you by NLX.
NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX’s patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand’s digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.
Shownotes:
"The Handbook of Data Science and AI: Generate Value from Data with Machine Learning and Data Analytics" - Available on Amazon: https://a.co/d/3wNN9cv
Katherine's website: http://katherine-munro.com/
Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW
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Get in touch with Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms/
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In this episode, Kane is joined by Sonia Ingram, Global Director of AI at Pandora, to explore what it really takes to develop AI maturity in a global business.
Many organisations aiming to get started with AI and generative AI often focus on short-term, point solutions to specific problems. This emergent strategy often led from the grassroots to solve siloed departmental pain points can work for proof of value. But it rarely scales.
For example, a chatbot that handles returns brilliantly may not be equipped or supported to drive sales conversations. If the support team owns it, where’s the incentive to collaborate with sales to expand its capabilities?
To scale AI initiatives enterprise-wide, businesses need a purposeful strategy. One that prioritises literacy, governance, tooling, and operational foundations that empower teams across the organisation to build, maintain and grow AI solutions.
In this episode, Kane and Sonia explore what it really takes to build and scale AI maturity in a global business. We cover topics such as AI literacy, change management, privacy and governance, and operational tools and processes.
This episode is brought to you by NLX.
NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX’s patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand’s digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.
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In this episode, we chat with Andrei Papancea, CEO and Co-Founder of NLX, to cut through the noise and get real about where AI in the enterprise is delivering value, and where it's not.
Andrei brings a refreshing dose of grounded perspective as the buzz around ‘agentic AI’ and generative everything reaches fever pitch. Instead of chasing trends or slapping AI onto every process, NLX is laser-focused on practical outcomes: real problems, solved efficiently, and with the right tech.
We explore the challenges enterprise leaders face when navigating a market bloated with hype: internal pressures to ‘do AI,’ tech stacks that aren’t ready, and misunderstandings about what LLMs can and can’t do. Andrei shares where generative AI genuinely shines and where it is still too risky, especially for heavily regulated industries.
This episode is brought to you by NLX.
NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX’s patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand’s digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.
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In this VUX World podcast episode with Kerry Phillipson, she reveals how Arriva Group transforms customer experience using cutting-edge AI technology. Learn how they're creating a virtual assistant that's not just another chatbot, but a smart, personable travel companion that understands your journey needs.
Kerry shares with us how Arriva is driving AI innovation within the transportation sector. She explains how artificial intelligence is used to tackle real customer pain points, making travel smoother and more intuitive. The conversation also dives into what it takes to design an AI with a genuine personality one that feels more like a helpful guide than a machine. Looking ahead, they explore the future of travel support and how AI is reshaping the way customers interact with transportation services.
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In this episode on the VUX World podcast, we chat all about the innovative AI journey of Citizens Advice with Stuart Pearson.
We discover how a nonprofit organisation is revolutionising customer support through Caddy, an intelligent AI assistant that reduces average handle time by 50% while maintaining a rigorous ethical approach.
Stuart shares the meticulous process of developing an internal AI tool that supports contact centre agents, highlighting the importance of responsible AI implementation.
From initial challenges with chatbots to creating a sophisticated AI solution, this podcast reveals how organisations can leverage artificial intelligence to enhance productivity, improve service delivery, and ultimately help more people.
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In this episode, we dive deep into how NatWest uses generative AI to reshape customer service at scale, with Mark Worden, Strategy & Innovation Lead for Cora at NatWest.
We explore how one of the UK’s biggest banks is building AI-driven customer journeys that are smarter, faster, and more efficient. From traditional NLU-based bots to cutting-edge Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, Mark shares how Cora Plus achieves up to 99% accuracy and drastically reduces handoffs to human agents.
Mark takes us inside NatWest’s pilot process - from narrowing 500 web pages down to a curated 120-item knowledge base to running internal tests, red-teaming for hallucinations, and prioritising customer consent and governance at every step.
We also discover how NatWest’s summarisation tool transforms the agent experience by reducing transcript review time and saving over 50,000 minutes weekly in both agent and customer wait time. With 1.2 million conversations a month and counting, this is a masterclass in scaling AI responsibly within a highly regulated industry.
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AI is changing how businesses talk to customers, but how do you move beyond the hype and make AI work for your business? In this episode, we chat with Chafik Abdellaoui, Workforce and Quality Manager at Autodesk, about how AI is used in sales and customer experience and the real results.
Autodesk is leveraging AI to analyse calls, generate follow-up emails and improve CRM data. AI is being used to make sales teams more efficient and effective. Chafik explains how AI is automating low-value tasks so sales reps can focus on what really matters: building relationships and closing deals. From extracting insights from conversations to drafting personalised emails and proposals, Autodesk’s approach is about enhancing and not replacing human expertise.
But AI adoption isn’t always easy. We discuss the challenges of implementing AI in sales teams, including agent adoption, structured processes and data quality. We also ask the following question: As more companies deploy AI, do we end up with homogenous customer experiences, or is there still room for differentiation?
Connect with Chafik Abdellaoui on LinkedIn.
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In this episode, Panos Karagiannis, CEO of Moveo.AI, joins us to explore how AI has been reshaping business automation. Panos shares invaluable insights into what it takes to build production-ready AI agents, from scaling AI solutions across industries to navigating the complexities of enterprise adoption.
We also dive deep into the real-world applications of Gen AI, the buy vs. build debate for enterprises, and the challenges of differentiation in a world where many businesses use the same foundational AI models. Plus, we discuss why quality assurance is the unsung hero of AI implementation and how companies can future-proof their AI strategies.
Check out Moveo.AI
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AI has made incredible strides, but is it truly user-friendly? In this episode, UX legend Jakob Nielsen joins VUX World to discuss why AI usability still lags behind and what needs to change. As the founder of UX Tigers and a pioneer in usability with 41 years of experience, Nielsen has shaped the field with groundbreaking contributions, including heuristic evaluation, Jakob’s Law, and the 10 usability heuristics. He has authored eight best-selling books, holds 79 patents, and was named “the king of usability” by Internet Magazine and “the guru of Web page usability" by The New York Times.
We explore the challenges AI users face, from the articulation barrier to unclear system feedback, and why many AI products still prioritise engineering over usability. Nielsen also unpacks the impact of AI stigma, discussing how better design can build trust and encourage wider adoption. Drawing on his vast expertise, he explains why usability heuristics are more relevant than ever in the AI era.
Finally, we discuss the future of AI usability and what it takes to create AI-powered tools that people actually want to use. From improving AI-human collaboration to eliminating confusing interfaces, this conversation is packed with insights for anyone working in AI, UX, or product design.
Check out Jakobs LinkedIn
Read ‘What is agentic AI? A deeply researched definition’ on The AI Ultimatum Substack
Read ‘AI Agents are not a technology. They are a strategy’ on AgentsDecoded Substack
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This is an interview with Ronald Ashri, Co-Founder of OpenDialog. We discuss the evolving landscape of conversational AI. Ron shares how OpenDialog has progressed since our last conversation in 2021, highlighting the transformative impact of large language models and generative AI on the enterprise automation space.
We dive into the nuances of defining "AI agents", calling out the hype and misuse of the term and putting a few of the well-known tech companies on the chopping block! We chat about how OpenDialog leverages AI agent-based abstractions and goal-driven architectures to build more reliable and effective conversational systems, striking a balance between the flexibility of language models and the constraints of business processes.
The conversation also explores the future of conversational interfaces, touching on the potential to blend language AI, dynamic user interfaces, and orchestrated experiences to create seamless, multi-modal interactions. It’s a thought-provoking perspective on the current state of the industry and the practical steps organisations can take to harness the power of generative AI in business.
Check out OpenDialog: https://opendialog.ai/
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Read ‘What is agentic AI? A deeply researched definition’ on The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://kanesimms.substack.com/p/what-agentic-ai-actually-is-a-deeply?r=g9nf
Read ‘AI Agents are not a technology. They are a strategy’ on agentsdecoded Substack: https://www.agentsdecoded.com/p/ai-agents-are-not-a-technology-they
Our 15 AI Trends in CX Insights Report is out now! Learn how to find success with AI: https://vux.world/customer-experience-trends-2025/?utm_source=vux&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=Trends2025
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In this podcast with Sarah Haider, Digital Manager for Conversational AI at Salzburg AG, we explore the journey of revolutionising customer interactions with AI. From the early days of NLU-based chatbots to embracing generative AI and retrieval-augmented generation technology, Sarah outlines the challenges and breakthroughs in enhancing Salzburg AG’s digital assistant capabilities.
Chapters:
00:00: Introduction to Sarah Haider and Salzburg AG
05:23: Why is AI appealing for the energy industry?
08:32: The history of AI at Salzburg AG
12:00: Measuring success pre-generative AI
16:25: Goals of exploring generative AI
19:50: Starting with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
24:10: Full RAG implementation process
39:45: Lessons in prompt design
44:45: Quality assurance tactics
48:25: Impact of generative AI
51:20: Other use cases for generative AI
The conversation highlights the strategic shift to generative AI, tackling complex use cases like public transport queries while maintaining customer satisfaction and reliability. Sarah dives into the importance of data preparation, prompt design, testing, and quality assurance, shedding light on what it takes to make AI solutions scalable and effective in real-world scenarios.
This episode is perfect for anyone looking to modernise their chatbot or explore the potential of AI in customer experience. From reducing call centre volume to delivering human-like interactions, Sarah's approach demonstrates how innovation can elevate both business impact and customer satisfaction.
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From the rise of ChatGPT to the death of intent classification, Alan shares insights into how modern AI systems, like Rasa's CALM approach, are reshaping enterprise workflows and user experiences.
Alan shares how Rasa's innovative platform integrates large language models with structured business logic, and is able to deliver robust, reliable, and natural conversations. Alan highlights the balance between deterministic workflows and flexible AI, debunking myths about agentic AI and discussing the critical role of context and understanding.
This episode is packed with actionable insights and a visionary outlook on where the industry is headed!
Visit Alan's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anichol/
Find out more about Rasa - https://rasa.com/
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This episode features Noam Fine, co-founder and CEO of Hear.ai. Noam is a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits, having most recently founded Over.ai, which was acquired by Vonage in 2019.
In this conversation, we delve into the transformative potential of generative AI in the contact center. Not for automating conversations with customers, but for turning these conversations into insights. Insights that can lead to tremendous improvements in customer experience, and business growth.
We explore how generative AI can enable new mindsets and move beyond incremental improvements, fundamentally reshaping the way organisations approach customer service and support.
At the heart of the conversation is the concept of the "Customer Value Exchange" (CVX) - the idea of turning contact centers from traditional cost centers into strategic value centers that can provide invaluable insights to drive business growth.
We discuss the details behind the hear.ai platform and how it leverages a unique blend of small and large language models, as well as fine-tuned models, to achieve reliability and cost-efficiency in analysing customer interactions.
This episode offers a glimpse into the transformative power of generative AI in the contact center industry, showcasing how innovative solutions like the Here AI platform can redefine the customer experience landscape and drive tangible business impact.
Visit Noam's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/noamfine/
Read our 15 AI Trends in Customer Experience 2025 - https://vux.world/customer-experience-trends-2025/?utm_source=vux&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=Trends2025
Be sure to check out hear.ai - https://www.linkedin.com/company/hear-ai/posts/?feedView=all
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Join us as we dive into the evolving landscape of customer experience with Alannah Martin, Value Owner at Ovo Energy.
From applying Lean Six Sigma principles to tackling inefficiencies, to scaling conversational AI for real-world impact, we explore how technology and human-centric design drive innovation in service industries. Discover the secrets behind successful chatbots, operational alignment, and reducing cognitive load for both customers and employees.
Whether you’re a CX enthusiast or an automation advocate, this episode is packed with actionable insights and forward-thinking strategies for the new age of customer engagement.
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Mike Myer is the CEO and Co-Founder of Quiq, the generative AI conversational automation platform that's been making noise in recent months, with a flurry of genAI use cases in production with a whole host of enterprise brands. Mike joins me to discuss where we are with agentic AI adoption and trends he's observed in 2024 as well as forecasted trends and considerations for 2025.
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Every big tech company is working on foundational generative AI models and promises that the future will be different. Yet…
Large Enterprises have generative AI policies in place now that prohibit the usage of the technology. There is a gap in the middle on an opportunity emerging surrounding quality assurance and governance for generative AI applications that will enable the technology to meet its potential whilst satisfying the concerns of enterprise.
The company that is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this is Cyara. So I sat down with CEO Rishi Rana to discuss this and much more.
Make sure to visit Cyara
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Generative AI is often marketed as a magical tool—just upload your data and let the model do the heavy lifting. But the reality is far from simple. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) doesn’t work without thoughtful preparation, clear strategy, and, most importantly, quality content.
In this episode, we dive deep into the critical role content plays in the success of AI systems like RAG. Join us as we speak with seasoned content strategists and AI industry experts who have been on the frontlines of managing and optimizing knowledge bases for AI use cases. We’ll explore why the future of AI isn’t about replacing writers—it’s about empowering content designers, technical writers, and knowledge architects to create structured, optimized, and actionable information that AI can truly work with.
If you’ve ever wondered why your AI project underdelivered or how to transform legacy content into a powerful AI resource, this episode is for you.
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Dmitry is the CEO of MindStudio, an AI automation platform that's raised $36m in funding to bring AI automation into the hands of businesses. With a background at Google and ServiceNow, Dmitry has a wealth of experience in building product teams that delivery immense value. He joins me today to share how MindStudio is enabling AI transformation across the board.
This episode is sponsored by Intel® Core Ultra processors and the Intel vPro® platform. Elevate your business with AI-powered PCs from Intel full of enhanced features like improved productivity, enhanced battery life, and integrated Arc graphics.
Supercharge your company today. Discover more: https://intel.ly/3A3Ziwq
Visit - https://www.mindstudio.ai/
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Join us as Stephan Schuessler dives into the exciting world of AI in the enterprise. In this discussion, we explore how to effectively launch AI initiatives within organizations, navigating the challenges that often arise. Whether you're just starting your AI journey or looking to optimize existing projects, this conversation will provide actionable strategies for driving AI adoption and long-term success in the enterprise.
This episode is sponsored by Intel® Core Ultra processors and the Intel vPro® platform. Elevate your business with AI-powered PCs from Intel full of enhanced features like improved productivity, enhanced battery life, and integrated Arc graphics.
Supercharge your company today. Discover more: https://intel.ly/3A3Ziwq
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Jeremy Kahn has reported extensively on #technology and business covering #AI for the last years, first at Bloomberg and currently at #Fortune with excellent contacts across the field. Mastering AI: A Survival Guide to Our Superpowered Future, by Kahn, is a timely exploration of the transformative impact of #ChatGPT and the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. We chat about AI's potential to disrupt industries, reshape society, and challenge our understanding of human intelligence. As AI becomes an integral part of our world, Kahn's expertise offers a crucial perspective on navigating both its benefits and risks.
This episode is sponsored by Intel® Core Ultra processors and the Intel vPro® platform. Elevate your business with AI-powered PCs from Intel full of enhanced features like improved productivity, enhanced battery life, and integrated Arc graphics.
Supercharge your company today. Discover more: https://intel.ly/3A3Ziwq
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Martyn Redstone is a long-standing member of the conversational AI community and is the Founder of Bot-Jobs.com, the go-to jobs board for AI. Martyn joins me to share some new insights on the conversational AI jobs market, the impact that generative AI is having in the #recruitment space and some examples of use cases and value being explored in the sector. Bot Jobs
This episode is sponsored by Intel® Core Ultra processors and the Intel vPro® platform. Elevate your business with AI-powered PCs from Intel full of enhanced features like improved productivity, enhanced battery life, and integrated Arc graphics.
Supercharge your company today. Discover more: https://intel.ly/3A3Ziwq
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Nick Allgaier is the Product Manager for Digital Assistants and Conversational AI at Lufthansa Group, and has taken the Lufthansa AI program from zero to 10 million interactions per year over chat, with more than 1 million interactions per year on voice. Nick joins me to share his learnings on scaling an AI practice to extraordinary heights.
We cover Lufthansa’s journey and where it all began, right through to how it's operating at scale today. You’ll learn how Lufthansa is utilising generative AI and the specific use cases it’s working well for, with some of the numbers to back it up. You hear about Nick’s Golden Triangle for conversational AI use case selection and how missing any one of those crucial ingredients leaves you destined to fail. You’ll also learn Nick’s 5-step process that ensures customer experience excellence and the crucial role AI plays in that (and it’s not what you think). Finally, you’ll learn how to operate an AI service that spans multiple brands and languages.
Lufthansa is Europe’s biggest airline from a revenue generation perspective, second biggest in terms of numbers of passengers carried, and 4th in the world in terms of revenue. It houses Lufthansa, SWISS, Discover, Eurowings, Austrian, Brussels airlines and has over 60,000 staff. Getting an AI programme off the ground in an organisation of this size requires a skill and a solid approach. We’ll cover all of that and more in this episode of VUX World.
This episode is sponsored by Intel® Core Ultra processors and the Intel vPro® platform. Elevate your business with AI-powered PCs from Intel full of enhanced features like improved productivity, enhanced battery life, and integrated Arc graphics.
Supercharge your company today. Discover more: https://intel.ly/3A3Ziwq
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In this episode, we explore the rapidly evolving world of #AI processors; the firepower that makes everything from training, inference and processing possible. We’ll uncover what makes these AI processors so unique and crucial in today’s tech landscape. From CPUs, GPUs and NPUs to Intel’s latest innovations. Learn how these chips work, the importance they have, and why they’re in such high demand globally. Featuring exclusive insights from leading experts at Intel, this podcast is your gateway to understanding the silicon that’s shaping our future.
This episode is sponsored by Intel® Core Ultra processors and the Intel vPro® platform. Elevate your business with AI-powered PCs from Intel full of enhanced features like improved productivity, enhanced battery life, and integrated Arc graphics.
Supercharge your company today. Discover more: https://intel.ly/3A3Ziwq
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WellSaid is at the forefront of AI-generated voices and has been proving bleeding edge voice technology since late 2018. Brain took over as CEO in January 2024 and is leading the charge to scale WellSaid to new heights. Brian joins me to discuss the voice generation market, use cases, ethics surrounding voice cloning and where all this is headed.
Check out WellSaid
Be sure to read about 'A tech firm stole our voices - then cloned and sold them'
WellSaid Labs Creates NPR’s First AI Podcast Episode
Go back and listen to - Speech-to-speech synthesis with Alex Serdiuk, CEO, Respeecher
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In this episode of Agony Agent, Ben McCulloch welcomes conversation design experts Ilana Meir and Peter Isaacs to tackle pressing issues faced by conversation AI designers. Ilana, a freelance conversation designer with extensive experience in AR, VR, and healthcare, and Peter, a senior conversation design advocate at Voiceflow, share insights on improving bot interactions, overcoming organisational challenges, and leveraging large language models (LLMs).
Key topics include how to navigate archaic systems when designing seamless user experiences, managing sentiment analysis in conversation design, and balancing the demands of impulsive sales teams with technical developers. They also discuss the impact of context switching for designers managing multiple brands and the challenges of fine-tuning LLMs for scalable AI solutions.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone in the conversational AI industry, offering practical advice on how to combine technical and creative expertise to build better, more human-like interactions. Whether you're refining chatbots or introducing generative AI, you'll find valuable strategies to implement right away.
00:00.0 Intro
04:58.5 Creating beautiful interactions with archaic solutions
11:05.2 Learn sentiment analysis and do emotionally sensitive conversation design
17:19.6 Educating user to speak so the NLU understands
21:17.1 Using LLMs for intent recognition
22:54.1 Meaningful success metrics
27:49.1 Advocating for a holistic view between competing stakeholders
32:38.2 Balancing Gen AI obsession with its abilities
37:30.0 How to build a chatbot that matches ChatGPT
39:19.6 Preparation before building
40:47.1 Think about frameworks where conversations will happen
41:56.6 Finetuning LLMs
44:33.6 Making people see value of CAI and experts
46:17.6 Is chatgpt a good way to show what CAI can do?
47:47.1 CXD for SaaS services with LLM solutions
51:52.1 How to advocate for your role
54:19.6 Context switching multiple brands in a services organisation as a manager
58:24.6 How to go beyond information provided by client when training an assistant
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Martin Musiol is the founder of Generativeai.net, an online learning platforms that teaches data scientists and others about generative AI. Martin joins me to chat about his experience and the value of generative AI for businesses.
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Today I'm joined by one of the founding team members of Google Assistant and all round AI legend, Vlad Vuskovic.
Vlad has been instrumental in Google's AI efforts from a product management perspective and joins us to share more on the AI tools and capabilities Google offers enterprises, as well as some practical advice for implementing successfully based on years of experience in the field.
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Cooper Johnson is a Voice UX Designer at Gridspace, one of the leading voice AI technology companies. Cooper joins us to share his perspectives on how generative AI is and has impacted the voice UI landscape. Cooper will share insights into what's changed, what's stayed the same and advice on how to design voice AI agents that work properly!
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Falene McKenna is arguably the most charismatic member of the conversation design community. With a wealth of experience in conversation design particularly as it pertains to robots!
Falene join me to share lessons learned in designing conversations for robots and specifically about the uncanny valley: what it is, why it matters and whether we can or should cross it.
Visit Falenes LinkedIn
Check out Lingua Robotica
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Richard Smullen is the CEO of Pypestream, an AI automation platform making waves with its approach to design and operationalising conversational experiences.
Tune in to find out why CSAT and NPS are dead, why happiness should be your true north KPI, the future of the contact centre and what we’ll do with all the jobless call centre workers grits teeth. Learn the 4 missing pieces of your AI strategy and why you’re struggling to fill them.
Myself and Richard share so many similar perspectives on how to do AI right in the enterprise. This will be a bone shattering journey of cognitive dissonance if you’re not open to change. Be open. Dive in.1
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The loveholidays AI team join us to share their lessons learned from implementing the award-winning AI assistant, Sandy.
Eugene Neale, Director of Business IT and CX Engineering, and Tom Smith, Telecommunications Operations Manager at loveholidays, the UK's fastest growing and largest online travel agent, share use cases, lessons learned and best practices from years spent designing and building Sandy with Google DialogFlow.
Subscribe to https://vux.world/subscribe for weekly updates on how to implement AI effectively in your organisation.
Unparsed, the world's most loved conversational AI conference returns with more punch, more passion and more impact! Buy your tickets now here - https://www.unparsedconf.com/
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Hazel Savage is the VP Music Intelligence at SoundCloud and the founder of Musiio; a tech company using AI to make music easier to catalogue and find.
Hazel joins us to discuss the role of AI in music, the opportunities, challenges and future.
Subscribe to https://vux.world/subscribe for weekly updates on how to implement AI effectively in your organisation.
Unparsed, the world's most loved conversational AI conference returns with more punch, more passion and more impact! Buy your tickets now here - https://www.unparsedconf.com/
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Ricardo Herreros Symons is the VP Corporate Development and Strategy at AI speech to text company, Speechmatics.
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OpenAI GPT4o: What's new and what's the impact on CX? Today I'm joined by Marc Bernstein, CEO, Balto, to discuss the new updates from OpenAI, GPT-4o, and what it means for the future of CX.
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From the granular details of measuring intent and LLM-based chatbot effectiveness to the strategic implementation of AI across business units, Eric provides an in-depth analysis on the importance of data-driven decisions in the era of AI transformation.
Join us as we discuss how businesses can leverage analytics to optimise customer interactions, the common pitfalls in current AI strategies, and the future of AI in customer service.
In this episode00:00 Introduction and UNPARSED conference - Find out more at https://unparsedconf.com
4:32 Welcom Eric Griffing
7:25 Best practice for measuring LLM agents
12:10 Differences tracking ML and LLM bots
14:00 Goal completion
19:00 What's missing
22:00 How to set up tracking on chatbots
24:50 Tracking LLM chatbots
30:37 Air Canada's chatbot issues
33:38 LLM guardrails
37:00 Using data to inform your AI strategy
41:00 Effort over satisfaction
44:30 Tracking customer effort in chatbots
48:40 Market demand for AI analytics
55:40 Wrap up
Subscribe to https://vux.world/subscribe for weekly updates on how to implement AI effectively in your organisation.
Learn more from Dashbot:
https://www.dashbot.io/blog/360-bot-framework
https://www.dashbot.io/blog/inside-the-black-box-analyzing-your-llm-bot
https://www.dashbot.io/blog/navigating-the-shift-from-intent-based-to-language-model-chatbots
Unparsed, the world's most loved conversational AI conference returns with more punch, more passion and more impact! Buy your tickets now here
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Ofer Ronen is an ex-Googler with some immense experience in deploying AI systems for large enterprises including the infamous example of Agent Assist at Verizon. Ofer’s third startup is tomato.ai, a company that has AI technology that’ll strip away your accent! Or soften it, rather.
Ofer joins us to share his lessons learned from years of deploying AI in the enterprise, as well as the use cases, value and technicalities of this new breed of AI technology: voice filtering and accent softening.
Unparsed, the world's most loved conversational AI conference returns with more punch, more passion and more impact! Buy your tickets now here - https://www.unparsedconf.com/
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Chris Ezekiel is founder and CEO of one of the longest standing conversational AI platforms, Creative Virtual. Chris joins us to discuss the changing landscape of conversational AI and the recipe for longevity and long term success.
Unparsed, the world's most loved conversational AI conference returns with more punch, more passion and more impact! Buy your tickets now here - https://www.unparsedconf.com/
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How can AI make your job search easier? I'm joined by Head of Product - Conversations at Total Jobs Group, Somnath Biswas to discuss.
Som has immense experience in project management and AI and knows what it takes to make AI work at scale. He joins me to share some lessons in implementing conversational AI in a highly stressful and emotional situation: the job search.
Do customers want this? What conversations do they want and need? How can you make sure you can serve those needs at scale? What people, process and technology do you need to make it happen? What's the role of generative AI and large language models? And what does the future of job hunting look like?
Let's dive in!
00:00 Introduction
04:27 Welcome Somnath
09:25 Organised groups
11:50 Conversational interfaces
17:45 Measuring lifetime value
20:15 Next steps after conversational formats
28:00 Making improvements
36:00 Model producing responses
38:55 Multi agent
46:40 Augmented retrieval
52:22 User / response input stage
58:50 Different prompt criteria
1:04:40 Outro
Unparsed, the world's most loved conversational AI conference returns with more punch, more passion and more impact! Buy your tickets now here - https://www.unparsedconf.com/
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This immersion into the world of contact centre technology coupled with extensive operational experience has formed the backdrop to Nerys carrying out regular Contact Centre audits, Delivering Transformation programmes; Judging prestigious awards like the European Contact Centre and Customer Service Awards; Chairing the DMA Contact Centre Council for 3 years and being a regular on the webinar, keynote and podcast circuit talking all things Contact Centre.
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Welcome Nerys
05:30 Managing contact centres - what did they get right?
07:40 Barriers to getting things right
12:00 Mandating self service options
16:25 The voice channel
25:00 Better service models
31:15 What the future of the market looks like
36:40 Labour market in contact centers
49:50 Context of conversations
57:00 Responsible AI
1:00:20 The next 12 months
1:01:50 Outro
Vist Nerys LinkedIn here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neryscorfield/
Unparsed, the world's most loved conversational AI conference returns with more punch, more passion and more impact! Buy your tickets now here - https://www.unparsedconf.com/
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Join us for a thought-provoking episode of VUX World, with Brandon Nott, CPO, Amelia, and Nick Orlando, Director of Product, Amelia. Amelia is an enterprise conversational AI platform at the forefront of integrating Generative AI (GenAI) within the AI ecosystem.
We'll dive into how GenAI revolutionises dialog systems for transactional tasks, emphasising its role as a tool that, when combined with classical AI, unlocks unparalleled efficiency and creativity. We will cover the essentials of deploying conversational interfaces, the strategic balance between GenAI and classic platforms, and the nuanced decisions behind selecting the right mix of AI solutions based on context, risk, and operational requirements.
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Scott Hamilton is the Principle, Banking and Lending Strategy Leader at Prodigal Tech, an actionable intelligence platform for consumer finance.
Scott's background is in lead six sigma and joins me to speak about why for most organisations, your AI automation journey is in fact one of process design and how lean six sigma can help businesses create the automation strategies they're dreaming of!
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Join us on VUX World for an enlightening episode with Ian Robertson from the Forum, where we delve into the dynamic world of Customer Experience (CX). In this discussion, we'll explore the critical successes and oversights of today's CX leaders, unraveling the common challenges and emerging trends that are shaping the industry. A key focus will be on speech analytics and its interplay with AI - understanding its potential, limitations, and why it hasn't yet become a mainstream tool. We'll discuss the importance of linking what customers say to their actions and outcomes, emphasizing the need to start with identifying the problem rather than jumping to solutions. Ian will shed light on the right questions CX leaders should ask for AI success and why AI solutions often end up isolated. We'll also touch on the significance of silence in speech analytics, the hurdles in acting on data insights, and the balance between striving for perfection and accepting reality. This episode promises to offer a deep dive into the complexities of CX, enhanced by real-world case studies from Capita, The Times, and Anglian Water.Join us as we dive into the details.
Unparsed, the world's most loved conversational AI conference returns with more punch, more passion and more impact! Buy your tickets now here - https://www.unparsedconf.com/
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Pete Kemp is a Principle Consultant at FSP, a consulting firm aimed at accelerating digital transformation for brands. Pete was previously the Managing Director of EBM, an enterprise conversational AI platform providing AI automation technology and services. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the practicalities of implementing AI at scale and now works pretty much exclusively with implementing Microsoft Copilot within large enterprises.
This episode is all about the lessons learned from this journey of enabling large brands with Microsoft Copilot.
For those that might not know, Microsoft announced Copilot in 2023; an AI assistant that integrates with Bing, Edge, Windows, Microsoft 365. A one stop shop for all your productivity needs. It also announced Copilot Studio, a development environment where you can build your own Copilots and custom GPTs for your enterprise use cases.
No doubt this is an exciting area for Microsoft customers and those interested in the practicalities of implementing generative AI.
Join us as we dive into the details.
Unparsed, the world's most loved conversational AI conference returns with more punch, more passion and more impact! Buy your tickets now here - https://www.unparsedconf.com/
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Byron Reese is a serial entrepreneur with a quarter-century of experience building and running successful technology companies, with multiple acquisitions, IPOs and patents along the way. He is an award-winning author of books such as Stories, Dice and Rocks That Think, and; The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity, a book that tackles artificial intelligence, robots, automation, and the future of work. He’s a speaker and futurist, with a strong conviction that technology will help bring about a new golden age of humanity.
Byron currently serves as the CEO of JJ Kent Incorporated, a venture-backed technology company that recently launched Scissortail.ai, a proprietary artificial intelligence tool set to inform new product and listing strategy, and delight consumers.
I’m honoured and delights to be joined by Byron for this episode where we’ll look at the unavoidable future of AI and its impact on our lives.
Why does your belief in a monistic or dualistic reality determine your view on what computers can or can’t do?
Unparsed, the world's most loved conversational AI conference returns with more punch, more passion and more impact! Buy your tickets now here - https://www.unparsedconf.com/
Be sure to register for our upcoming webinar with Quiq & LOOP car insurance here - https://vux.world/generative-ai-in-production-loops-success-story/
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What can we expect from AI over the next 12 months? What kind of use cases will make it to production and add value? What will the impact be for businesses that leverage it? What will be the challenges and hurdles we’ll need to overcome to make it work? And what does one of the market leading AI automation platforms plan to do about it?
Join me as I speak with the CEO of Cognigy, Philipp Heltewig, and dive into the year ahead in AI..
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Liz Stokoe is an author and professor at the London School of Economics
Register for our upcoming webinar here - https://vux.world/generative-ai-in-production-loops-success-story/
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A few months ago we reached out to conversation designers to ask what challenges they struggle with. The idea had come from a conversation with Ilana Meir at Unparsed, who thought an ‘agony aunt’ for Conversation Designers could be useful and fun, just like Dear Abby helps people with personal problems.
Why would we want that? Well, this role isn’t well defined. We have some trailblazers in the industry to inspire us, and we have some great books and courses, but still there’s a lot of questions that a conversation designer might not be able to answer. Someone may be a team of 1 at a large company for example, where they can’t ask a mentor for advice.
So, we’ve got two leading lights of the industry to answer crowdsourced questions from the conversation design community! We have Rebecca Evanhoe, who is an experienced conversation designer and co-author of Conversations With Things (which is hands-down one of the best CxD books), and we have Wally Brill, who has been at the coalface of conversation design at companies like Nuance and Google.
So, consider this to be the mentoring session you always wanted but could never arrange. When else are you going to get advice from Rebecca Evanhoe and Wally Brill, answering the specific questions that many conversation designers are struggling with, right now?
Get yourself a warm beverage and tune in.
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What a wild year it’s been in AI. Every second minute, there’s a news story. If it’s not Open AI burning down, then reassembling, it’s more funding, more breakthroughs, more products and more capabilities. Businesses across the world have finally woken up to the disruptive potential of AI, but what are they doing about it?
I’m joined by Frank Schneider, AI Evangelist, Verint, to run through some of the highlights of the year, appraise the AI Naughty and Nice List and discuss the past, present and future potential of AI in the enterprise as we swing towards 2024.
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First, CEO Sam Altman was fired from Open AI. Then, VP Greg Brockman fled. They both then joined Microsoft and now, news is coming out about 710 staff petitioning the board, threatening to resign and join Microsoft if the board don't leave!
I'm joined by Matt Taylor, CPO, Knowbl to dive into what's going on. Also, Matt will share some new research and techniques to help enterprises make the most of large language models.
Enter one of the worlds biggest AI awards – We’re proud to support the AI World Series Awards and Conference. An unrivaled celebration of the best use cases of AI
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JP is the Co-Founder and CTO of SmartBots, a platform that's making the most of Amazon Bedrock Foundation Models and enabling developers and brands to build generative AI applications. Find out about the biggest opportunities and considerations for brands seeking to use generative AI in customer experience, as well as how you can use the SmartBots platform to accomplish just that.
Enter one of the worlds biggest AI awards – We’re proud to support the AI World Series Awards and Conference. An unrivaled celebration of the best use cases of AI - https://aiworldseries.com/
Make sure to check out - Smartbots.ai
Visit JP's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaya-prakash-kommu-a1b7a911/
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Andrew Moorhouse has worked with the world’s leading consulting firms and household name brands to understand what’s really going on with CX performance. Is live chat really all it’s cracked up to be? Is NPS any good? Can it be predicted based on common conversational markers? What should you really be focusing on in order to move the needle with your customer experience automation programmes? Andrew shares all.
Enter one of the worlds biggest AI awards – We’re proud to support the AI World Series Awards and Conference. An unrivaled celebration of the best use cases of AI.
Check out some of Andrews articles below!
Predicting NPS using AI and 10,000 LivePerson Transcripts
Death of Live Chat
It’s time to rethink Conversational AI
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Mara Cairo, Product Owner at Amii, joins me to chat about how businesses be thinking about AI, how you should be implementing it, what your blind spots and challenges are likely to be and how to develop your AI literacy.
Enter one of the world's biggest AI awards - Find out more
Join us on our upcoming webinar with wysdom - Register now
Vist Amii
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Gartner recently forecast that by 2025, 50% of digital communications will be driven by AI avatars. A company that's been using AI avatars for years to deliver AI-mediated healthcare services is Sensley.
Co-Founder and CEO, Adam Odessky, joins me to share the pros and cons of AI-mediated Avatars, as well as the Sensley story, AI in healthcare case studies and the shape of the AI market in healthcare.
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Ronald Rubens, CEO, Sentio CX joins us to share the current issues with live agent escalations and how Sentio CX AI-based routing is helping make sure that every AI agent conversation that requires escalation to live humans, is done so efficiently and effectively.
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It’s common for teams to have both programmers and conversation designers. You need both to get a solid result. They’re both aiming to create the same thing (a robust conversation with a machine) but they approach that from different angles.
While the programmer ensures that the software is solid, and has all the right connections, the conversation designer needs to make sure that it is purpose designed for the people who will use it. Both of those roles are vital.
I wanted to get a better understanding of what a programmer thinks about! What do they need to know, and why, and how do they see the collaboration with conversation designers?
There was nobody better to ask than Justin Randall. He’s got 20 years of experience in telecoms, he’s knowledgeable, and he’s the programmer I work with every day!
We discussed collaboration for an hour. This is the part of the job that gets too little attention - how can we work together to get the best result?
Listen up to see what Justin has to say.
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Tim Friebel is the Global Experience Transformation Lead at Genesys and brings a wealth of experience in customer journey analytics; a crucial and underserved element of conversational automation. Tim joins me to share the insights and tips that'll help you understand your customers better and improve customer experience using customer journey analytics.
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Kim West is the Director of Product Marketing at Uniphore, one of the leading conversational automation technology and service companies. Kim joins us to share some of the top use cases for conversational automation across industries and shares some best practice in getting it right.
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You've seen and heard of the value of conversational AI such as chat, voice and messaging assistants for customer service, but what about using the channel as part of your content strategy? We're joined by Nick Martin, co-founder, Direqt, to discuss how media and entertainment companies are embracing messaging as a core part of their content delivery offering, and how you can too.
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Sham Aziz, Selfridges, Head of Customer Service at Selfridges and long-time customer experience expert, joins me to share his perspectives on the current and future trajectory of AI for customer experience and enterprise automation.
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Designers love to talk design. Often people focus on their favourite tools, processes, hacks and gripes. It all matters. The technical aspects are just as important as well. We’re designing conversations with technology - we need to get intimate with the benefits and limitations of machines so that we can succeed.
What about the social/collaborative side of the job though? We all know that’s a huge part of the job, but so few people seem to be talking about it.
That’s why Millani Jayasingkam is such a great person to talk to. She’s a senior conversation designer who knows the power of a good community. She hosts the Voice This! Podcast and runs events focused on conversational AI.
Why does being part of a community matter to your work? What has Millani done to build communities? How did it help?
Listen up to find out
00:00 Intro
11:43 What's Millani's favourite bot?
13:29 What conversational AI jargon do you struggle with?
19:00 Which synthetic experience would you most like to have?
21:39 With interviews we need to break the ice
23:39 Finding the right time to ask a question
26:01 People know the result, not what you'd imagined
27:12 On Voice Tech Global (formerly Voice Tech Toronto)
30:15 We're part of communities that evolve
33:52 We need communities to learn from
37:35 Tech and design isn't enough, we need communication
42:56 We all contribute to the community
46:04 The tables are turned - Millani asks Ben
49:12 The Conversation Designer's Links board on Notion
52:33 People respond well to genuine curiosity
54:20 How does Ben keep up to date?
56:10 How does Millani keep up to date?
57:10 Conversation designers need to keep talking
59:42 An observer to a recorded conversation also participates
01:01:02 Outro
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Are we coming to the end of the hype cycle with Large Language Models? Are we finally finding where they fit best in enterprise automation? Are are we still rolling through the hype? Matt Taylor, Co-Founder and CPO, Knowbl, joins us to shine a light
Presented by Tidio
Grow your online store with the #1 customer success tool for eCommerce. Engage with your customers and website visitors in real-time. Provide personalized product recommendations. Use AI-powered chatbot workflows to move prospects through your sales funnel. And so much more.
Save 20% on your subscription with the promo code VUX.
Find out more about Tidio (use the link https://www.tidio.com/partners/vux/)
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Braden Ream is back on VUX World for the third time after some pretty big changes at Voiceflow. Raising another round of funding and repositioning the platform in light of significant adoption in the wake of the large language model attention, has Voiceflow making moves to become the leading conversational AI platform.
I chat to Braden about the new direction of the company, the recent additions to the product and how designers and developers are using Voiceflow to design and build LLM-powered applications.
Presented by Tidio
Grow your online store with the #1 customer success tool for eCommerce. Engage with your customers and website visitors in real-time. Provide personalized product recommendations. Use AI-powered chatbot workflows to move prospects through your sales funnel. And so much more.
Save 20% on your subscription with the promo code VUX.
Find out more about Tidio (use the link https://www.tidio.com/partners/vux/)
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Mikhail Burstev is a seasoned AI practitioner and scientist. Founder of one of the most popular chatbot frameworks, Deep Pavlov, Mikhail has been knee deep into the AI space for many years. He joins me to share his thoughts on AI orchestration and Large Language Models.
Presented by Tidio
Grow your online store with the #1 customer success tool for eCommerce. Engage with your customers and website visitors in real-time. Provide personalized product recommendations. Use AI-powered chatbot workflows to move prospects through your sales funnel. And so much more.
Save 20% on your subscription with the promo code VUX.
Find out more about Tidio (use the link https://www.tidio.com/partners/vux/)
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Greg Bennett’s the final Conversations2 interviewee focused on large language models!
When I heard that Salesforce have adopted LLMs at scale (and also heard that they had started to design and build this prior to ChatGPT’s release) I wanted to know more!
I’ve known Greg for years and have always found him to be warm, knowledgeable and an expert at making complex subjects understandable. He didn’t disappoint here - we spoke about thinking in systems and how that relates to conversational AI, how LLMs affect conversation design (and how conversation designers are key to the best usage of LLMs), how his team of designers work with the wider team, and Salesforce’s recent push into Generative Conversational AI.
So listen up to Greg’s thoughts on the best ways to use LLMs in conversational AI! Salesforce have gone all-in on generative conversational AI and Greg’s team have made that possible.
00:00Start
00:29Greg's introduction
03:55What's your favourite bot?
05:11What's the most useful thing you use at work?
06:21Which conversation designer should we all know about?
08:15Conversations are systematic, and design should be too
10:17What does 'generative conversational AI' mean to you?
11:38How have you been incoporating generative conversational AI into your work at Salesforce?
16:05We need expertise when writing prompts for LLMs
17:45How does your team collaborate with the wider Salesforce team?
20:50What benefits did you envision and how close are you now?
24:23How has this affected the day to day work of conversation designers?
27:46Now we need to be able to educate people about how to do conversational AI well
29:52We're thinking conceptually about language
32:43Is this a new phase of conversation design?
36:32How do you minimise the risks?
39:49Do you continue to iterate together with engineering?
41:37The model has a risk of learning from bad behaviour
42:46How do you stay up to date with generative AI?
44:05Researching attempts to break LLMs on social media gives great REAL data
45:49When will you next speak live?
46:46Outro
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Paul Sweeney is the Chief Strategy Officer at Webio, an award winning conversational AI platform. Paul is a renowned figure in the automation and conversational AI space and joins us to share his thoughts on the future of large language models, the impact they could have for enterprises and what Webio is harnessing LLMs for today.
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Peter has written and shared a lot about Large Language Models in recent posts and blogs. We wanted to get his perspective on various things, especially now that Voiceflow have incorporated LLMs into their tool.
How can conversation designers use LLMs now? How does Peter use the LLM as a sounding board to help him craft prompts? Where might we be using them next? How can we document dynamic conversational designs (when LLMs can allow conversations to go off-rails)?
Ben asked him these questions and more…
0:00:00Start
0:02:44About Peter
0:05:44What's your favourite bot?
0:06:57What Aussie lingo should bots know?
0:09:36Pick 3 words to describe your career so far?
0:12:03Do you draw on your former jobs for inspiration?
0:14:06What's it like being the first Conversation Design Advocate at VoiceFlow?
0:18:12What's the best way to incorporate VoiceFlow into a workflow?
0:21:24Are you seeing more interest in conversation design now?
0:23:18Where do you see LLMs being used now?
0:28:52Could conversation designers become an organisation's knowledge experts?
0:31:15We're all making our first steps with LLMs
0:33:43It's easy to fall under the spell of an LLM and think it knows everything
0:35:36Has conversation design changed forever now?
0:37:08Are we over-excited or being too timid?
0:40:08Now we can design conversations that are far more dynamic
0:41:54Are there best practices for documenting designs with LLMs?
0:44:10How does Peter use an LLM to help write the prompt?
0:46:42Have you found ways to avoid 'hallucinations'?
0:49:56How would a conversational system work without an NLU?
0:53:32Are we about to see a new use case for LLMs?
0:57:55How will this affect the work of conversation designers in the next 15 years?
1:03:12Why's there not been more shocking news about misuse of LLMs?
1:05:39We need to constantly monitor where this tech is going
1:06:52Outro
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Ahmed Bouzid is an author, CEO and Founder of Witlingo, a SaaS voice AI company that helps brands give a voice to their customers.
Ahmed joins me to share the opportunities and challenges with implementing large language models in voice AI systems such as call centres and voice assistants.
Presented by Tidio
Grow your online store with the #1 customer success tool for eCommerce. Engage with your customers and website visitors in real-time. Provide personalized product recommendations. Use AI-powered chatbot workflows to move prospects through your sales funnel. And so much more.
Save 20% on your subscription with the promo code VUX.
Find out more about Tidio (use the link https://www.tidio.com/partners/vux/)
Check out https://witlingo.com/
Ahmeds book - Elements of voice first style https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elements-Voice-First-Style-Practical/dp/1098119592
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Andrei Papancea is the CEO and Co-Founder of NLX, a leading conversational AI platform. Andrei joins us to share his thoughts on the value and realistic use cases for large language models in large enterprise automation use cases, the emerging trend of multimodal CX and thoughts on what it takes to get AI automation right.
Presented by Tidio
Grow your online store with the #1 customer success tool for eCommerce. Engage with your customers and website visitors in real-time. Provide personalized product recommendations. Use AI-powered chatbot workflows to move prospects through your sales funnel. And so much more.
Save 20% on your subscription with the promo code VUX.
Find out more about Tidio (use the link https://www.tidio.com/partners/vux/)
Visit https://nlx.ai/
Buy tickets now for our Unparsed event, get 50% off early bird tickets by using the promo code VUXWORLD or visit the Unparsed website and proceed to the checkout https://unparsedconf.com/
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Richard Moore joins me to share how Sheffield Hallam University's research project chatbot is helping children move more and be healthy!
Presented by Tidio
Grow your online store with the #1 customer success tool for eCommerce. Engage with your customers and website visitors in real-time. Provide personalized product recommendations. Use AI-powered chatbot workflows to move prospects through your sales funnel. And so much more.
Save 20% on your subscription with the promo code VUX.
Find out more about Tidio (use the link https://www.tidio.com/partners/vux/)
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Pete Erickson joins me to take a look at what's in store for VOICE of AI 2023!
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What happens when you interview ChatGPT? Things get strange quickly.
There’s few things as hyped as ChatGPT. Much of it is deserved - this new technology delivers on so much of the promise of conversational AI. It can hold a consistent and flowing conversation, and it can chat with the user no matter what they want to talk about. It’s amazing!
The problem is that it occasionally says blatantly untrue things, and sometimes those are dangerous (such as when it claims it can give medical advice). The onus is on the user to decide whether ChatGPT is telling the truth or not, which could be very dangerous when a company repackages ChatGPT and presents it as their branded expert.
I wanted to interview ChatGPT as if it was a regular guest on the show. As this is a video, I gave ChatGPT a voice to reflect its true persona - the sound of the crowd.
There’s no sound design on my voice though - I just had a regular winter cold!
Have a listen!
01:58 Is it ok if I interview you?
02:19 Have you heard of VUX World?
04:15 Conversations2 is not a CXD company!
06:14 What should i call you?
06:41 Please introduce yourself?
08:18 Can you provide short answers?
08:29 What's the best thing you've been asked?
09:51 What was the most significant tech event in the past 3 years?
10:36 Why did you focus on ai?
11:46 Open AI has motivations and interests!
14:19 Was your response generated now or was it pre-prepared?
15:57 What's the difference between a machine and a human conversation?
20:06 You can now give longer answers
20:39 Do you realise your famous?
22:44 What are those specific tasks you perform?
23:56 What's the best way to use ChatGPT?
28:00 How should we structure prompts?
35:28 How can we use ChatGPT in convo ai?
39:28 Is it safe to use ChatGPT for medical advice?
41:26 You're contradictory!
44:51 Specify what you mean by a 'non-medical professional'
50:31 How should people act on your advice?
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Sometimes, once in a while, a technology emerges that changes things. This is what Botpress CEO, Sylvian Perron thought when he discovered large language models. So much so, that he completely rebuilt the Botpress conversational AI platform to be LLM-first.
Join us in this conversation to learn why this decision was made, what was involved in pivoting like this, what the current solution looks like and why it's different.
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You’ve probably heard that it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it that matters. Well, what if I told you that there’s an AI system that can recognise how you speak and use this information to match your speaking style to the speaking style of, say, a call centre agent. That means that, whenever you call your bank, you’ll have a conversation with someone that shares your speaking style. The result? Better conversations for both customers and businesses.
Joining me to walk through how this technology works, and the impact its having in the financial services industry, is Behavioral Signals CEO, Rana Gujral, and Anu Sachdeva, Global Sales Leader at Genpact.
Explore the transformative power of conversational AI and large language models (LLMs) in creating personalized and seamless retail experiences. In this podcast, we’ll explore three use cases where AI is impacting the retail customer and employee journey.
The traditional shopping cart is dead. In today's digital world, customers expect a more connected and personalized shopping experience. This means that businesses need to go beyond the cart and focus on creating a seamless and engaging experience that meets the needs of their customers.
Join Gopi Polavarapu, Sr. VP at Kore AI as he shares insights into leveraging AI solutions, such as ChatGPT, to create immersive, personalized customer journeys from online to brick and mortar, customer experience to employee experience.
We’re used to hearing Text To Speech in conversational AI, but that’s not the only option available. Voice assistants don’t have to use synthetic speech - they can use recordings of a live voice talent instead.
Andrew Muir, Lead Dialogue Designer at PolyAI, explains the benefits of using voice talents. One of his points really resonated with me - why voice talents ease users into the experience!
00:00 Start
00:24 Tell me about yourself?
02:38 What's your favourite bot?
03:26 What are your biggest concerns about ChatGPT?
05:58 What journalistic skills do you use in conversation design?
08:42 Why do you choose to use voice talent at PolyAI?
13:10 So voice talent eases users into the experience?
13:52 Where would you choose to use synthetic voices?
15:56 Are you using voice talents and cloned voices?
17:03 Please tell me about your relationship with the voice talents?
19:14 Do you give the voice talent freedom to create their work?
19:50 Do voice talents push back against being used in AI projects?
21:36 Voice talents could get left behind by synthetic voices
22:46 Are voice talents proactively cloning their voices?
23:21 How do you approach updates to avoid spiralling costs?
26:24 Do you adjust the design based on a voice actor's performance?
30:40 Is a synthetic assistant with an empathetic voice a design sweet-spot?
31:51 Do you think there's scope for non-human character design?
36:38 The way words are said matters
38:56 The user observes everything about the bot
41:16 How do you approach voice localisation at PolyAI?
45:44 Personas are received differently in different locales
46:43 You have to know the culture intimately to localise
48:47 We have to expect we will keep updating our work
50:35 Where can people find out more about you?
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Join me and NatWest's Mark Worden to explore how NatWest designed and implemented the world's first accessible chatbot.
It might surprise you to learn that one of the most accessible interfaces (conversational AI) is, in some cases, the least accessible part of your website.
How would a blind person use your chatbot? What about someone with a physical impairment which means they can't use a keyboard?
The reality is that, for some people, a chatbot is an exclusive.
NatWest is the only company I've seen to date which is proactively addressing this issue, designing a bespoke chat interface that is WCAG 2.0 compliant.
Mark Worden led the product team that developed this capability and he's here's on VUX World to share the results.
Yvonne Zgraggen is a Product Owner in the Data, Analytics and AI division at Swisscom, a major telco provider in Switzerland. With a background in computer linguistics, UX and conversation design, Yvonne has a wealth of experience that anyone working on conversational AI systems can learn from.
Today, Yvonne joins us to share how Swisscom is approaching conversational process automation and top lessons learned from being a Product Owner for conversational applications.
Let’s talk about proactive messaging!
Michelle Parayil, Conversation Design Manager at Haptik, knows all about it. She’s learnt a great deal about proactive messaging with conversational AI, and shares her learnings and experiences.
When’s the best time to do proactive messaging? How do we avoid a notification pile-up when sending chat messages proactively? Can a bot that’s too proactive create a bad user experience? It’s all in there, and more…
A wee note about this episode: Michelle called while she was in the middle of a thunderstorm! That’s dedication for you. There’s a few booms and bangs in the background, but she’s still loud and clear. Hope you enjoy it.
00:00 Start
02:08 What's the most useful thing you use at work?
03:22 How do you select the right use case?
04:24 Should we aim for bots to mimic humans?
06:32 What is proactive messaging?
08:14 What are the challenges and benefits of proactive messaging?
11:30 Is there a danger of a notification pile-up?
13:30 Can proactive messaging be done 24/7?
15:26 Can an overly proactive bot create a terrible experience?
17:38 How does data influence the time when we message the user?
20:21 Are there different ways to interpret the user's explicit 'no' to proactive messaging?
23:05 How can a bot fallback if they proactively messaged at the wrong time?
24:31 When would you recommend to not use proactive messaging?
26:28 Does proactive messaging create a strong impression of the bot's persona?
27:21 In which channels do Haptik use proactive messaging?
30:59 What do you think is the future of proactive messaging?
33:13 Outro
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Let’s talk careers!
This Conversations2 is an interview with Hilary Hayes, who’s a conversation designer, multimodal interaction designer, teacher and mentor.
I reached out to Hilary in the hope she’d chat about career paths. Why? The job title ‘conversation designer’ is still relatively new, the industry is going through rapid transformation, and recently there were layoffs throughout the tech industry which affected many people, including conversation designers. Sadly, Hilary was one of those designers who got laid-off (she worked at Meta), however as you’ll see in this interview that’s absolutely their loss.
Hilary’s got a lot of insights from her years of experience, she’s not afraid to call out our industry’s issues, and she’s enthusiastic and supportive. I think all conversation designers can take a lot from her. We all wonder about our careers, so listen up for a nice wee chat about careers in conversation design!
00:00 Start
00:13 Introduction
00:51 On UXR 02:18 30 seconds, go!
04:00 The importance of data in conversation design
05:24 Nominate one conversation designer we should all know
07:42 What can designers do away from work to help them be better designers?
14:44 Do conversation designers need lots of life experience?
20:13 On getting certification as a conversation designer
22:11 Talking matters
24:34 What do you need to feel your career is on track?
27:13 We need to talk to each other to stay up to date
31:27 We need to learn from each other
32:17 On mentoring
32:54 UX designers moving into conversation design
35:52 LLMS in conversation design
39:26 AI mirrors us
43:03 Has the industry evolved the way you expected it to?
46:33 Assistants could schedule our lives but they don't yet
48:04 Bots using humans to exploit internet security
50:15 What areas of conversation design don't get enough attention in the industry?
51:22 Are conversational designs serving users well yet?
56:58 What do you hope to do next?
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Of all the industries that can and could utilize conversational AI, banking, insurance and the wider financial services sector has some of the biggest opportunities.
To walk us through the kinds of business problems faced by FSI companies, the types of use cases conversational AI is solving for, and to highlight some of the successes, value and lessons learned, I’m joined by Dave Schreffler, SVP Financial Services Sales - Kore.ai, and Peter Berbee SVP Financial Services Product - Kore.ai.
Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
Find out more about https://kore.ai/ and book a demo here - https://info.kore.ai/kore.ai-demo-req...
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Oh wow, is that the time?! VUX World has been going for 5 years!
For this episode of Conversations Squared the focus is on the man who's usually asking the questions - Kane Simms!
What's he learned in the past 5 years? Where's the industry headed? What about Alexa and Google Assistant? Listen to Kane's responses to these questions and more...
0:00 Intro
4:00 Conversations and listening
7:00 We need patience for conversational AI
9:00 30 seconds, go!
11:10 What surprised you most about the industry when you started VUX World?
17:45 What do the words 'artificial intelligence' make you think?
20:55 Can you summarise the developments you've seen in the last 5 years?
26:15 Channels for enterprise conversational AI
30:35 Was the timing bad for Alexa and Google Assistant?
33:00 What inspires you to keep going forward?
36:20 What excites Ben about the industry?
38:40 The potential of conversational AI
39:30 Outro
Invoca is leading the conversational intelligence charge. CEO Gregg Johnson joins me to dive deep into conversational intelligence, what it is, how it works and how businesses are utilising it, as well as the imperative role of context.
Visit: https://www.invoca.com/
Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
Find out more about Kore.ai and book a demo here - Kore.ai request demo
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Conversation analysis should be a part of every conversation design team’s workflow. You may be doing it already without realising exactly what it is.
I reached out to Dr Maria Aretoulaki to find out exactly what conversation analysis is, why it matters and how she would use it for a new project.
Maria is the Director at DialogCONNECTION Ltd and she works with GlobalLogic (a HITACHI Group company) where she’s SME for ML/AI, design-led and data-driven Voice & Conversational AI (VOCAI) and VUI and CUI Design, and a Coordinator of the Web3 and Blockchain CoE.
Maria is a true veteran of conversational AI, so it was fantastic to chat with her!
00:00 Start
00:20 Maria's Introduction
02:38 Maria's VUI experience
05:33 30 seconds, go!
07:01 On 'copywriting' as a term for conversation design
08:45 What would you call the craft of utterance writing?
12:18 what surprised you most when you started designing conversations?
15:04 Customers creatively swearing at bots
17:09 What is conversation analysis?
22:03 What is ontology?
26:33 Ontology of human experience
30:10 Where would you expect to use conversation analysis in a new project?
33:10 What would you look for in the data?
36:09 Are recordings better than transcriptions?
38:48 Do transcriptions give enough detail?
43:20 How much detail is enough?
44:48 TTS and voice talent
48:08 Should conversation analysis adapt to different modalities?
51:58 Are ontologies intents?
53:51 Where can people learn more about conversation analysis?
57:51 Where can people follow you?
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Matt Taylor, CEO, Knowbl, joins me to discuss the realities of building a conversational AI platform on top of LLMs from the ground up.
Visit https://knowbl.com/
Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
Find out more about Kore.ai and book a demo here- Kore.ai request demo
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Maaike Coppens returns to VUX World for the third time and joins a small but prestigious group of two to get the VUX World hat trick. Maaike is an author, and the VP Design at OpenDialogue; a conversational AI startup changing the way we approach conversation design. In this conversation, we'll explore why we're a community with amnesia, overlooking some basic design principles such as user research. Maaike will share some tips on how to conduct user research and the value it brings to conversational AI projects.
Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
Find out more about Kore.ai and book a demo here
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ChatGPT and LLMs are reaching the peak of the hype cycle right now, but does that mean that it's all talk and no substance? On the contrary. Cognigy recently announced a flurry of features utilising Large Language Models in its platform with the aim of improving the AI creator and AI user experience. Cognigy CEO, Philipp Heltewig, and SVP of Business Development & Strategy, Hardy Myers, join me to share more insights into the future of conversational AI creation.
Visit https://www.cognigy.com/
Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
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Co founder and CTO of Cohere, Nick Frosst, joins VUX World to give us a crash course on the ins and outs of Large Language Models and they can reshape enterprise customer experience.
Check out https://cohere.ai
Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
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There's a new arms race happening in the world of conversational AI platforms and technology and it revolves around who can implement the most effective use cases and features using Large Language Models.
Kore.ai CEO, Raj Koneru, and Associate Architect, Prasanna Venkatesh, join me on VUX World to share how Kore.ai sees the future of AI in the enterprise, thoughts on how LLMs are changing what's possible and how Kore.ai is approaching integrating LLMs into the chatbot and voice assistant production pipeline.
Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
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Max Gladysh is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Bots Crew. Max joins us to share some examples of how conversational AI is being used to help people in emergency situations, including use cases Max saw during covid, as well as more recently; a chatbot that helps people fleeing the war in Ukraine.
Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
Dr Joan Palmiter Bajorek is easily one of the best known people in conversational AI - for Women in Voice, for her public speaking, for her experience at the likes of Nuance, and now for her work as VP of Product Research (Data Analytics) at OneReach AI.
After reading Robb Wilson's excellent book Age of Invisible Machines (Robb is the CEO of OneReach AI) I had questions about how the work of conversation designers might change - how might hyperautomation and hyperpersonalisation affect our day to day work, and specifically user research? We're used to making generalised user personas. What will we do when we have countless bots adapted to countless users? I asked Joan about these things and more...
Contents:
00:00Start
00:59Joan's experience
03:22Age of invisible machines
05:2530 seconds, go!
08:36How will emerging technologies (like generative aI) effect our work?
13:16Generative ai is a wild entity
14:33ChatGPT has amazing powers, but struggles with the basics
16:59How do you monitor the different 'hypersonalised' bots?
19:20On MVPs
20:08Personalised bots will become default
20:51Can we adjust to a user's prosody and dialect?
23:14What's the best approach to act on insights and data?
26:48When we're 'more agile than agile' how should we act on data?
28:36Bots are complex on the back-end but should feel natural on the front end
30:15Where does user research fit in teams with hyper-automation?
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Molly Dickinson is a User Experience Lead at Expedia, and ex-Senior User Experience Designer at Home Depot. Molly has specialised in conversation design for the past 3 years and joins us share her learnings, as well as some details on the conversational AI initiatives underway at Expedia.
Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
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Paulina Lewandowska is a conversation designer at Roche, a global pharmaceutical company. After a recent trial of digital humans for patient care and diagnosis, Paulina joins us to share the lessons and findings. Can digital humans improve the patient-doctor relationship? Can emotion recognition help deliver better care? What are the practical challenges and considerations for bring digital humans to production? We're about to find out.
Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
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Capita is a large, UK-based BPO and professional services organisation that built its reputation and legacy supplying government technology solutions. Today, Capita is exploring conversational AI and digital humans for a range of use cases and industries. James Brook, Innovation Principle at Capita, joins us to share more on what he and his team have learned through experimenting with conversational AI, large language models and digital humans.
We have a 30% DISCOUNT created for you : VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
Conversation designer Esha Metiary talks about why some bots should be prepared to discuss political matters. Can you imagine talking to a branded bot that doesn't want to discuss Black Lives Matter when the brand itself promotes those values? The bot is on the front line between customer and brand, so if the brand has those values, surely the bot should represent those values. We talk about this and more! 00:00intro
01:0530 seconds, go
05:55what does the term 'persona' mean to you?
06:47what's the purpose of a bot's persona?
10:30the bot is a new employee for the brand
12:28how should designer envision the bot's persona?
14:20what do we mean by 'political opinions'?
17:05a question for the bot is a question for the brand
18:16are bots apolitical from the start?
20:44should we ignroe the customers when they want a stereotyped personality?
24:18shouldn't bots stay out of political discussions?
29:10could we make a safe space for users where politics isn't in the discussion?
31:32how should conversation designers incorporate political material?
35:46can designers write material that goes against their own politics?
39:30outro
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Sonia Talati is A Senior Manager for Conversation Design at GoDaddy; a speaker and ex-TV anchor with tremendous experience in conversational AI. After co-founding Hereafter, a CAI startup that helps keep the memories of loved ones alive, Sonia now heads up conversation design at the world's largest website hosting company: GoDaddy.
Sonia joins us to share her experience in conversational AI, as well as how GoDaddy is utilising the technology. We'll discuss the challenges that experienced conversation designers face today, and the ingredients to scaling a design practice globally.
If you're a keen part of the conversational AI community, you'll likely know Jim Rowe-Bot. Jim has immense experience in designing conversational AI applications, having worked on over 300 chatbot projects. Jim Rowe-Bot joins Kane-versational AI to chat about lessons learned, best practice and the future of conversational AI.
Purchase Jims ebook "How To Be a Great Conversational Designer" here: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/hermes?token=30810429YL523245M&useraction=commit&mfid=1671185940654_f568963212092
The botrepreneurs website: https://www.botrepreneurs.live/
Jason F. Gilbert (aka The BotMan) is the Lead Character Designer at Intuition Robotics. Originally a filmmaker, he's worked on loads of bots through the years for various brands on chat and voice, as well as digital humans (such as 'Anna') and now with ElliQ - a robotic companion for elderly Americans.
We talked about personas, multimodality, TTS and SSML, empathetic bots like ElliQ and more...
What if you could detect the tone of voice of callers and figure out whether they're lying or telling the truth? Whether they're confident or bullsh*tting. This is voice AI taken to a new level.
We're joined by Helios Life Enterprises co-founder and CEO, Sean Austin, to learn more.
Join our next webinar, conversational commerce: how AI-powered digital workers can boost sales: Find out more: https://vux.world/conversational-commerce-how-ai-powered-digital-workers-can-boost-sales/
After founding Skilled Creative 2017, and turning it into one of the most notable voice agencies, Brandon Kaplan and his crew of emerging tech pioneers combined forces to create Journey; an innovation and design consultancy conceived to help brands envision, plan, and effectively build the next generation of fan experiences and customer journeys.
Brandon joins us to share his vision for the future of conversational AI in emerging tech spaces, such as AI-assisted creativity and content and web 3. Join us for what'll be an immersive Journey.
Join our next webinar, conversational commerce: how AI-powered digital workers can boost sales: Find out more: https://vux.world/conversational-commerce-how-ai-powered-digital-workers-can-boost-sales/
Emily Uematsu Banzhaf talks to Ben McCulloch about conversation design. Emily is a Content Designer at WillowTree, a conversation/VUI designer, she leads the ethical use taskforce at Open Voice Network, and she's also a professional violinist!
We talked about personas, ethics and the sound of conversations.
If you're in banking and you haven't been seriously considering your conversational AI strategy, then where have you been?
Yes, it's early, but the banking industry is one of the stand-out industries where conversational AI can add immeasurable benefit to your business operations and customer experience.
One person who's been through the end-to-end journey of formulating the strategy, building the team and deploying the solution is Bill Hawks.
Bill is Digital Customer Experience Manager - Conversational AI & Virtual Client Service at Citizens Bank, where he's leading the CX digital strategy. Prior to that, Bill was Sr. Digital Product Manager at Truist Bank, where he led the conversational AI strategy, team and solutions.
Bill joins us to share his lessons in how you can create an effective digital assistant for banking, as well as learnings that'll apply to any business leader considering their transformation strategy and how CAI can play a role.
Join our next webinar, conversational commerce: how AI-powered digital workers can boost sales: Find out more: https://vux.world/conversational-commerce-how-ai-powered-digital-workers-can-boost-sales/
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Learn how Canada’s largest bank is approaching conversational automation, as we step through the journey into creating the Scotiabank digital assistant, with Fabio Sarti, Sr. AI/ML Product Manager.
Fabio joins us to share everything from use cases and channels to technical implementation to privacy and early results achieved since launching its assistant in May.
Collin Carnahan is a Senior UX Conversation Designer at Workday. Collin joins us to share how he and his team implemented conversation design systems and processes into a largely development and technically driven organisation.
One of the crucial elements of getting the customer experience right with conversational applications is that they're designed right. That's not to say that technical developers don't have a role to play, or that conversation design needs to trump development in all cases. It's to say that conversation design needs a seat at the big table.
In this conversation, we'll discuss some of the symptoms of developer-led conversational AI initiatives, the impact that too much technical and not enough design focus has on customer experience, and the benefits of being design-led.
We'll also discuss implementing a design system for conversational AI, scaling conversational applications and more insights on the benefits conversational AI is delivering at Workday.
Find out more about VUX @ VOICE22 presented by Kore AI: www.voicesummit.ai and save 20% on tickets with the code VUX20
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Die hard VUX World fans will remember the episode with Vonage’s Noam Fine, discussing the then recent acquisition of Open AI by Vonage and the plans to build an AI Studio. One year, and another acquisition later (Vonage itself was recently acquired by Ericsson), and those plans have come to fruition with the recent general release of the Vonage AI Studio.
In this episode, I’m joined by two of the leading brains on the Vonage APIs side of the business: Amitha Pulijala, Vice President of Product, and Lawrence Byrd, Communications APIs. Amitha and Lawrence share their observations on market adoption of conversational AI technologies: which markets are growing, on which channels and what use cases? We’ll also chat about business expectations of AI, core adoption challenges and the trend of multimodal design.
Find out more about VUX @ VOICE22 presented by Kore AI: www.voicesummit.ai and save 20% on tickets with the code VUX20
As fantastic as text-based NLP systems are, you can't beat voice. There's so much data in the spoken word that businesses can use to improve their customer experience and add business value. Today, Senseforth co-founder and CEO, Shridhar Marri, joins us to shine some light on the top use cases and future of voice intelligence.
Find out more about VUX @ VOICE22 presented by Kore AI: www.voicesummit.ai and save 20% on tickets with the code VUX20
Harshali Desai, Sr Product Marketing Manager, and Mitch Mason, Product Manager, both work on the conversational AI side of Genesys, the industry-leading CCaaS provider. Harshali and Mitch both join us to share the Genesys approach to conversation design, knowledge management, agent assist and process automation.
Find out more about VUX @ VOICE22 presented by Kore AI: www.voicesummit.ai and save 20% on tickets with the code VUX20
Conversational AI works perfectly when it's applied to conversations that are routine. Conversations that happen all the time with regularity are prime opportunities to automate because they're typically conversations that have defined outcomes. Outcomes that can get boring for a human to pursue.
The drive through ordering experience is one of those scenarios. Vehicle after vehicle, having variations of the same conversation, day in, day out. Many have tried to experiment with conversational AI for this use case, most notably, McDonalds.
However, just because users are having a similar conversation each time, that doesn't make this use case simple. McDonald's, for example, has hundreds of different menu items, different prices based on different locations and promotions changing constantly. Then you have to handle all kinds of ambient noise, different accents and even languages.
The drive through ordering experience is therefore pretty complex for an AI to handle. But, handle it, it does.
We're joined by HUEX Co-Founder, Anik Seth, to discuss how HUEX approaches the problem of creating a voice assistant for drive through restaurants. We'll look at common challenges faced, how the technology works in practice and the value it's bringing some of its early clients.
Find out more at - https://www.huex.ai/
Find out more about VUX @ VOICE22 presented by Kore AI: www.voicesummit.ai and save 20% on tickets with the code VUX20
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OneReach.AI featured as a Leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Conversational AI platforms this year. However, when compared to other platforms out there, there's something distinctly different about the OneReach.AI approach.
Yes, there's a big focus on conversational AI technologies, however, there's just as much (if not more) focus on business process automation. The types of use cases the platform enables are truly transformative and we could all learn a lot about the OneReach automation and AI philosophy. And that's what we're going to do today, with Kevin Fredrick, Managing Partner, OneReach.AI
Buckle up.
Up your CX maturity in this free workshop with yours truly and Cognigy. Find out more: https://vux.world/cognigy
Find out more about VUX @ VOICE22 presented by Kore AI: www.voicesummit.ai and save 20% on tickets with the code VUX20
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Ever wondered why you in-car voice assistant never hears what you say? Ever caught yourself shouting into your headphones on a busy road, trying to wake up your assistant? One of the most challenging parts of voice AI is picking out voices in noisy environments. You can retrain speech recognition models using acoustic modelling and invest in beamforming microphones, but that might not be enough. Today, we meet the company that has cracked voice recognition in extremely noisy environments. Yobe co-founder and CEO, Ken Sutton, joins us to share more on how he and his team have cracked the ‘cocktail party problem’.
Up your CX maturity in this free workshop with yours truly and Cognigy. Find out more: https://vux.world/cognigy
Find out more about VUX @ VOICE22 presented by Kore AI: www.voicesummit.ai and save 20% on tickets with the code VUX20
Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.
Peter Voss coined the term ‘AGI’ (artificial general intelligence) and is one of the best brains in the business to discuss the real potential of artificial intelligence to behave like humans. Can we build machines that can think? That are conscious? What needs to happen for us to have that ever-present AI assistant we’ve been dreaming of? The JARVIS, the Holly, the Computer, the Hal’s of the world. Peter Voss is the co-founder, CEO and Chief Scientist at Aigo, a conversational AI technology that uses a brain-like cognitive architecture – also known as ‘The Third Wave of AI’.
According to Peter, this approach puts Aigo at ‘Light Years’ ahead of chatbots and other so-called ‘Personal Assistants’, and puts it at the forefront of Conversational AI.
Current chatbot technologies used in the enterprise and consumer space, have serious inherent limitations: They do not remember what was said before, cannot learn interactively, do not have deep contextual understanding, and cannot reason or explain themselves. This makes meaningful ongoing conversation impossible.
This capability gap has created massive unmet demand – one Aigo aims to fill.
In this episode of VUX World, Kane Simms is joined by Peter Voss to go deep on the potential of AI to mimic or become conscious, the limitations of other AI systems and the Aigo way.
Up your CX maturity in this free workshop with yours truly and Cognigy. Find out more: https://vux.world/cognigy
Find out more about VUX @ VOICE22 presented by Kore AI: www.voicesummit.ai and save 20% on tickets with the code VUX20
Visit - https://aigo.ai/
Peter Voss on Medium https://medium.com/@petervoss
Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.
Meredith Schulz has scaled LivePerson's conversation design practice from 3 to 12 people in the last couple of years. As the Sr Conversation Design Manager, Meredith has barrels of experience in conversation design best practice and tons of learnings on what it takes to grow your team successfully. Meredith and I will be chatting about key considerations and learnings for scaling a conversation design team: process and principles, governance and management, documentation and artefacts, design and development overlap, roles and responsibilities, channels and design nuances, readiness and optimisation and much much more.
Up your CX maturity in this free workshop with yours truly and Cognigy. Find out more: https://vux.world/cognigy
Find out more about VUX @ VOICE22 presented by Kore AI: https://www.voicesummit.ai and save 20% on tickets with the code VUX20
Check out https://www.liveperson.com/
To join Conversational Collective https://www.convocollective.org/
With over a decade of experience designing conversational interfaces, Dawn Harpster is part of a rare breed. Currently Senior Conversation Architect at TalkDesk, Dawn joins me for a conversation about why most chatbots just aren't that good.
What mistakes do conversation designers commonly make? What skills do conversation designers often lack? What are some of the common misconceptions that we have in the industry today? Does your digital assistant really need a personality? All will be revealed, plus top tips on how to do things right!
Find out more about VUX @ VOICE22 presented by Kore AI: www.voicesummit.ai and save 20% on tickets with the code VUX20
How to avoid the uncanny valley in voice design | Talkdesk
Designing customer conversations: Best practices - Guides | Talkdesk
Botcopy is a Google Cloud Partner that augments the workflow and usability of DialogFlow. We're joined by CMO, Rob Lubow to discuss the what, how and why of DialogFlow augmentation, plus some top tips for authoring chatbots and digital assistants that delight customers.
Niche player in Gartner's 2022 Magic Quadrant for enterprise conversational AI platforms, Aisera has been making moves to bring the best AI service experience to market. We're joined by Aisera CEO and investor, Muddu Sudhakar, to discuss the Aisera philosophy for AI mediated service provision and how it enables enterprises to get the best out of their human resources.
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
There's a reason why the digital human market is forecast to reach $527 billion by 2030. And it's not all about the metaverse. One of the companies leading the digital human charge is UneeQ, and we're joined by CEO, Danny Tomsett, to dive into the rising trend of digital humans, branded avatars, virtual influencers and more. We'll discuss how and where digital humans are and will be used, the value they add to users, customers and businesses, as well as how you can get started on your digital human journey.
Check out -
https://digitalhumans.com/
https://iamsophie.io/
www.uneeq.com
Braden Ream is the CEO of the rapidly growing conversation design platform, Voiceflow. Braden and his team spend their days working to understand how conversation designers work, and what they need. Needless to say, he’s worked with countless conversation design teams and is perfectly placed to highlight some observations on what the best conversation design teams in the world do well. You’ll learn the signs of conversation design maturity as well as pointers on how to improve your practice.
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Orlando Gadea is the Global VP Customer Experience Transformation at Stanley Black & Decker, Inc, with over 6 years experience in managing conversational chatbots. Orlando joins us to share why you’ll probably build your first chatbot twice.
Rabobank is one of the leading banks in The Netherlands. Join Stefan Bijkerk, Data-analyst & Conversational AI Specialist, Rabobank, to learn all about the use cases and channels used by Rabobank’s AI assistant to serve its customers and the business value it brings. Learn how Rabobank approaches identifying use cases and taking ideas from concept to production, as well as conversation design best practices for the banking industry.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Philip Bennett is the Customer Service Operations Manager at Empire Today, the USA’s largest direct-to-consumer shop-at-home flooring provider. Philip joins us to share case studies on how Empire Today is using conversational AI to improve customer experience and business outcomes. We’ll chat about what’s working, what’s not, and how a ‘traditional’ business can apply emerging technology and fuel its transformation efforts.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Beerud Sheth founded popular freelancing service, Upwork, and now co-founded and heads-up the leading conversational AI platform for emerging markets, Gupshup.
Gupshup has been on a mission lately, with acquisition after acquisition, and expanding into all emerging economies. Beerud joins us to share the Gupshup story, as well as how conversational AI is being adopted across emerging markets such as APAC. We’ll discuss the difference in customer behaviour and experience in these markets, as well as how that changes business strategy and technology solutions.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Greg Whiteside, CEO, Human First joins us to share how you can use data to build better bots, why we’re focusing too much on data labelling and why your help centres and knowledge bases are underrated goldmines.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Has digital assistant performance finally been nailed? Frank Schneider returns to VUX World to discuss and share the new digital assistant scorecard from Speakeasy AI.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Check out Speakeasyai.com
Check out the Digital assistant scorecard
Marc Bernstein, CEO, Balto, and Kane Simms, CEO, VUX World, knock their heads together again in another episode of shoot the shiz, discussing the latest trends in CX and beyond, including:
- Friendly competition - zoom and Genesys
- Irish Bank - 2 hour wait times
- Nearly 20% of brands have seen a dip in customer experience quality.
- A great post from Andrew Moorehouse on the Death of Live Chat. Analysis from studying 10,000 live chat transcriptions. It’s bad. “Not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good” (Shout out to Run DMC).
Check out Balto
Subscribe to VUX World
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Aflorithmic is on a mission to help you create high quality audio at a fraction of the time and cost. One of the most intense parts about creating audio for video, radio, smart speakers or, indeed, voice assistants and voice user interfaces, is that you need to learn what you’re doing. You need to learn your way around a DAW, understand compression, EQ, reverb, ducking and a whole load of other audio engineering practices. All of this makes high quality audio difficult to produce and reserved for those skilled enough.
Aflorithmic is on a mission to change that. And to share how audio production can be made more streamlined, and how that can fit into a designer’s workflow, we’re joined by Aflorithmic CEO, Timo Kunz.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Check out https://aflorithmic.ai
Register for 'The irony of big tech: why your speech recognition is probably a load of tosh': https://vux.la/3ySe8n8
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I recently spoke at, and facilitated, a webinar with Ilan Avner of AudioCodes discussing how to integrate voice assistants into call centres. This is the audio from that webinar. First, there's a presentation from me sharing some insights on the value voice assistants can bring and pointers for implementing. Then, Ilan shares the Voice AI Connect product and how you can use it to integrate any voice assistant, from any technology framework, into any call centre.
You can watch the whole thing here: https://bit.ly/3wN0Wgu
One thing is for sure; conversational AI systems are a challenge to test and maintain. Yet, without robust testing, there's no way of guaranteeing quality. And high quality interactions are all that matter. Without assuring the quality of your assistant, it won't achieve the results you hope it will, rendering your whole strategy pointless.
To share the importance of quality assurance, and to walk you through the core steps and activities in your QA pipeline, we're joined by Christoph Börner, CEO, Botium.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Visit https://www.botium.ai/
Register for 'The irony of big tech: why your speech recognition is probably a load of tosh': https://vux.la/3ySe8n8
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Cobus Greyling led Vodacom's Tobi implementation in South Africa, and is a well-known entity in the conversational AI space. His consistent analysis of leading conversational AI platforms on Medium is a must read for anyone serious about CAI. After leaving Vodacom and having the public speaking shackles released, Cobus joins me to share his take on how to make conversational AI work for large enterprises.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Visit https://cobusgreyling.medium.com
Register for 'The irony of big tech: why your speech recognition is probably a load of tosh': https://vux.la/3ySe8n8
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Learn how one of the world's largest global banks is using conversational AI in its call centre to improve customer experience. Andy Kingston, Head of UK Customer Service Strategy and Transformation at HSBC, joins us to share key insights and learnings from HSBC's journey with conversational AI.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Just how much of your data is being processed by AI systems? And to what end? Most of us don't have a clue what's happening to the data we share with businesses on a day to day basis. We don't even know what data is being captured in the first place. Throw AI assistants into the mix and we're even more lost than we were.
With algorithms making decisions and AI assistants mediating our interactions, understanding what data is being captured, how it's stored and used is crucial if we're ever going to fully trust AI services and the companies that run them. Yet most companies are way behind here. Most have big blind spots.
Joining us to shed light on this and reveal these blind spots is Patricia Thaine, CEO, Private AI.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
AMRO Bank is the market-leading bank in The Netherlands, and Jeroen Das is leading the conversational automation charge. We chat with Jeroen about use cases, channels, business drivers and outcomes, as well as tips and tricks for scaling your conversational AI from nothing to over 1.5 million conversations per year.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Brad Cleveland is an author, speaker, and consultant known globally for his expertise in customer strategy and management. He joins us on VUX World to share his perspectives on the current customer experience challenges faced by enterprises and how AI technologies are lending a hand in helping.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Contact Center Management on Fast Forward
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Contact-Center-Management-Fast-Forward/dp/0985461136/ref=asc_df_0985461136/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=375380075215&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11156800645384276776&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006766&hvtargid=pla-817016422457&psc=1&th=1&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=79766932074&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=375380075215&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11156800645384276776&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006766&hvtargid=pla-817016422457
Customer Experience Leadership
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leading-Customer-Experience-Deliver-Outstanding/dp/1789666872
10 components of a customer success strategy
https://www.bradcleveland.com/10-components-of-a-customer-access-strategy/
Customer access strategy worksheet
https://brad-cleveland-public.s3.amazonaws.com/2021/07/Customer-Access-Strategy-Worksheet-website.pdf
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Marks and Spencer, one of the UK's leading retailers, has been using conversational AI across the web and contact centre for some years. Steven Siddall, Contact Systems Lead at Marks and Spencer, joins us to share the M&S journey.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Homeserve is one of UK’s leading home assistance providers, from plumbing, drainage, electrics, heating and more. In 2021 Homeserve began exploring the use of Google DialogFlow for customer service automation. Phil Jordan, Head of Contact Channel Automation and Self Service, joins us to share the successes and lessons learned.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Instacart is the world’s largest online grocery service. Ayesha Saleem is the Conversation Design Manager and joins us to share how Instacart is using conversational AI, the team and resources involved, the results they’ve achieved and best practice tips for designing and implementing conversational AI solutions.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
London North Eastern Railway has been trialling digital avatars in its train stations to help travellers with a wide variety of needs. Innovation Manager, Robert Cunningham, joins us to share the LNER journey into conversational AI applications and discusses the why, what and how.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Chatbots and voicebots are quick and easy. No problem at all. That's the myth that needs to be shattered here. Many people, when they embark on their first conversational AI project, underestimate the amount of time and effort required to design, build, deploy and maintain their assistants.
Matt Portillo, Conversation Design Lead at Amelia, joins us to share why conversational AI projects aren't really projects; they're long-term journeys as well as how you should prepare and the steps you should take to ensure success.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
As more enterprises look to implement AI solutions, finding out where to start can be a challenge. What capabilities do you need? How can you tell whether one provider's capabilities is better than another? How do you know it'll do the job you need it to? We're joined by Yellow AI's CTO, Jaya Kishore, to run through the core components that make up a conversational AI platform and to dive deep into the best practice for making sure that you deliver the best customer experience possible.
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
Find out more about yellow.ai
Raj Tumuluri has spent a 25-year career in speech technology and AI, and has been pioneering speech and multimodal interfaces for decades. He's the CEO of Gartner Magic Quadrant Visionary, OpenStream.ai and joins us to share his learnings on 25 years of working with conversational AI solutions and why multimodal interfaces are the future.
Check out https://openstream.ai
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
Voice AI has come a long way in the last few years. Why, then, do we still get asked to provide secret passwords, shoe size and your mother’s pet fish’s maiden name before anyone at any company will speak to you about your needs?
The scope and quality of AI-mediated interactions that are now possible is incredible, but there remain fundamental security challenges that are difficult to overcome. For many interactions, we need to know who the user is claiming to be and be confident that they are that person. Most of these challenges keep companies stuck asking silly quiz questions to validate who you are, instead of using technology to make it easier.
Matt Smallman's new book Unlock Your Call Centre: A proven way to upgrade security, efficiency and caller experience covers these challenges in forensic detail and lays out an approach to resolving them using modern technologies such as Voice Biometrics and Network Authentication that is as applicable to Voice User Interfaces as it is to the Call Centre.
Matt's book is launched today and he will be joining me live (5pm BST, 12pm EDT, 9am PDT) on the VUX World podcast to discuss the book and it's implications for Voice AI. You can join us live and be able to ask questions
Download the book on kindle us- https://amzn.to/3Lbzy1m
Download the book on kindle uk- https://amzn.to/3wCAdEY
Buy the book- https://amzn.to/3Lbzy1m
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Many organisations have aspirations to scale their AI automation efforts. If you have a chatbot that's working well, then why not?
Why not find new use cases, enter new channels, serve more customers and improve everything all the time?
Sounds great, but how? What team would you need? What skills? What technology will underpin your strategy and how is it best implemented?
We're joined by Rasa CTO, Alan Nichol, to discuss how enterprise brands can scale their conversational automation properly.
Check out https://rasa.com for more information
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
Sign up to 'Is AI coming for your job?' webinar
Sign up to 'The Easy Way to Integrate Voicebots with Your Customer Service Solution' webinar
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Charles Guth is the Customer Services Manager at Decathlon UK. Learn how Decathlon is using conversational AI; it's use cases, value and learnings.
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
Sign up to 'Is AI coming for your job?' webinar
Sign up to 'The Easy Way to Integrate Voicebots with Your Customer Service Solution' webinar
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
A deep dive into how Deutsche Telekom is using and applying NLP solutions, and how it's approaching creating internal tools for building and managing AI solutions. Solutions that are so good, it's releasing them for public use.
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
Sign up to 'The end of "Can you repeat that?"' webinar
Sign up to 'The Easy Way to Integrate Voicebots with Your Customer Service Solution' webinar
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
By now, you know that implementing a conversational AI strategy isn't child's play. It's pretty hard work. And there are many moving parts that need to align to create a digital assistant that does what your customers need it to. Language classification at scale, catering for multiple languages, scaling across channels, tools, systems, data; do you outsource the whole thing or do it yourself? So many questions.
To dive into this and shed some light on how you should approach it, and how humans and bots working together in real time can lead to epic customer experiences, we're joined by Lisa Michaud, Product Director, Interactions.
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
Check out the ConversationalInteraction conference: https://conversationalinteraction.com
Learn more about interactions: https://interactions.com
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
The pandemic took its toll on many industries, not least hospitality. With venues closing and staff shortages, simply getting by has been a challenge. Now that we're coming out of the pandemic, learn how the hospitality industry is turning to AI solutions to make up for lost revenue.
We're joined by Brian Jeppesen, Director, Contact Centre Operations, Landry's Restaurants and Hospitality, to discuss how an AI-enabled call centre has enabled Landry's to bounce back stronger than ever.
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
Sign up to 'The end of "Can you repeat that?"' webinar: https://vux.world/the-end-of-can-you-...
Sign up to 'The Easy Way to Integrate Voicebots with Your Customer Service Solution' webinar https://online.audiocodes.com/voiceai...
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Conversational commerce is a topic that is never far away from the headlines, but the practical application in the real world seems to be lagging behind the expectations of the conversational AI industry and technology analysts. Although purchases through voice assistant platforms like Amazon Alexa and Google assistant are increasing marginally year-on-year, we're not seeing the kind of explosion that we might have expected back in 2017.
How about if you were to deploy an AI agent in the CallCenter to make outbound sales calls or receive inbound sales calls? How effective would that be? Adoption is backed into the channel, expectations are already understood and saw the potential is seemingly endless.
We are joined by Brian Pollock Pollock CEO of a new start-up, vocoder, which is seeking to revolutionise sales in the CallCenter. We will speak to Brian about use cases, the trends he is seeing in the conversational commerce space, and how organisations can utilise and benefit from AI managed sales.
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
00:00 Intro and shout out to Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Sign up to 'The end of "Can you repeat that?"' webinar: https://vux.world/the-end-of-can-you-repeat-that/
03:24 Welcome Brian
08:08 Call centre challenges and automation goals
11:40 AI is more than cost saving
16:10 Feeling more comfortable talking to bots
17:50 Outbound dialling AI use cases
21:50 Key qualities for stand out customer experience
24:20 End to end Ai processes
28:00 AI leads to new business requirements
33:27 Data analysis and insights
39:30 Making data-based AI solutions
41:40 Vocodia technology pipeline
50:00 Importance of speed and how to mask API delays
56:40 Next steps for AI technology
58:08 Outro
Find out more about Vocodia: https://vocodia.com
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Hot off the heels of the latest State of Voice Technology report, Deepgram CEO, Scott Stephenson, returns to VUX World to give us the low down on the current voice technology landscape, who's using it, for what, where the value is, and the latest progress on AI ethics.
Deepgram startup program: https://deepgram.com/startup-program/
State of Voice Technology report: https://deepgram.com/state-of-voice-technology-2022/
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
00:00 Intro and presenting Deepgram and Symbl.ai
02:30 The end of 'Can you repeat that'... Learn more: https://vux.world/the-end-of-can-you-repeat-that/
04:25 Developments in speech recognition
07:46 B2B vs B2C speech recognition adoption
11:20 Example of AI-first products
14:33 AI products for accessibility
15:36 Outstanding ASR challenges
22:40 On device speech recognition
26:53 The intelligence revolution
34:30 Side effects of technology revolutions
37:00 Real time translations
41:50 Outro
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Emmy Award-winning Respeecher is changing the speech synthesis game. Move over TTS and SSML, and enter Speech to Speech.
CEO, Alex Serdiuk, joins us to share more.
Supporting UkraineThe VoiceLunch Foundation is taking donations to help support the voice lunch and voice technology community in Ukraine. VUX World has, of course, donated. I plead with you to donate too.
Donate here
Learn more at https://respeecher.com
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
Running order:
00:00 Intro and presenting Deepgram and Symbl.ai
04:05 Welcome Alex and closing the Ukraine airspace
08:40 About Respeecher
12:40 Sourcing voices
14:10 Nixon and winning an Emmy
17:37 Process of creating speech to speech
25:34 Limitations of TTS for long for audio
29:00 The future of voice acting
34:25 Voice marketplace
38:00 Pricing of speech to speech voices
42:00 How to achieve higher quality voices
43:30 Accessibility
48:50 Endless use cases
51:00 Ethics
55:54 Outro and more information
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Where’s conversation design headed? Is technology taking over, making designers redundant? Will technology like GPT-3 make a designer's life easier? How has the role of conversation design evolved over the years and what’s going to change or remain in future? Join Voxable’s Matt Buck and Lauren Golembiewski to dive deep into the future of conversation design.
Learn more at https://voxable.io
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Disruptel really is building the future of voice assistants. Imagine being able to ask your TV things like "How tall is the guy on the left?" and get an answer. Or ask "What's that jacket James Bond is wearing?" and be able to buy the exact same jacket right there and then from your sofa.
Well, that's what Disruptel is building. Voice assistants that can see, sell and much more.
Advised by the legendary creator of Apple Siri and Samsung Bixby, Adam Cheyer, the potential of Disruptel is, well, disruptive... And huge.
We're joined by CEO Alex Quinn to hear about the vision for Disruptel, the use cases it enables and the future of voice assistants that can see.
Learn more at https://disruptel.com
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.aiDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
LumenVox provides AI-driven speech and authentication technology used by some of the world's leading communication providers.
Join CRO, Shawn Edmunds, and VUX World's Kane Simms, to explore how LumenVox has been building a technology that makes customer relations faster, stronger and safer than ever before.
00:00 Intro, presenting Deepgram and Symbl.ai
02:35 Introducing Shawn Edmunds
05:00 Nokia, Nuance and exposure to AI
08:00 AI hype vs belief
10:15 Bad IVR experiences
13:40 Lumenvox
15:30 2013 vs today
19:20 Lumenvox capabilities
25:20 Top drawer use cases
29:20 Enterprise AI migration
31:10 Will switching AI services be common?
38:20 Partnerships
41:30 Implementing AI solutions
44:35 Scaling an AI tech company
46:30 Under-utilised AI capabilities
49:50 Who's responsible for innovation?
55:10 Companies are just a big bunch of partners
58:40 Links and resources
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
DOSS is more than an assistant. It's an entirely new, disruptive business model for real estate. We chat to CEO, Bobby Bryant, about all things conversational AI and disruption.
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free at https://symbl.ai
Timestamps00:00 Intro and presenting Deepgram and Symbl.ai
03:29 Welcome Bobby Bryant, CEO and co-founder, DOSS
08:10 Riding the Apple Siri wave
09:30 What is DOSS?
11:44 Standalone service vs interface layer
13:48 Going to production
18:00 Understanding user needs
20:15 Data or die
22:40 Value prop: VUI or data?
27:00 Enabling disruptive business models
31:50 Where the money flows
34:00 Real estate markets
36:00 Disrupting the real estate industry
42:44 Protecting user information and privacy
46:45 Technology ready, user adoption lacking
47:35 Beginning on IBM Watson
53:30 Transitional moments, Simon Sinek's why...
56:50 Wrapping up
LinksAskDOSS.com
Follow DOSS on Twitter and connect on LinkedIn
Connect with Bobby on LinkedIn
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Kane Simms, CEO, VUX World, and Marc Bernstein, CEO, Balto, analyse the week's customer experience and technology news and happenings.
00:00 Howdy, Super Bowl
01:16 The magic of voice
06:55 Limitations and potential of voice and smart TVs
13:13 Why hasn't Alexa got better faster?
17:00 Alexa: verticalising vs ecosystems
20:35 Charter's first class phone service
28:00 Moving from reacting to proactive CX
31:38 Technology and consistency
34:30 DeepMind's AlphaCode: computers that can code
37:40 AI to enhance developer productivity
41:20 Productivity vs the creation of crap
41:55 Will problems ever be absolutely solved?
45:30 Gartner's Magic Quadrant and its role
51:07 Sign off
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There's a labour shortage in the contact centre. Agents are overworked and companies can't recruit. How are enterprises coping with these challenges and what role does technology play? We're joined by Anand Janefalkar, Founder & CEO at UJET, to explore the 2022 contact centre trends and how businesses can overcome these challenges to prosper.
Checkout ujet
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.aiDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free.
- Visit Symbl.ai
- Symbl.ai LinkedIn
- Symbl.ai on Twitter
- Symbl.ai on Facebook
- Symbl.ai on Instagram
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Many companies have played around with voice assistants and chatbots, but few are operating at true scale... Yet.
You see, when you go from playing with prototypes into proper production, and from one bot to sixteen bots, things change.
Join Cognigy Co-Founder and CEO, Philipp Heltewig, and VUX World's Kane Simms, as we discuss the biggest challenges facing companies deploying conversational AI today... Scale.
And, crucially, how to do it properly.
LinksVisit Cognigy.com
Learn at the Cognigy AcademyPresented by Deepgram and Symbl.aiDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See how easy it is to add simple but powerful call coaching and call tracking functionality to your customer experience solutions with Symbl.ai’s customizable Conversation Intelligence APIs. From calls to videos to text conversations — apply best in class contextual AI in no time by getting started for free.
- Visit Symbl.ai
- Symbl.ai LinkedIn
- Symbl.ai on Twitter
- Symbl.ai on Facebook
- Symbl.ai on Instagram
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Most chatbots are rubbish. Let's face it. The only way you can improve the ability for chatbots to respond better is if you work on its ability to understand people.
That's what QBox does.
We're joined by CTO, Benoit Alvarez, to discuss why most companies have trouble building successful bots and how the QBox tooling drastically improves your chatbot's performance.
For more information, visit https://qbox.ai
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.aiSymbl.ai is a Conversation Intelligence (CI) platform for building applications capable of understanding natural human conversations at scale. Their comprehensive suite of developer-centric products and APIs make it easy to build and deploy intelligent speech-to-text functionality, extract contextual insights, generate domain-specific insights and intelligence, and access advanced conversation analytics.
https://symbl.ai
https://www.linkedin.com/company/symbldotai
https://twitter.com/symbldotai
https://www.facebook.com/symbldotai
https://www.instagram.com/symbldotai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
https://www.linkedin.com/company/deepgram
https://twitter.com/deepgramai
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Symbl.ai is on a mission to revolutionise work, from lead generation, internal meeting management, sales and customer care.
Join CEO, Surbhi Rathore, and VUX World's Kane Simms, to explore what conversational intelligence is, and businesses are using it to create impactful experiences and results.
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Symbl.ai is a Conversation Intelligence (CI) platform for building applications capable of understanding natural human conversations at scale. Their comprehensive suite of developer-centric products and APIs make it easy to build and deploy intelligent speech-to-text functionality, extract contextual insights, generate domain-specific insights and intelligence, and access advanced conversation analytics.
https://symbl.ai
https://www.linkedin.com/company/symbldotai
https://twitter.com/symbldotai
https://www.facebook.com/symbldotai
https://www.instagram.com/symbldotai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
https://www.linkedin.com/company/deepgram
https://twitter.com/deepgramai
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Scotty Technologies CEO, Roland Hallebeek, and CTO, Reiner Bruns, join us to share use cases and details on how Scotty uses AI to not only automate conversations, but to streamline business processes in recruitment, healthcare, retail and more industries.
We discuss the Scotty Technologies approach to customer experience automation and augmentation and how its conversational AI platform is delivering value to businesses from across industries including recruitment, healthcare and retail.
Find out more at http://scottytechnologies.com
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.ai
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
https://www.linkedin.com/company/deepgram
https://twitter.com/deepgramai
Symbl.ai is a Conversation Intelligence (CI) platform for building applications capable of understanding natural human conversations at scale. Their comprehensive suite of developer-centric products and APIs make it easy to build and deploy intelligent speech-to-text functionality, extract contextual insights, generate domain-specific insights and intelligence, and access advanced conversation analytics.
https://symbl.ai
https://www.linkedin.com/company/symbldotai
https://twitter.com/symbldotai
https://www.facebook.com/symbldotai
https://www.instagram.com/symbldotai
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Rana Gujral is an entrepreneur, speaker, investor, and CEO at Behavioral Signals, an enterprise software company that excels at distinguishing behavioral signals in speech data with its proprietary deep learning technology.
Rana joins us to share how Behavioral Signals emotional AI mediated technology is leading to 12-17% revenue improvement, +8% Call Success Ratio and +10% Customer Satisfaction in the call centre.
Learn more about Behavioral Signals
Presented by Deepgram and Symbl.aiDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
Symbl.ai is a Conversation Intelligence (CI) platform for building applications capable of understanding natural human conversations at scale. Their comprehensive suite of developer-centric products and APIs make it easy to build and deploy intelligent speech-to-text functionality, extract contextual insights, generate domain-specific insights and intelligence, and access advanced conversation analytics.
- Visit Symbl.ai
- Symbl.ai LinkedIn
- Symbl.ai on Twitter
- Symbl.ai on Facebook
- Symbl.ai on Instagram
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
The first in a new collaborative series where Kane Simms, founder of VUX World and host of this VUX World podcast, and Marc Bernstein, CEO at Balto and host of the Reimagining the Contact Centre podcast, join forces to discuss and analyse broader technology and customer behaviour trends, and how it relates to the adoption and usage of AI.
In this first episode, we discuss:
- The impossibility of finding a note-taking app that does it all
- Capability provision vs product
- The value and challenges of tech starting in academia
- Brain-machine interfaces
- The pace of tech advancement vs the pace of consumer adoption
- How the pandemic opened our acceptance to adopt new tech
- Deepfakes and AI literacy
- Finding the truth
- The inevitability of dominating market leaders
- Market volatility and quality
Links
- https://gettingthingsdone.com/
- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Skin-Game-Hidden-Asymmetries-Daily/dp/0241247470
- Morgan Freeman Deepfake
- Find out more about Balto
- Find out more about VUX World
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Embodied Inc. is the company behind Moxie, the social robot who’s sole objective is to help kids develop socio-emotional skills and traits. We’re joined by CTO, Stefan Scherer to discuss the design and engineeringconsiderations for creating a robot that uses natural language processing for its primary user interface, but thatalso has a face. This is the future of multi-modal conversation design.
Learn more about Moxie
Presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Who Else AI is developing a namespace protocol for the Internet of Voice. Open source, privacy-by-design, and based on public industry standards. Founder, Tobias Martens join us to share why an open voice protocol is critical and how Who Else AI is approaching making it a possibility.
Visit whoelse.ai for more information.
Presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Jan Sedivy is a legend in the voice AI space, with vast experience working on speech systems at IBM and Google. He recently guided the Czech Technical University team in winning the Alexa Prize SocialBot Grand Challenge 4; a competition where contestants from Universities across the globe aimed to design a conversational AI that’s able to hold a conversation for 20 minutes.
Jan joins us to share the journey through the Alexa Prize, how the team approached the project, lessons learned and conversation design tips geared to increase engagement with AI bots. He also shares some insights from his career in voice tech and his latest venture, Promethist AI.
LinksFlowstorm.ai
Promethist.ai
Talk to Poppy
Connect with Jan on LinkedIn
Presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Senior Director of Conversation Design at [24]7.ai, Celene Osiecka joins us to share best practice on conversation design at scale for enterprise.
Celene Osiecka is part of a rare breed of conversation designers with 10 year's experience. Although conversation design has been a practice for decades, it's only recently that the term has become solidified as its begun to reach mainstream awareness.
This is in part due to the rise in popularity of chatbots since 2016, and also due to the wide adoption of voice assistants on mobile and smart speakers. However, even the early adopters of those platforms still only have 5 year's experience at best.
So whenever you have the opportunity to speak to someone who has an unusual amount of experience across all kinds of conversational interfaces, you know you're in for a treat.
We chatted to Celene about:
- The maturity of the conversation design practice
- Celene's experience and about [24]7.ai
- Examples of new conversation design new best practice
- Personality design and the role it plays in conversation design
- Best practice and challenges when designing in teams
- The future of the conversation design role
LinksMore information on the services that [24]7.ai offers
Connect with Celene on LinkedIn
Presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
SoundHound Director Of Business Development, Darin Clark, join us to share the ins and outs of wake word detection for voice AI and speech recognition systems.
One of the crucial parts of creating a voice assistant is the ability for the assistant to start listening when you say its name. For example "Alexa", "Hey Siri" or "OK Google". They are all examples of 'wake words'. But how to you create your own wake word for your brand? How do you deploy a wake word onto something like an app or some hardware, such as an in-car infotainment system, a speaker or even a fridge or other smart device?
All of those questions will be answered, and more, in this live interview with Darin Clark, Director Of Business Development at leading voice AI company, SoundHound.
Presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Stories covered:
- LinkedIn allows newsletters in the UK: sign up to conversational AI and NLP here
- Kane closes SwissCognitive Cognitive Virtual event with 'AI strategy in 5 days' talk
- Wake word detection with SoundHound's Darin Clark
- Microsoft release contact centre with AI at its core
- The future of NLU with Chandra Khatri
- Making audio more discoverable with Gal Klein
- Symbl.ai raises $17m. Join CEO, Surbhi Rathore on VUX World Live on 25th November
- Inworld AI raises $7m
- NVIDIA's Audio2Face
- Coinbase acquires Agara
- Sonos voice assistant code leaked
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Chandra Khatri is the Head of AI at emerging startup, Got It AI, and joins us to share the future of NLU systems and how transformer-based models (explained in detail for the layperson) are heralding a new line of capabilities and making a new kind of customer experience possible.
Chandra used to work on the Alexa team and was the founding brain behind the Alexa Prize which, to date, has been responsible for some of the most innovative work on multi-turn conversational AI development. Many of the outputs of the Alexa Prize have made it into the core Alexa product, such as Alexa Conversations.
Chandra then worked as one of the founding members of the Uber conversational AI team before heading up the AI division at Got It AI.
LinksVisit Got It AI
Presented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit: https://deepgram.com/vuxworld
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Audio is chronically difficult to find. Invisible and not indexed in the usual places people search for information, such as online and in emerging contexts such as voice assistants. Yet, there's so much audio being produced and so much rich and dense information contained within it.
Think about this podcast. In this conversation with Audioburst CEO, Gal Klein, we discuss a whole manner of different challenges when it comes to discovering audio content, both bite-sized summaries and long form information. Yet, you'll need to listen to the whole thing in order to benefit from it. And how did you find it? In a podcast player probably.
But why can't you just ask Google what the main challenge with audio discoverability is, then dip straight into the specific part of this podcast where Gal explains it?
The answer? Audio is notoriously difficult to understand and summarise. Yet, that is what Audioburst does.
In this conversation, we discuss some of the core challenges with audio discoverability, the value of both short and long form audio and how Audioburst helps creators and businesses make their audio more discoverable.
Links
www.audioburst.com
Instreamatic allows advertisers to create and distribute interactive audio ads that you can talk to. CEO, Stas Tushinskiy, joins us to share insights into the emerging world of interactive advertising and his lessons learned in building the innovative interactive audio platform.
Linksinstreamatic.com
The State of Voice Advertising
Presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Clinc co-Founder, Author, Founder and CEO ofZeroShotBot, serial entrepreneur and all roundconversational AI veteran, Prof. Jason Mars, joins usto share his latest work in advanced conversational AIsystems and where it’s all heading.
Links
https://www.zeroshotbot.com
https://www.breakbots.com
Presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Albert Jordan, Vice President and General Manager of Automotive Applications at HARMAN International. and Joe Iacobelli, Director, Sales Engineering, Products and Strategy, Cerence, join us on VUX World to share more about the Harman and Cerence partnership that brings voice AI to third-party application providers and OEMs providing in-car services through the Harman infotainment systems and the Harman Ignite Store.
Presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Authors of Conversations with Things, Rebecca Evanhoe and Diana Deibel, join us to share conversation design best practice and lessons learned from over a decade of designing conversations with things.
Links
Buy Conversations with Things
Connect with Rebecca Evanhoe on LinkedIn
Connect with Diana Deibel on LinkedIn
Presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
The future of conversation designI rocked the boat a little over the last few weeks, making some statements about the future of conversation design. How technology will improve and intent-less NLU and other technology will change the role of a conversation designer. How the way we think about conversations isn’t always conducive to producing great customer experiences.
One company that is pushing the boundaries of conversation design is OpenDialog. It’s unique approach of an intent-last mindset is nothing like I’ve seen before.
Ronald Ashri has been instrumental in leading the OpenDialog team and approach. He joins us this week to share more on the OpenDialog conversation design philosophy, the tooling and his thoughts on the future of conversation design.
Links
Visit OpenDialog.ai
Connect with Ronald Ashri on LinkedInPresented by Deepgram
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
When Google comes across a voice AI automation problem that it can't solve, and needs to bring in another company to help solve it, you can assume that the company they use know a thing or two about voice AI. You can also assume that company has some compelling technology at its disposal.
Meet Sovran AI CRO, Clive Elleforde. Clive has decades of experience in business, technology and startup growth and is leading the growth charge at UK-based voice AI tech company, Sovran AI.
Sovran AI has been reaching over 90% automation rates when automating conversations in contact centres with the likes of Sky. Compared to the average level of 11% automation reported by McKinsey, that's pretty impressive.
Clive joins us to share more about what Sovran AI does, how it approaches voice AI automation, and some of the secret sauce that enables Sovran AI to achieve such high levels of accuracy, and so quickly (some Sovran AI projects have gone live in weeks).
Presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit:
- Deepgram website
- Deepgram on LinkedIn
- Deepgram on Twitter
Links
Visit Sovran AI
Email Clive Elleford directly
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
The CEO of rising conversational AI platform provider, Hyro, joins us to share insights on the unique approach taken to create its NLU technology and the kind of results its seeing in market.
Israel Krush shares the ins and outs of Hyro's philosophy, its intentness NLU approach and the importance of knowledge management.
We get into why, when using Hyro, there's less of a need for designing conversational flows and how the technology is able to make decisions about what questions to ask next based on the data. This is because of a combination of a linguistic approach to NLU creation and through pairing that with a bespoke knowledge graph with documents content, entities and the relationship between them.
We discuss some of the challenges organisations have when implementing conversational AI, how Hyro is helping clients overcome them and how a seemingly straightforward deployment is managed and maintained.
This episode of VUX World is presented by DeepgramDeepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Our easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products. For more information, visit https://deepgram.com/vuxworld.
Links:
https://hyro.ai
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Deepgram is a Speech Company whose goal is to have every voice heard and understood. We have revolutionized speech-to-text (STT) with an End-to-End Deep Learning platform. This AI architectural advantage means you don’t have to compromise on speed, accuracy, scalability, or cost to build the next big idea in voice. Its easy-to-use SDKs and APIs allow developers to quickly test and embed our STT solution into their voice products.
We sat down with CEO, Scott Stephenson and discussed all things speech recognition including;
- how a particle physicist turned into a speech recognition expert,
- how Deepgram approaches creating ASR,
- what use cases their customers are utilising the service for,
- the different between Deepgram and it's big tech competitors,
- why deep learning is an important differentiator,
- why speed is important and how quick its response times are,
- accuracy levels and training/tuning ASR,
- how to select a speech recognition vendor and much much more
LinksVisit Deepgram.com
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Kordel France discusses how Seekar Technologies is approaching AI and how it's using its unique technologies and multi-model processing of a variety of input signals (from speech, to vision, to radar and other signals) and helping disadvantaged industries such as medicine, agriculture and manufacturing solve some core problems.
From using speech recognition to detect whether someone is lying, to mental health screening and how combining voice AI with other inputs and modalities can have a huge impact on the value of the solution.
Seekar's approach is to reduce bias in AI processing through it's 'explainable' AI developer features that allow teams to understand the specific parts of a neural network and highlight which areas are performing well and poorly given a variety of input sources (such as different gendered voices).
LinksCheck out Seekar Technologies
Connect with Kordel France on LinkedIn
Kordel France on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
TalkVia, the voice assistant design and development platform for marketing teams looking to invest in emerging technologies like Alexa and Google Assistant, conducted the Smart Audio Report, Australia, to understand the adoption and usage levels of voice assistant technologies down under.
Head of Innovation, Guy Munro, joins us to share the details and insights from the survey, how voice assistant adoption in APAC is similar or different to the US and EU, as well as his perspectives and advice for marketing teams looking to explore these emerging channels.
Links
Check our TalkVia
Download the Smart Audio Report, Australia
Connect with Guy on LinkedIn
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Voice AI can provide immense value outside of the home. Problem is, outside is noisy! So how to you create voice AI solutions and speech recognition systems that work well in cars, in traffic, outside or with screaming kids in the background!?
We're joined by SoundHound's Director of Business Development, Andrew Richards, to shed some light on how one of the top voice AI companies tackles this challenge.
We dive into:
- What are the common challenges when implementing voice solutions in noisy environments?
- Any examples of areas where the environment proves trickier than others?
- Microphone technology, placement and arrays
- What's beam forming and why is it important?
- How do you (or what do you do to...) mitigate the noise to get a clean signal?
- About additive noise, convolutional noise, distortion and noise reduction
- What do you need to consider when implementing a voice assistant in a noisy environment?
- How to train speech recognition systems for use in noisy places?
LinksVisit Houndify.com
Read the Houndify Speech to Meaning blog (recommended)
All about speech recognition with Catherine Breslin
How voice AI is disrupting industries with SoundHound's Mike Zagorsek
How to train speech recognition systems with Atexto
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Every experienced conversation designer has been asked this question: how do I get into conversation design?
Heyday's Team Lead for Conversation Design, Anna Ralph, joins us to answer that question and more as we chart her journey from copywriter to conversation designer and share how you can do the same.
Links
Heyday by Hootsuite
Anyone who has worked with semi-complex conversational AI from a design or development perspective has hit the limitations of the technology. 'If this then that' statements that determine logic, handling 'no match' intents and providing training data and synonyms for intents and slots. All of this gets incredibly complex and difficult to manage when you get into anything beyond a simple use case.
One company that's pushing the boundaries of conversational AI is Wluper. Today we're joined by co-founder and CTO, Nikolai Rozanov to discuss Wluper's approach to an intentless NLU, advanced memory and dialogue management. This is the next generation of conversational AI.
Links
Connect with Nikolai Rozanov
Check out Wluper
Genesys is one of the largest cloud CX providers on the planet and is leading the way in the future of customer experience with is cloud contact centre and automation platforms.
VP, Product Marketing for AI at Genesys, Elcenora Martinez joins us to share her experience and insights on the current best practice for implementing conversational AI in enterprise. We discuss the approach Genesys has taken to its voice and conversational AI product offering, the Bold 360 acquisition, trends and observations on challenges faced by companies looking to implement conversational AI and how to overcome them, as well as the importance of design thinking on AI projects and programmes.
LinksDownload the Connected Custom Experience study
Connect with Elcenora Martinez on LinkedIn
Try Genesys Dialogue Engine
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
It's hard enough designing conversational AI agents that understand single line utterances and are able to string together a conversation with a person. Try monitoring both a caller and an agent having a two way conversation and understanding it to the extend that you're able to offer real time, in the moment, accurate guidance to the call handler.
This is exactly what Balto does. We chat to CEO, Marc Bernstein, about where the idea for Balto came from, how he went about creating the company, the business and technical challenges he and the team had to overcome and we get into details on how the Balto solution is helping contact centre agents be more productive.
LinksBalto.ai
Connect with Marc Bernstein on LinkedIn
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Voice assistants and voice user interfaces are becoming ubiquitous across all device types. Voice is quickly becoming the modality of choice for finding information and getting things done. But with every new device type, comes a different type of customer experience, based on different mental models, different expectations, different context and different goals.
One of the most promising device types for voice user interfaces is the TV. With a wealth of content options from a range of providers, there’s always something on. The problem is finding it.
We’ve all tried searching manually with a remote control. That’s not something one enters into lightly. It’s clunky, takes forever and the search capabilities are extremely basic, typically. Then, how do users even know that they can use their voice in the first place? And how do they discover what it can do and the features it has?
These are just some of problems that the Voice AI team at Comcast is solving, and the way that they’re solving it has lessons for all voice and conversational AI practitioners and leaders looking to set up a conversational AI Centre of Excellence.
Learn how to approach designing a voice experience for different modalities, what you should consider, how to define use cases, how to approach user research and problem identification, how to prototype and test methodologies, as well as how to measure success.
Join Chuong Nguyen, Product Designer, and Carolyn Reed, Lead Voice Researcher, Comcast, on VUX World to find out.
LinksChuong Nguyen on LinkedIn
Carolyn Reed on LinkedIn
Cheryl Platz; Design beyond devices
Jake Knapp; Sprint
Voicebot.ai
Women In Voice
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
What do instructional design and conversation design have in common? What skills and perspectives do linguists bring to conversation design? What are the top challenges new conversation designers face? And how can we design successful conversational interactions between computers and humans? Maaike Groenewege joins us to share all, and more!
LinksConvocat
Follow Maaike on Instagram
Connect with Maaike on LinkedIn
Voice Lunch Language and Linguistics
Women in Voice NL
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Have you misunderstood the aims of your digital transformation programme?
So much time, money and effort is spent on rebuilding websites, launching apps, managing social media, all to try and prevent customers from calling your contact centre and costing you money.
All of this to prevent 'avoidable contact'.
Yet, they still call.
The question should be 'why don't you want to talk to your customers?' There isn't a better way to foster deeper relationships that to have a conversation.
We chat to Speakeasy AI CEO, Frank Schneider, about just that. We find out more about how you can benefit from talking to your customers, and how you can do it without messing about with websites and apps. How you can do it with voice AI.
We also chat in detail about Speakeasy AI's patent for Speech-to-Intent technology and how this excels the customer experience of voice AI and conversational automation.
This is Frank Schneider's hat trick on VUX World. Our only guest so far to return three times on the show. For the regular listeners of the show, you'll be familiar with Frank's charisma and knowledge already. And for those new to VUX World, you can check out our previous insight-packed conversations with Frank here:
All about Speakeasy AI with the Fresh Prince of AI, Frank Schneider
Automating call centres with voice AI, with Frank Schneider
Linksspeakeasyai.com
frank@speakeasyai.com
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
You might think of Google assistant as the thing that you use to search the web on your phone or the speaker you use to play music at home. But with every new partnership, Google adds another string to its assistant’s bow that sees a slightly different Google Assistant appear on different surfaces. All the while, the Google Assistant umbrella expands and it edges closer to becoming the default assistant in your life and the default access point to the internet.
Read the full article
Davide Petramala, Director of Customer and Partner Onboarding, Avaya, joins us to share his take on improving your customer experience using conversational AI, and how you can do that using Avaya technology and approaches.
We'll dive into the importance of customer experience and how the bar is constantly being raised, as well as what you can do to keep meeting rising customer expectations. We'll discuss the value of conversational AI for enterprises and how you can get started and scale, whether to go big or go home vs starting small and iterating; waterfall vs agile approaches.
We'll chat about Avaya's approach to conversational AI, cloud technology and its 'composable framework' capabilities. We'll talk conversational automation approaches, partnerships and multimodality and it's right here on VUX World Live.
Links
Avaya.com
Free 2 hour workshop
Connect with Davide Petramala
When you build voice assistants for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, most of the control over what the AI is doing and how its performing is lost. You can't access audio files, so you can't really understand what users actually said. You can't see anything about how the NLU classified an utterance, either. With Alexa, you don't even get the transcript of what the user said. All of this lack of visibility results in a lack of control over your voice assistant's performance. That means you can't improve your user experience in line with your actual user behaviour and results in sub-par experiences.
To show you how you can regain control of your voice assistant performance and create delightful, ever-improving customer experiences, we're joined by the team at Zammo.ai, Guy Tonye and Stacey Kyler. Guy and Stacey walk us through some of the strategic changes that have occurred when it comes to deploying voice assistants in the enterprise. Changes brought about by, you guessed it, COVID-19.
They speak to why early deployment and quick learning is better than big up-front, waterfall-style deployments, and share their approaches to understanding your assistants performance, and methods of improvement.
We dive into why having control over you ASR and NLU is so important, what levers of control are available, how to understand the data you're receiving from your NLU and how you can use things like call audio, transcripts and confidence scores to refine and improve your assistant over time.
About Zammo.aiThe goal of Zammo.ai is to allow everyone to get things done faster through voice assistants and have more free time doing what they love. To make this reality, they built one of the world's leading cross-platform voice app solutions to move the world from screens to voice interactions. It's solution enables organizations to create Voice Apps in minutes, not months.
Links
Zammo.ai
Stacey Kyler on Linkedin
Guy Tonye on Linkedin
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You know when you just know that you have a slide somewhere with the exact information you need on it, but you can't remember which deck it's in? When did you create it? Where did you store it? I myself have spent countless hours over the years searching for specific bits of information in slide decks, reports, word documents and more. Time wasted. Time that Lucy AI promises to give you back.
Lucy AI in an enterprise conversational search tool that can take natural language queries and search the unsearchable; through slide decks, PDFs, word documents, reports, files, folders and systems to return you the answer you're looking for. And it doesn't just return the document you're looking for, it extracts the specific piece of information from the document and serves that. No more hunting for information.
It also can search through licensed data, such as your WSJ subscription, as well as structured data from places like Power BI, Tablau and other systems, as well as through audio and video files.
We chat to Lucy CEO, Dan Mallin, about how enterprises like PepsiCo are using conversational search to democratise enterprise information and make people more productive.
Links
Try Lucy.ai
Connect with Dan Mallin
Watch Pepsi's webinar showing Lucy AI in action
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Microsoft has a range of AI services to help brands and individuals create seamless conversational experiences. From large scale enterprise assistants, such as the solutions in play at Swisscom and the BBC, to small scale services too. With MS Build just around the corner, we get a sneak peak at what to expect from the Azure Bot Services team, as well as a rundown on just exactly what bot services Microsoft has to offer, how they all hang together, who they're for and how you can use them.
We're joined by Senior Program Manager in Conversational AI, Gary Pretty, and Senior Designer in Conversational AI, Quirine van Walt Meijer, Microsoft, to discuss the above, as well as some best practice for conversational design and strategic pointers on how to successfully implement conversational AI in your industry.
Links
Register for MS Build
Tune in to Gary Pretty's sessions at MS Build
Connect with Gary Pretty
Connect with Quirine van Walt Meijer
Sign up for the VUX World and Microsoft deep dive webinar
Try Composer here
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In this episode, we speak to Laetitia Cailleteau, Managing Director | DATA & AI Europe Lead | Global Lead for Conversational AI at Accenture, about the origins of the patent, the problem it solves, the value of personalised voice experiences and more about what Accenture is up to in AI, and how its thinking about conversational AI's potential to transfer customer experience.
Links
Connect with Laetitia Cailleteau on LinkedIn
More about Accenture
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We take it for granted that, when we talk to our voice assistants, they hear us. When we dictate a message to Siri, it transcribes it. Speech recognition is used in a whole manner of areas beyond voice assistants, too. Transcribing videos on YouTube, PowerPoint, dictation, call transcriptions in contact centres and beyond. But speech recognition systems don't always perform as expected and require training constantly to address bias, new language and dialects.
Why do automatic speech recognition systems need training?There are many cases, however, where speech recognition systems either fail, or need training. For example, training speech recognition models to remove bias is a core priority for all speech recognition providers today. Studies have shownthat the major ASR players technologies perform poorly when used by black people, as compared to white people, for example. Addressing this performance gap is of upmost importance.
Another reason for training ASR systems is expansion into other countries and to cater to other languages and accents. When Amazon, for example, aims to launch Alexa in, say, Brazil, it needs to train its speech recognition models in the Brazilian language, dialect and accents. Understanding languages, accents and dialects is a core part of making AI accessible to the world, as well as for commercial expansion.
Finally, companies need to continue training ASR systems to make sure that new vocabularies and phrases that enter a given language are understood. Prior to 2020, the world wasn't saying the phrases 'COVID', 'COVID 19', 'SARS COV 2' half as much. A few year's prior, Tik Tok wasn't a thing. Language changes, and so ASR systems need to change with it.
In this episodeIn this episode, we chat to Esteban Gorupicz, CEO, and Alejandro Heredia, Technology Business Development and Sales, at Atexto about how they help ASR companies train speech recognition systems and tackle the above problems.
About AtextoAtexto is one of the world's leading providers in speech recognition training. It's platform allows ASR providers to crowd source training data for speech recognition systems, label and tag the data, then export it to feed into its models. It also has an ASR benchmarking tool, which allows providers to compare performance across ASR systems.
Links
Check out Atexto
Find out about the ASR World Championships
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Swisscom, Switzerland's largest telco, has one of the most widespread uses of conversational AI we've seen to date. With voice-enabled set-top-boxes, customer service-based chat and messaging applications, as well as a voice-enabled IVR system for call routing, Swisscom is all-in on voice and conversational AI. Roger Dill heads up the Dialogue Management, AI and ML product and has scaled its efforts from a single chatbot, to a sophisticated multichannel suite of conversational capabilities.
Artificial Solutions, the company behind Microsoft-LUIS-powered voice development platform, Teneo, has seen its fair share of enterprise conversational AI deployments. CEO Per Ottosson, formerly IPSoft Amelia, is well versed in the conversational AI space and, given that he's been involved in countless enterprise voice and conversational AI rollouts, including that of Swisscom, has unique perspectives into the trends, strategies and direction of the market.
Hear from both Per and Roger about what it takes to scale conversational AI across the business. We cover areas such as:
- Organisational skills and team requirements
- Quantifying and measuring success and the challenges surrounding that
- Swisscom's approach to its technology architecture and its modular approach
- Artificial Solutions' approach to tooling and why developers are key to successful conversational AI deployments
- Challenges you'll face when scaling solutions
- Considerations for those getting started
- And much, much, much more
Links
Connect with Per Ottosson and Roger Dill on Linkedin
Try Teneo
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Sam Danby of Boost.ai joins us to share how to take your conversational AI to the next level using Boost technology, including creating conversational agents from web content, assessing and choosing the right technology such as ASR and NLU, as well as learning and iterating on language models.
Links
Follow Sam on Twitter and connect on LinkedIn
Visit Boost.ai
Marie Kleinert and Ray-Allen Taylor of VUI Agency join us to share some of the methodologies and practices they use to create charismatic voice assistants and how you can do the same.
We dive into areas such as:
- Defining charisma from a voice assistant perspective
- TTS tuning and challenges
- The value of creating a persona
- The importance of linguistics in conversation design
- When and how to create charisma
- How charisma contributes to improving customer experience
LinksCheck out VUI.agency
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Google Cloud's Head of Conversational AI and Contact Center, Antony Passemard, joins us to dive under the hood of Google CCAI; Google's Contact Centre AI product.
Antony manages the entire product suite and joins us to share what CCAI is, how it's being used to improve customer experience within contact centres across industries, as well as describing how you can use the tools yourself to streamline service delivery using conversational AI.
Running order:00:00:00 Intro
00:02:53 About Antony Passemard
00:04:16 Does CCAI have a relationship with Google Assistant?
00:06:35 Overview of CCAI
00:07:20 What drove the need for DialogFlow CX?
00:10:42 Can you move from ES to CX?
00:11:50 Who is CX for?
00:13:00 Core reasons for using DialogFlow CX vs ES
00:17:30 Michael Kenny: Will DF CX open up third part integrations for CMS etc?
00:19:40 What has CCAI taken from Google Research?
00:23:13 BERT: what's it being used for?
00:26:10 What is Agent Assist?
00:28:50 What does Agent Assist look like and where is it?
00:31:04 How is Agent Assist implemented?
00:35:00 How will Agent Assist improve over time?
00:37:05 How do you approach feature building and roll out?
00:41:00 Focus on successful conversations
00:42:50 Can you implement Agent Assist on your own?
00:47:00 How to implement DialogFlow into contact centres
00:52:35 Insights
00:57:00 Can you use Insights to find and prioritise use cases?
00:58:35 How to measure successful conversations
01:05:05 How to find out more
LinksFind out more about Google CCAI
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Voicebots for customer service are in increasing demand, but how do you actually integrate one into a contact centre?
Learn how to take an existing chatbot and repurpose it for your contact centre. Many chatbots provide immense value to customers, and many call centres are overwhelmed with demand. Why not offer your chatbot service through your contact centre and help customers self serve, and customer service staff manage demand.
Joining us this week is Ilan Avner, Director of Product Management at AudioCodes. Ilan will share how any brand or developer who has existing conversational AI implementations can scale those conversations into ANY contact centre system.
We discuss the challenges you'll face when trying to integrate bots into contact centres including how to deal with on-premise vs cloud deployments, security, protocols and standards, timescales and costs. We'll also cover how you can avoid all of the completely by using the AudioCodes Voice AI Connect product.
A truly enlightening conversation for anyone who's interested in the practicalities of integrating any kind of bot into contact centres for improving self service and customer experience.
LinksCheck out the AudioCodes Voice AI Connect
Catch up on the AudioCodes webinar with Vodafone
Connect with Ilan Avner on LinkedIn
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As much as voice technology has been hyped over the last few years, perhaps leading to some unrealistic expectations, it's beginning to find its feet in reliably and consistently improving customer service in contact centres.
Regardless of hype, voice technology has super-human qualities when applied in a customer services environment and especially, according to today's guest Nikola Mrkšić, CEO and co-founder of London-based PolyAI, when using PolyAI technology.
We chat to Nikola about what defines 'super-human' qualities for voice assistants, how the PolyAI technology differs from some of the common providers, why drag and drop tools have limitations, and understand Nikola's perspective on the voice industry overall.
LinksVisit PolyAI
Follow Nikola Mrkšić on Twitter or LinkedIn
Webinar on multilingual voice assistants
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Tom Hewitson, Founder and CEO, Labworks.io, joins us to share how he built a business on Alexa and Google Assistant, how he finds, keeps hold and monetises users, design best practice and advice for those looking to do the same.
In 2017 and 2018, when Amazon Alexa began rolling our in-skill purchasing (ISP), many thought that there'd be a gold rush on the Alexa platform.
Business will be built, money will be made and all will be well. It happened with the App Store on mobile, after all.
There was two problem that most developers were facing: how do you create something that's good enough to keep users coming back for more, and then how do you create an offer for those users that's worth paying for?
Those challenges turned out to be pretty difficult to overcome and, to date, only three companies have managed to reach the levels of success many were aiming for in the Alexa space: Matchbox, with their suite of quizzes and kids games, Invoked apps with it's load of sleep and ambient sounds and, our guest this week, Labworks, with Voice Arcade.
One weekend, wanting to explore Alexa for investigatory purposes, in case any clients were to ask about it in future, Tom Hewiston, founder of then-chatbot agency, Labworks, set about building a game.
After launching the game and pretty much forgetting about it, some months later, Tom received a call from Amazon. Turns out, Tom's game was the third most popular game on the Alexa platform. Amazon were starting to pay developers for having popular skills as an incentive for them to continue improving skills and developing new skills.
These rewards were enough for Tom to employ someone to help build out more games. Labworks pivoted from building chatbots for clients and into building games for Alexa and the rest is history.
We chat to Tom about his journey, what he's learned, his thoughts on the industry and advice for others looking to build successful skills and actions on Alexa and Google Assistant.
Here's the running order:
00:02:50 About Tom Hewitson and Labworks.io
00:05:50 Last year's Alexa skills usage
00:09:30 Was it good timing to launch Voice Arcade?
00:11:15 Ten hot takes on voice: what's changed in voice since 2019?
00:13:00 What's changed for the better?
00:15:20 Developer rewards: how helpful were they?
00:19:15 What works and what doesn't for in-skill purchasing?
00:20:00 What's the difference in typical ISPs vs Voice Arcade?
00:22:15 Challenges with ISPs, offering more value than you're asking for in return
00:24:30 How are you showing value?
00:26:00 Vishnu Saran: How are you solving discoverability?
00:30:40 Marek Mis: Advice for hobbyist voice devs wanting to go pro?
00:33:40 Is there much experimentation left?
00:38:40 How do you prioritise and test features?
00:40:55 Any new platform features you're excited about?
00:43:00 Matt Buck: Have you thought about putting your games in apps or on web?
00:47:09 Katy Boungard: Brand identity and sonic branding
00:49:20 Richard Warzecha: Discovering features within skills
00:50:00 How much time is spent on happy path vs everything else?
00:55:44 Manual testing vs code testing
00:57:05 Example of something that took a lot of iteration to get right
00:58:35: Richard Warzecha: Transferable principles from games to other voice experiences
01:03:00 Tooling and Jovo
01:04:00 General takeaways and contact details
Links
Labworks.io
Follow Tom Hewitson on Twitter
Join Tom Hewitson on LinkedIn
Say "Alexa, open Voice Arcade"
Say "Hey Google, open Voice Arcade"
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Derek Roberti is the VP Technology, North America, at Cognigy, based in California. He joins us to share his insights and observations on using conversational AI automation in the enterprise for automating service delivery.
We chat to Derek about:
- Cognigy and its history
- Democratising AI
- The need for market education
- The balance between technical capability and ease of use in conversational AI tools
- Marrying conversational AI with Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
- Whether conversational AI tools will converge
- How and if we'll see conversational automation within voice assistants
Links
Visit Cognigy.com
Connect with Derek Roberti on Linkedin
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Nate Brown is the Chief Experience Officer at Officium Labs, world-leading CX consultancy. He joins us to share how a customer-centric culture shaped around customer feedback can create the conditions and insights needed to build products and services that customers love.
The exact same methodologies and practices can feed directly into your conversational automation strategy to make sure you're consistently meeting customer needs.
At the same time, the data and insights you produce from the automated conversations you have with customers can be like gold dust, and can be fed back into the voice of the customer operation in the rest of the business.
We chat with Nate about:
- The value of a voice of the customer strategy
- The importance of staff feedback
- Voice of the customer process
- The listening path
- Empowerment and action
- Sentiment vs intent
- Implementation challenges
Links
Officium Labs
Connect with Nate Brown on LinkedIn
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When it comes to making customer interactions with conversational AI more human-like, there's often one thing missing. Emotion.
We chat to Nico Perony about how OTO.ai is being used to understand emotion and sentiment of users in order for businesses to create more compelling customer experiences.
Married with conversational AI, bots can be more sensitive to the caller based on their emotional state and even do things like escalate calls to an agent based on an angry customer response.
It's also being used to support agents in call centres to appraise tone and improve how agents speak with customers, as well as in gaming applications to detect abuse and toxicity and escalate occurrences to moderators.
There is huge potential for this technology, not only in automating customer experience in a more human-like way, but also to gather insights from customer and staff voice relations and use it to improve the quality of service offered.
We also continued this discussion on Clubhouse afterwards. Follow @kanesimms on Clubhouse for more open ended after show discussions.
Links
Visit OTO.ai
Connect with Nico on LinkedIn
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When I was on the Voicebot podcast, Bret asked me whether we're going through a voice first winter. I said that I didn't think so, nor did I really care. There are opportunities to do good work and enhance people's lives regardless. However, there has been an undercurrent in pockets of the industry where some folks are becoming frustrated that voice hasn't reached its potential (however you define that).
Over the past few weeks, founder of WitLingo, Ahmed Bouzid was involved in a conversation at the popular VoiceLunchmeet where a participant stated that:
‘Beyond the weather, time, and the occasional timer and alarm,’ they mused out loud, ‘am I myself really using my Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant that much in my life? I mean, really and honestly, am I? No, actually, not really…. So, if I am not using them that much and yet I am such a believer in Voice First, what hope is there for the rest of the world?’
He wrote a piece summarising his thoughts. This coincided with a post from Bespoken.io founder, John Kelvie's post claiming voice is stuck.
The primary questions raised in both of these two pieces are:
- Is voice living up to its promise?
- Where is the true value in voice first?
- Has there been enough improvement in the technology and ecosystem to support its own ecosystem like the App Store?
To debate this, we brought along Voicebot.ai founder Bret Kinsella, together with Ahmed and John to figure out where we actually stand and where we need to go next.
We also continued this discussion on Clubhouse afterwards. Follow @kanesimms on Clubhouse for more open ended after show discussions.
Links
Read voicebot.ai
Check out WitLingo and Bespoken
Read Voice is stuck
Read The #VoiceFirst User Interface Has a Use Case Fit Problem
Read Voice first sucks
Follow Ahmed, John and Bret on Twitter
Connect with Ahmed, John and Bret on LinkedIn
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Resemble.ai is a cutting edge synthetic voice (text-to-speech) provider that allows anyone or any brand to create their own, customer TTS solution to use across any and all channels. From IVR, Alexa and Google Assistant to narrating videos and marketing materials and even voicing game characters. With just 50 lines of speech, you could have your own dedicated brand voice that brings a consistent and elevated customer experience to your conversational applications. With quicker-than-real-time processing, the low latency capabilities makes having a conversation with a Resemble.ai-voiced assistant as natural as can be.
In this episode of VUX World, we're joined by founder and CEO, Zohaib Ahmed, to discuss the work Resemble is doing to help brands create stand-out conversational experiences. We discuss what Resemble is and how it works, the value of having your own custom voice, the use cases and applications it's being used for, the process for creating, the editing and publishing tools for customising intonation and emotion, as well as the ethical considerations around voice cloning, fraud and deep fakes.
00:00 Intro
02:55 About Zohaib Ahmed and Resemble.ai
04:47 What are people using Resemble.ai for today?
07:37 How much dialogue is needed to create a TTS voice?
08:27 Voice Talent Pool: what's that?
11:50 Bondad: How far off are we from high quality rendering at run time with low latency?
14:00 What's the process for creating a custom brand voice?
17:00 Are call centres cloning staff voices?
19:00 An alternative approach from a branded assistant
21:10 Ethics of voice cloning
24:20 Resemblyzer and tackling speaker verification
27:40 Matthew James-Dewstowe: Can you tweak the voice once its created?
31:40 Jay Ruparel: How do you handle dynamic speech and keep the voice integrity?
37:40 Sean Thornton: Predicting emotion
41:00 Heidi Cohen: Regionalisation and localisation
44:45 Real time translation of speech
48:20 Jay Ruparel: Thoughts on filler words like 'um', 'ah' etc
51:37 Proving the value and ROI
01:00:40 Where can people find out more about Resemble.ai
LinksVisit Resemble.ai
Follow Resemble.ai on Twitter
Zohaib Ahmed on Twitter and LinkedIn
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Mihai Antonescu joins us to discuss the history of voice at Mercedes, the origins of the HeyMercedes voice assistant and the process for building it.
You'll also learn tips and tricks that'll help you put together your approach to creating your own assistant, as well as how to understand and measure the business value voice assistants can bring.
Mihai asked us before the show to challenge him with our questions, and we certainly hope we did.
LinksConnect with Mihai Antonescu on LinkedIn or Twitter
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Justin Randall, Chief Innovation Officer at Comwave, one of Canada's largest independent telco companies, joins us to share his experiences of designing, building and implementing a Google DialogFlow agent in the contact centre.
We'll cover the drivers for doing it, the process he followed, the things he learned and advice for doing the same.
Timestamps00:00 Intro
04:30 About Justin Randall and Comwave
10:30 Replacing the IVR
12:23 What can 'Penny' do?
13:39 How do you determine success for your conversational AI
19:30 Understanding where you should start
21:50 Who manages the updates and maintenance?
23:20 Glen Ritchie: What KPIs do you use for your conversational AI?
26:15 How much time is spent defining requirements?
27:44 Heidi Cohen: What books and resources would you recommend?
29:29 John Novak: Do you use a tree structure like in IVR?
32:23 Deymi Campos: How fast can you deploy a change in your conversational AI?
35:50 What does your automated testing set up look like?
40:24 Andrew Francis: Are you using the DialogFlow Telephone Gateway?
43:45 Deymi Campos: Sometimes different TFNs need different config, do you have this feature?
45:15 Georgios Tserdanelis: Did you design a persona for Penny or use a custom voice?
48:37 jusfc: Is Penny available as a chatbot as well?
51:10 Advice for people starting out in their conversational AI journey
56:00 Closing thoughts from Justin
Links/booksConnect with Justin Randall
Cognitive Virtual Assistants Using Google Dialogflow
Voice Applications for Alexa and Google Assistant (Manning)
Designing Voice User Interfaces (O'Reilly)
Designing Bots (O'Reilly)
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With almost all call centres looking to us AI to automate an increasing number of conversations with customers, what does the future of customer service look like? And what's the future of work going to look like for your staff? What can you do today to prepare for an AI-first future, both from a customer experience and staffing perspective?
Lots of big questions will need answering in 2021, and to get you started, we're joined by Head of Vonage AI, Noam Fine, to answer those questions and more about the future of customer service, the future of customer experience and the future of work for CS agents and managers.
LinksVonage AI
Connect with Noam Fine on LinkedIn
Dan joins us to share his insights on the most important recent developments in voice AI technology and how it's enabling business transformation, as well as some of the emerging trends we're likely to see unfold in 2021.
Voice AI is disrupting all kinds of industries and providing opportunities for almost every and any business unit. None, perhaps, has the potential to prosper more than the contact centre.
With the potential to automate front end conversations and assist live agents, conversational AI could be the underlying capability that enables organisations to both increase self-service and improve customer experience, while creating operational efficiencies and empowering staff.
Dan Miller, Lead Analyst and Founder of Opus Research, has more than his fair share of experience both with contact centre technology and speech technology on the whole. For over 30 years, Dan's been working with and covering voice AI and conversational technologies with a focus on organisational transformation.
Linksopusresearch.net
Follow Dan on Twitter
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One of the hot topics on every UX designer's lips is conversation design. How do you do it? Is it something I can do? And what skill sets do I currently have that put me in a good position?
Stuart Silverstein, season UX and service designer, also has deep experience in designing conversational user interfaces, from messenger applications to voice bots and IVR assistants.
Stuart joins us to walk through his learning journey with voice AI and discusses how UX designers can incorporate conversation design and VUX into their existing skillsets.
We also chat about the differences and similarities between traditional UX design and VUX design, as well as the value of voice, and the potential for voice AI to revolutionise the contact centre.
SPONSORED BY THE CONVERSATION DESIGN INSTITUTECompanies around the world are looking for conversation designers, a rare breed of people to help them advance communication between people and AI. That's where we help!
Conversation Design Institute leads in training and certification for Conversation Designers, Conversational Copywriters, and AI Trainers. Our human-centric workflow has proven itself around the world. Our certificates ensure you create winning conversational experiences.
As advocates for the Conversation Design profession, we continue to work closely with tech partners, agencies and other key players in the industry. With this support, Conversation Design Institute is well on its way to becoming the number one platform in conversation design.
Save 25% with code CDI972VUX25OFF
FIND OUT MORE
Linksstuartsilverstein.com
Stuart Silverstein on Medium
Stuart on LinkedIn
Stuart on Facebook
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Voice commerce: the state of playWe've been speaking about the potential of voice first devices to change shopping behaviour and drive sales and engagement for a while. I wrote about it in the Harvard Business Review over a year ago. Yet, we're not seeing a huge amount of use cases executed. So are people actually using their voice assistants to shop? And, if so, what can brands do about it?
Vixen Labs commissioned a unique, UK-centric consumer research report to understand the current state of play when it comes to voice shopping. What assistants are people using? What are the using them for? How are their shopping habits changing and what role is voice playing? And, crucially, what does it mean for brands and those with something to sell? Co-founder and CEO, James Poulter, returns to the podcast to share all.
SPONSORED BY THE CONVERSATION DESIGN INSTITUTE
Companies around the world are looking for conversation designers, a rare breed of people to help them advance communication between people and AI. That's where we help!
Conversation Design Institute leads in training and certification for Conversation Designers, Conversational Copywriters, and AI Trainers. Our human-centric workflow has proven itself around the world. Our certificates ensure you create winning conversational experiences.
As advocates for the Conversation Design profession, we continue to work closely with tech partners, agencies and other key players in the industry. With this support, Conversation Design Institute is well on its way to becoming the number one platform in conversation design.
Save 25% with code CDI972VUX25OFF
FIND OUT MORE
LinksDownload the Vixen Labs Voice Commerce Report
Connect with James on LinkedIn
Follow Vixen Labs on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
As much as Amazon and Google dominate the voice AI headlines, one size doesn't always fit all. There's a trend within the voice industry of brands creating their own voice assistants. The BBC have created Beeb, Mercedes have My Mercedes, Capital One; Eno and plenty of others are following.
And even those who aren't creating their own high-level digital assistant to serve as the AI front-end to the companies products and services, many are wanting narrow implementations of voice AI across apps, IVR, the web and other channels where Alexa and Google .
While you can use Amazon Lex and Google DialogFlow for these instances, some companies don't want their data to be held with those companies. Some want more control or even need more control over the language model.
This is where Voxta plays: enabling the capability for brands to implement their own assistants. Co-Founders Kavita Reddi and Sirish Reddi join us to share how they do it.
We chat about the approach to creating custom voice assistants, the value of Voxta, the differences between voice AI in India and Europe and plenty more.
SPONSORED BY THE CONVERSATION DESIGN INSTITUTE
Companies around the world are looking for conversation designers, a rare breed of people to help them advance communication between people and AI. That's where we help!
Conversation Design Institute leads in training and certification for Conversation Designers, Conversational Copywriters, and AI Trainers. Our human-centric workflow has proven itself around the world. Our certificates ensure you create winning conversational experiences.
As advocates for the Conversation Design profession, we continue to work closely with tech partners, agencies and other key players in the industry. With this support, Conversation Design Institute is well on its way to becoming the number one platform in conversation design.
Save 25% with code CDI972VUX25OFF
FIND OUT MORE
LinksVoxta.com
Voxta on Twitter
Connect with Kavita on LinkedIn
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Hannes Heikinheimo is the Co-Founder and CTO of Speechly, a voice AI company that specialises in adding voice capabilities to software products, and he joins us to discuss the benefits and steps you need to follow to do this.
Hannes has deep experience in voice technologies, working with the Helsinki University of Technology, Nokia, Rovio and Apple, launching the Finnish Siri.
We chat to Hannes about the Speechly technology, the drawbacks of traditional speech to text, the difficultly of language modelling the Finnish language, the advantage of voice-enalbed software, broader voice industry trends and how to add voice to your app.
Companies around the world are looking for conversation designers, a rare breed of people to help them advance communication between people and AI. That's where we help!
Conversation Design Institute leads in training and certification for Conversation Designers, Conversational Copywriters, and AI Trainers. Our human-centric workflow has proven itself around the world. Our certificates ensure you create winning conversational experiences.
As advocates for the Conversation Design profession, we continue to work closely with tech partners, agencies and other key players in the industry. With this support, Conversation Design Institute is well on its way to becoming the number one platform in conversation design.
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LinksSpeechly
Connect with Hannes
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SPONSORED BY THE CONVERSATION DESIGN INSTITUTEBecome a certified conversation designer and save 25% with code CDI972VUX25OFF
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VOICE AI DISTUPTIONVoice AI is disrupting industries and providing new opportunities to innovate for those companies paying attention.
Voice AI, like most technology innovations is an enabler. It enables businesses to explore new markets, unlock new value and, in some cases, reinvent themselves.
But technological capability isn't enough to grease the wheels of innovation. You need to find a place within the market that adds value, and have the tools and skills to take advantage.
One of the most exciting companies that offers those tools and skills to unlock voice AI innovation is SoundHound.
SoundHound is helping organisations reimagine their services and create differentiation and value for brands and, in some cases, where you'd least expect it.
In this episode of VUX World Live, we're joined by SoundHound VP, Product Marketing, Mike Zagorsek, to find out how SoundHound are enabling brands to disrupt using voice AI.
From automotive, to finance to hospitality and beyond, the future is being played out today.
Join us to be inspired about the potential for voice AI-enabled disruption and get some pointers on how you can approach the same initiatives with the same success.
LinksHoundify.com
Meet Hound
SoundHound
SoundHound Inc
The SoundHound Speech to Meaning blog
Michael Zagorsek on LinkedIn
Follow Mike on Twitter
SoundHound on Twitter
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We're joined by David Clark (BT) and Tim Atkinson (Google) to discuss the future of conversational commerce: RCS Messaging.
SPONSORED BY THE CONVERSATION DESIGN INSTITUTE
Companies around the world are looking for conversation designers, a rare breed of people to help them advance communication between people and AI. That's where we help!
Conversation Design Institute leads in training and certification for Conversation Designers, Conversational Copywriters, and AI Trainers. Our human-centric workflow has proven itself around the world. Our certificates ensure you create winning conversational experiences.
As advocates for the Conversation Design profession, we continue to work closely with tech partners, agencies and other key players in the industry. With this support, Conversation Design Institute is well on its way to becoming the number one platform in conversation design.
FIND OUT MORE
Learn what RCS messaging is, and why it's set to enable the next level of two-way, automated B2C communication.
Use it to scale your customer service, generate leads, fulfil self service transactions and generate revenue.
In this episode of VUX World Live, we're going to dive into the ins and outs of RCS messaging: what it is, where it came from, why it's important, who can use it and how you can implement automated, authenticated, trusted conversational agents today.
Already being used by millions of BT customers, the messaging market awaits. And, with over 90% open rates within the first 5 minutes of a message being sent, what's not to love?
Here, we dive deep into what all of this means for the future of business communication.
LinksRBM developer site: build RBM campaigns and agents
Register to the RBM developer event 4th November 2020
Businesses wanting to use RCS as part of a multichannel strategy can contact BT
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In this episode, we're joined by Constant Companion CEO, Mark Gray, to discuss the opportunities and need for creating voice-first services for older adults.
Constant Companion are providing voice OS access to care homes, retirement centres and individuals across the US, with demand for its services increasing exponentially this year. For a small monthly fee, your gran, grandad, parent or friend, can have an Alexa-enabled device installed and set up in their home that runs on top of the Constant Companion OS.
Make calls, automate tasks, stay connected, be entertained, all safely and securely behind military-grade security. What else would you expect from Mark Gray, career-long cyber security expert.
Mark join us this week to share the opportunities that exist in providing accessible, voice-based services to older adults. With an ageing population of folks who don't think of themselves as 'old', and that hold almost 80% of America's disposable income, what can you create for these voice tech-adopting, connection craving early adopters?
LinksConstant Companion
Mark Gray on LinkedIN
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Algolia uses Open AI to up the conversational AI search gameAlgolia announced a suite of AI products that help make the search experience more natural and simpler, as well as adding immense power to chat bots and voice bots.
In this episode, we run through the new updates and discuss their importance and usefulness for the voice industry.
We discuss:
Algolia Understand: The new Natural Language Understanding API from Algolia.The new API from Algolia that offers Alexa-like natural language understanding. Understand your users’ intents, increase conversion - in search experiences, or anywhere else.
Algolia Answers: The best technologies from Algolia and OpenAI to answer the most difficult natural language questions.Algolia Answers finds not just the document, but the exact answer that best responds to the searcher’s question. Q&A adds real-world semantic knowledge to tunable textual relevance to find answers deep within unstructured content.
Algolia Dynamic Synonym Suggestions: Find the best content on every search.Let AI learn from how your users rewrite their queries to suggest synonyms, so next time they don’t have to rewrite.
LinksFind out more
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What happens when you serve audio adverts to smart speaker listeners and ask them to make a charitable donation right there and then on their smart speaker, using their voice? Say It Now CEO, Charlie Cadbury, joins us to share the answer.
Amazon forecast voice commerce to be a $3.2billion market by 2022. That's not far away. And, during lockdown, in the UK, voice shopping rose from 22% up to 33% of smart speaker owners.
I'll say that again: 33% of smart speaker owners in the UK say they have used their smart speaker for shopping this summer.
Say It Now were one of the few lucky companies to be awarded Innovate UK funding to use technology to provide solutions to some of the core challenges brought about by Covid-19.
One of those challenges is that charities across the country, organisations that survive on the kind donations of the public, took a huge hit. Donations are plummeting and some of the most vulnerable people in the country are at risk of missing out on vital support because charities are struggling to keep the lights on.
In collaboration with DAX and a host of charities, Say It Now were awarded the funding to do the following: run adverts on smart speakers to raise awareness of the need for donations, and offer users a way of donating via their smart speaker.
The campaign launched a couple of weeks ago and the data is starting to roll in. Is it working? Can voice advertising increase charitable donations? And what does that mean for the potential of voice commerce?
Join us on VUX World Live, with Charlie Cadbury, to find out.
LinksSay It Now website
Charlie Cadbury on LinkedIn
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Learn how to design chatbots the Salesforce way. We're joined by Greg Bennett, Conversation Design Principal, Salesforce, to discuss how Salesforce approach designing conversations for chatbots for their clients.
With 70% of people claiming they wouldn't use a chatbot again after a single bad experience, it's more important than ever to create conversations that build trust and deliver what user's need.
So how does Salesforce do that? How do you build trust through dialogue design? And how do you make sure that your chatbot can deliver on the core things your users need? Let's find out.
We'll also dive into the Einstein Bot Builder and find out what kind of use cases Salesforce clients are exploring and what kind of value they're finding from leveraging the combination of conversational AI and CRM technologies.
Whether you're a conversation designer looking to keep abreast of the latest methodologies or a marketer/strategist looking to find value in conversational AI, this episode of VUX World will dive deep to help you achieve just that.
LinksJoin Greg on LinkedIn
Email Greg
Greg's website
Greg on Medium
BooksTxting, the gr8 deb8
The stuff of thought
That’s not what I meant
How we talk
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After covering the top new Alexa features for marketers and the top features for developers, we were getting a lot of questions from the community about the new Alexa features announced during Alexa Live 2020. So, what better way to dive deep into them than by sitting down with someone who had a hand in creating a great deal of them.
Paul Cutsinger is known within the voice community for being one of the first Alexa developer evangelists and teaching people all over the world how to build skills. Now, he's moved into more of a product role where he brings the next most needed features to the platform.
In this live podcast episode, we chatted to Paul about his role and dove deep into the ins and outs of some of the best and newest Alexa features for designers, developers and marketers, as well as fielded questions from the audience on skill building best practice.
Links
Amazon Alexa Skills Kit
Alexa Skills Challenge: Alexa Conversations
Follow Paul on LinkedIn and Twitter
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Ron Jaworski, CEO Trinity Audio, joins us to share how to satisfy the user, the publisher and the advertiser with your audio strategy.
The Holy Trinity of your audio strategyTrinity Audio's philosophy is to satisfy users, publishers and advertisers in an attempt to provide value to all three with audio.
Trinity Audio's technology turns any webpage into audio using text to speech and allows publishers to then distribute that on their websites, as well as through any other audio channel, such as Spotify, podcast players, Flash Briefings, via an RSS feed. With ads built-in, publishers can repurpose existing content, distribute it in a variety of channels to reach more users, whilst generating incremental revenue at the same time.
Your content strategy should have a Holy Trinity also: written, video and audio. Most publishers have the first two covered, but have been slow to start their audio revolution.
In this episode, Ron Jaworski, CEO of Trinity Audio joins us to share how you can boost your audio strategy and get started in the right way. We discuss the current capability of Trinity, the future of real time audio production with AI for folly and SFX, and the value of bringing audio to your users.
A shocking amount of people on the planet can't read of write, but they can listen. Many live in countries where the native tongue is a second language and tradition written comms doesn't land half as well as audio can.
Through utilising an effective audio strategy, not only are you making your content available in more mediums to reach more users, you're also making your content available to those who would otherwise be excluded.
Learn how to make your content available to those that need it, how to distribute your existing content into more channels and how to earn incremental revenue while you do it in this episode of VUX World Live.
LinksTrinity Audio
Trinity Audio on LinkedIN
YouTube
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Einav Itamar is the founder and CEO of Voca.ai, a technology company specialising in IVR automation using conversational AI. He joins Dustin and Kane to chat about how to create human-like conversations for IVR bots, the impact of coronavirus on call centre demand and how organisations are approaching automating incoming call centre calls with AI.
Need help with call centre automation? Book a free 20 minute consultation.
Designing human-like voice bots for IVROne thing is for sure: Covid-19 hit call centres hard.
Some saw the frailty of legacy systems and infrastructure that require you to be fixed at a desk. They had to close completely, unable to work remotely.
Some could enable operatives to work from home, but they were snowed under with a barrage of calls. For some, it was well in excess of double call volumes.
A few realised what was happening and acted. They implemented (or increased their usage of) conversational AI.
Find out how they did, and how you can create human-like, automated conversations that allow you to increase self-service and scale your demand management with Einav Eitamar, CEO, Voca.ai.
LinksSubscribe to This Week In Voice VIP
Visit Voca.ai
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SPONSORED BY PROJECT VOICE CATALYST
Project Voice Catalyst is for companies working with voice and AI, whether heavily involved or just starting, it uses an extensive network to connect companies working with voice tech and conversational AI to new customers, partners, media, or investors, depending on needs and business objectives.
Accelerating your business months ahead of where you otherwise would be.
No matter what industry - publishing, healthcare, automotive, banking, gaming, hospitality - Project Voice: Catalyst is helping others and can help you.
Contact Ray Kyle, Score Publishing's Director of Business Development, at Ray@ScorePublishing.us or (781) 929 1098 if you're interested in learning more.
Automating call centres with AIMost contact centres have been overwhelmed during the covid period, struggling to meet the demand placed on them. Some call centres have even had to close due to unprecedented call volumes.
At the same time, customers are ever more demanding. Expectations are through the roof. No one wants to wait on hold, and everyone wants to speak to a human. When they eventually get through to speak to someone, their query isn't always answered first time. Sometimes they're passed to and from between departments which makes for a less than desirable experience.
At the same time, call handlers and agents don't always have what they need to serve customers properly. They're sometimes dealing with multiple systems and have to start each call with information gathering, rather than problem solving.
Conversational AI can be used to solve all of these problems. From gathering information while the customer waits, and passing that information to call handlers so that they can spend more time serving and less time gathering details, to end-to-end self service from within the call, negating the need to speak to an agent in the first place.
Speakeasy AI have patent-pending technology built to make the lives of customers and contact centres easy. And in this episode of VUX World Live, The Fresh Prince of AI and CEO Speakeasy AI, Frank Schneider, makes a return to the show to share insights on how voice technology is being used within IVR systems to help solve some real business problems, and how you can do the same.
Linksspeakeasyai.com
frank@speakeasyai.com
All about Speakeasy AI with the Fresh Prince of AI, Frank Schneider
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Sponsored by Project Voice CatalystProject Voice Catalyst is for companies working with voice and AI, whether heavily involved or just starting, it uses an extensive network to connect companies working with voice tech and conversational AI to new customers, partners, media, or investors, depending on needs and business objectives.
Accelerating your business months ahead of where you otherwise would be.
No matter what industry - publishing, healthcare, automotive, banking, gaming, hospitality - Project Voice: Catalyst is helping others and can help you.
Contact Ray Kyle, Score Publishing's Director of Business Development, at Ray@ScorePublishing.us or (781) 929 1098 if you're interested in learning more.
Multi model design for Google AssistantWe first spoke about multi modal design with Jan König of Jovo on one of the very first episodes of the VUX World podcast. Back then, Jan described Jovo's vision for a multi modal future, where the best interface is the closest interface you have to hand, whether that's your watch, your headphones, your speaker or you phone. And that the experience you have with your assistant should depend on the device you're using. Context should be carried across devices and modalities so that your experience remains personalised, yet tuned to the device you're using.
In 2018, this was merely a vision. Google Assistant existed on Android and in a smart speaker and almost all design was contained to the audible conversation.
Since then, Google Assistant has exploded. It's on over 1 billion devices of all shapes and sizes. Yes, it still runs on Android, and on Google's line of Nest smart speakers. But it's also now on iOS, on Nest Hub smart displays, car head units, headphones, smart home objects, watches, TVs, all in over 30 languages. And it's expanding into new environments with new languages seemingly every couple of month.
Jan's vision has been brought to life by Google.
How, then, does Google make sure that the experience of using Google Assistant is consistent across device types? How does a screen change the dynamics of the interaction? How does the context of someone being outside wearing headphones impact design choices? And how should the experience differ and grow over time?
Then there's the fact that Google doesn't control where Google Assistant lives. Any manufacturer can put Google Assistant into any device and potentially create new contextual environments and new multi modal dynamics. How do you manage that?
Daniel Padgett, Head of Conversation Design at Google, joins us on the show this week to explain.
LinksConversation design guidance from Google
Google's design principles at design.google
BooksWired for speech by Clifford Nass and Scott Brave
The man who lied to his laptop by Clifford Nass
Designing voice user interfaces by Cathy Pearl
Voice user interface design by James Giangola and Jennifer Balogh
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Sponsored by Project Voice CatalystProject Voice Catalyst is for companies working with voice and AI, whether heavily involved or just starting, it uses an extensive network to connect companies working with voice tech and conversational AI to new customers, partners, media, or investors, depending on needs and business objectives.
Accelerating your business months ahead of where you otherwise would be.
No matter what industry - publishing, healthcare, automotive, banking, gaming, hospitality - Project Voice: Catalyst is helping others and can help you.
Contact Ray Kyle, Score Publishing's Director of Business Development, at Ray@ScorePublishing.us or (781) 929 1098 if you're interested in learning more.
UK voice assistant usageIf you build voice applications for Alexa and Google Assistant, this episode will give you insights that you can use to create more meaningful, impactful and delightful experiences, based on knowledge of how real people are actually using voice assistants right now in the UK.
Find out how UK households are using Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and what effect COVID19 has had on usage. Learn about people's attitudes towards voice technology in the home, behavioural patterns and reasons for using voice, expectations and perceptions of digital assistants as as well confidence levels in interacting with technology using speech.
For brands looking to launch a voice strategy, this episode will show you what kind of use cases are attracting users, how you should market and launch your Alexa skills and plenty of other nuggets to help you optimise you strategy.
LinksEmail freshthinking@voxlydigital.com
Connect with Rozzi on LinkedIn
Alexa is part of the family now
Tim to shine, Alexa. Getting the UK through isolation
Visit the Voxly Digital website
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Sponsored by Project Voice CatalystProject Voice Catalyst is for companies working with voice and AI, whether heavily involved or just starting, it uses an extensive network to connect companies working with voice tech and conversational AI to new customers, partners, media, or investors, depending on needs and business objectives.
Accelerating your business months ahead of where you otherwise would be.
No matter what industry - publishing, healthcare, automotive, banking, gaming, hospitality - Project Voice: Catalyst is helping others and can help you.
Contact Ray Kyle, Score Publishing's Director of Business Development, at Ray@ScorePublishing.us or (781) 929 1098 if you're interested in learning more.
Using voice to make scientists more productiveWe always say that voice is quicker. That it can help you be more productive. Nowhere is this more relevant than in the workplace.
LabVoice has been working with scientists in the lab using voice technology to streamline processes and help scientists be more productive.
It has it's own custom smart speaker that sits in a lab environment and enables scientists to work entirely hands-free. Not only does it provide guidance throughout conducting experiments, but it also records results and integrates into a line of business system where the results are stored. It's used as a dictator, too, reducing the need for additional staff, and incorporates a scanner for easy recognition and confirmation of samples.
In this episode, we're joined by Dan DeAlmeida, Director of Product Management at LabVoice to delve into the details of how LabVoice was created, and how you can do something similar to improve your processes using voice technology.
Learn how to figure out where voice can help, how to design voice experiences for narrow, specific use cases, how to approach in-field testing, and how to choose and develop the right technology to bring it to life.
LinksEmail Dan@LabVoice.com
Visit LabVoice.com
LabVoice on YouTube
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Sponsored by Project Voice CatalystProject Voice Catalyst is for companies working with voice and AI, whether heavily involved or just starting, it uses an extensive network to connect companies working with voice tech and conversational AI to new customers, partners, media, or investors, depending on needs and business objectives.
Accelerating your business months ahead of where you otherwise would be.
No matter what industry - publishing, healthcare, automotive, banking, gaming, hospitality - Project Voice: Catalyst is helping others and can help you.
Contact Ray Kyle, Score Publishing's Director of Business Development, at Ray@ScorePublishing.us or (781) 929 1098 if you're interested in learning more.
Designing conversations for SMS messagingSMS messages have over 98% open rates within the first 5 minutes of sending. And, unlike Alexa or Google Assistant, where a user has to respond within 7 seconds or the chat closes, with SMS messaging, the conversation can remain open indefinitely.
We often talk about the value of conversational interfaces, but often, we're up against the task of encouraging users to try out our new channel. Whether that's an Alexa skill, a Google Assistant action or a Facebook Messenger bot. Each time, we're asking the user to perform a behaviour in an environment where they might not naturally expect to right now.
What happens, then, when you add an automated conversational experience into a channel where users already understand, and have been using since the dawn of mobile phones; SMS messaging?
What kind of results might you expect? What's the value of automated conversational SMS-based conversations? Should you consider creating one? How should you approach it? What's different or similar to designing a voice experience? Is there anything technically to consider?
In this episode of VUX World, live on LinkedIn, we're joined by SMS platform, Mav, creators, Hillary and Matthew Black to explain all.
LinksAdd Hillary on LinkedIn
Add Matthew on LinkedIn
Check out Hillary's online course: Chatbot writing and design
Join the chatbot conversation designers internet club Facebook group
Hire Mav website
Mav on Instagram
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Kane Simms and Dustin Coates rundown this week's top stories in voice and conversational AI.
Top stories this week:Open AI API
The Beeb, BBC's voice assistant in public Beta
Flipkart launches voice assistant for web
Microsoft files patent for smart speaker
Veritonic Audio Logo Index 2020
Stories covered this week:Subvocal recognition
MIT Alterego Communicated with a Computer Through Subvocalization
NuEyes Partners with Third Eye for voice controlled device for low-vision
Google assistant beta voice match for purchases
Google home is no more?
Microsoft Cortana - new voice for work flow features
Apple glass leaked
Datch - voice-visual platform for factories secures $3.2 mill in funding
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Magic happens when you take patterns and systems of nature and apply them to solve human problems.
✈️ Aeroplane wings are inspired by birds
🚗 Wet tyre treads have been inspired by the toe pads of tree frogs
💡 LED bulbs can be made more efficient by mimicking the scales on a Firefly’s abdomen
📸 Canon cameras imitate the structure of a moth’s eye to reduce lens flare
🚞 High speed trains in Japan were based on a Kingfisher’s beak. They use 15% less electricity and are 10% faster
What happens when you take a conversational analyst and have them apply natural, human conversation patterns and techniques to conversation design and conversational AI?
Can we create more engaging human computer interaction? Can we provide better, more natural customer experience?
In this episode, you'll learn how to design conversations properly, based on those that have conversations properly: humans.
Our guest, Bob Moore, spent over 20 years in Silicon Valley research labs working with the likes of Xerox PARC, Yahoo! Research and IBM ARC, studying conversations and analysing the natural patterns that occur. He has a Ph.D. in sociology, is a trained as a conversation analyst and the author of Conversational UX Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Natural Conversation Framework.
LinksConversational UX Design IBM Research Almaden
Moore, Robert J. and Raphael Arar. 2019. Conversational UX Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Natural Conversation Framework. Association for Computing Machinery, New York. DOI: 10.1145/3304087. Available at Amazon and Morgan & Claypool.
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Every voice assistant needs three core components: Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and Text-to-Speech (TTS). We've already covered what Automatic Speech Recognition is and how it works with Catherine Breslin and in this episode, we're covering the latter, text-to-speech.
To guide us through the ins and outs of TTS, we're joined by Niclas Bergström, a TTS veteran and co-founder of one of the largest TTS companies on the planet, Readspeaker.
Text-to-speech is the technology that gives voice assistants a voice. It's the thing that produces the synthetic vocal sound that's played from your smart speaker or phone whenever Alexa or Siri speaks. It's the only part of a voice assistant that you'd recognise. The other core components, ASR and NLU, are silent.
And, given how we're hard wired for speech - a baby can recognise its mother's voice from the womb - how your voice assistant or voice user interface (VUI) sounds is one of the most important parts of it.
A voice communicates so much information without us necessarily being aware. Just from the sound of someone's voice, you can infer gender, age, mood, education, place of birth and social status. From the sound of someone's voice, you can decide whether you trust them.
With voice assistants, voice user interfaces, or any hardware or software that speaks, choosing the right voice is imperative.
Some companies decide on a stock voice. One of Readspeaker's 90 voices or perhaps Amazon Polly. Others create their own bespoke voice that's fit for their brand.
We see examples of Lyrbird's voice cloning and we hear Alexa speak every day, so it's easy to take talking computers for granted. Because speaking is natural and easy for us, we assume that it's natural and easy for machines to talk. But it isn't.
So in this episode, we're going to lift the curtain on text-to-speech and find out just exactly how it works. We'll look at what's happening under the hood when voice assistants talk and see what goes into creating a TTS system.
Readspeaker is a pioneering voice technology company that provides lifelike Text to Speech (TTS) services for IVR systems, voice applications, automobiles, robots, public service announcement systems, websites or anywhere else. It's been in the TTS game for over 20 years and has in-depth knowledge and experience in AI and Deep Neural Networks, which they put to work in creating custom TTS voices for the world's biggest brands.
LinksVisit Readspeaker.com to find out more about TTS services
And Readspeaker.ai for more information on TTS research and samples
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This week's top stories:Google’s Read Along
Vernacular.ai raises $5.1 million led by Exfinity Ventures, Kalaari Capital
HR AI system, Paradox AI gets 40m funding for replacing the ‘boring’ jobs
ConverseNow has closed a $3.25 million seed funding round led by Bala Investments
Omilia, a conversational artificial intelligence platform developer, has raised $20 million in a funding round led by Grafton Capital
Getting the tone right - automated copy generation has to be retrained in a time of crisis
Stores may use voice assistants to transform shopping, retail consultant says
In a world fearful of touch, voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri are making our lives easier
Startup adjusts medical voice assistant for a Zoom world
France launches AI voice assistant to help coronavirus patients
Katy Perry announces new album on Alexa
Spirent approved to test AVS products
How speech recognition techniques are helping to predict volcanoes’ behaviour
The Information by James Gleik
MIDI Sprout
Learn guitar on Google Assistant
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Music has been the top use case on smart speakers pretty much from the beginning. Having any song you like at your beckoning call makes playing music around the house easier than ever. And households that play music out loud are, apparently, happier households.
It doesn't require too much thought, either. So, discoverability isn't as much of a challenge as with skills, actions and services. If you want to play some Michael Jackson, just ask.
Having said that, music consumption habits are advancing. According to Pandora, more people are listening to up-beat, exercise music during lockdown, presumably to exercise to given the gyms are shut. And more people are listening to more ambient music, too, as well as child friendly playlists. People spending time at home and using their music service to relax and entertain the kids respectively.
And there's a growing trend moving away from listening to artists and towards listening to playlists. Random compilations of different tunes grouped around a theme. And with smart speakers, we're seeing an insight into people's contexts with the music they ask to play. For example 'play BBQ music' might not be something you'd try and find on Spotify, but you might ask for it from your smart speaker.
In the age of playlists, mood music and music on demand, how does a record label make sure that its catalogue of music is found and played on smart speakers? Well, that's what we're going to find out in this episode.
In this episode: voice strategy at Sony MusicWe're joined by Dennis Kooker, President, Global Digital Business and US Sales, and Achim Matthes, Vice President, Partner Development, at Sony Music Entertainment. Dennis and Achim walk us through how Sony Music is thinking about voice, some of the behavioural trends they're seeing play out, how they make sure that, when you ask for a Sony Artist song, you get what you've asked for, what's involved in music discoverability, what trends they're seeing and where they see music and voice heading in future.
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Stories covered:Talking elevators and the Scottish elevator sketch
Contact centre voice biometrics
Google Assistant's voice match
Facebook Chatbot, Blender, can talk about anything. See some sample dialogues and try it out.
Juniper research
NPR Smart Audio Report
Pandora's listening habit changes
AI conference on Aminal Farm
Claire Mitchell on VUX World
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Dustin and Kane are joined by Patricia Scanlon, CEO SoapBox Labs, to discuss how its specialist speech technology for kids is being used and scaled across the globe to help kids learn to read and more.
In this episode: voice tech for kidsImagine being able to have your child read to an iPad and have it tell them how they’re doing. Whether they’re pronouncing the words right and encouraging them to improve.
Imagine, as a parent or teacher, being able to report on different child’s progress so that you can focus on the real areas that need improving.
Well, this is what Soapbox Labs enables you to do with its specialist speech technology which you can use to build bespoke applications specifically for kids.
You might be wondering 'why would I need speech technology specifically for kids?' Well, kids have totally different voices to adults. Their pitch is higher, they don't always pronounce words properly and it changes across the ages. A 5 year old's voice is different to a 10 year old's voice.
Most of the speech recognition systems you'll be familiar with are trained on adult voices and don't tend to work too well for kids voices.
In this episode, we expand on this and more with a deep discussion on just why voice technology for kids is so important, how the solution was created, what makes it unique and how you can use it to create life changing applications that help kids all over the world learn and entertain themselves.
We discuss use cases in education, such as learning to read or learning a new language, as well as leisure, such as speech recognition in toys.
After listening or watching this episode, you'll not only be equipped with the knowledge you need to create effective voice applications for kids, you'll also have a new appreciation for just how important this kind of technology is, what kind of opportunity exists in creation educational solutions for kids, but also just how important all of this is.
About Patricia ScanlonPatricia Scanlon is the founder and CEO of SoapBox Labs, the award winning voice tech for kids company. Patricia holds a PhD and has over 20 years experience working in speech recognition technology, including at Bell Labs and IBM.
Patricia has been granted 3 patents, with two pending. She is an acclaimed TEDx speaker, and in 2018 was named one of Forbes "Top 50 Women in Tech" globally.
In 2013, inspired by the needs of her oldest child, Patricia envisioned a speech technology to redefine how children acquire literacy. She has successfully raised multiple rounds of both public and private funding to bolster research and product development, and her technical approach has been independently validated by the world's top three academic authorities on speech recognition.
SoapBox Labs is based in Dublin and has a world class team of 22 employees.
LinksGet a free 90 trial of the SoapBox Labs API:
Visit soapboxlabs.com
Email hello@soapboxlabs.com
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Deborah Harrison was the very first writer on the Cortana team and defined the personality of Microsoft's digital assistant that is used on over 400m surfaces globally.
In this talk, we chat to Deborah about the importance of personality and persona in conversational experiences, and the critical responsibility of ethical design.
LinksFollow Deborah on Twitter
Voice search is growing. As smart speaker adoption increases and people use the voice assistants on their phones more and more, voice is playing an increasing role in more customer journeys.
But what's your share of voice? How often does your company 'rank' for the search terms you'd like to rank for?
Amazon and Google are tight-lipped about voice search volumes and don't offer any way of tracking voice search performance for websites, skills or actions.
Thankfully, Andy Headington and his team at Adido, has created a tool that lets you do just that.
In this episode, we speak to Andy about how you can measure your share of voice, and how you can find ways of identifying insights that will enable you to improve you voice search performance.
LinksTry Share of Voice
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What is speech recognition and how does it work?Automatics speech recognition (also known as ASR) is a suite of technology that takes audio signals containing speech, analysis it and converts it into text so that it can be read and understood by humans and machines. It's the technology that makes voice assistants like Amazon Alexa able to understand what a user says.
There's obviously a whole lot more to it that than, though. So, in today's episode, we're speaking to one of the most knowledgable and experienced speech recognition minds the world has to offer, Catherine Breslin, about just exactly what's going on under the hood of automatic speech recognition technology and how it actually works.
Catherine Breslin studied speech recognition at Cambridge, before working on speech recognition systems at Toshiba and eventually on the Amazon Alexa speech recognition team where she met the Godfather of Alexa, Jeff Adams. Catherine then joined Jeff at Cobalt Speech where she currently creates bespoke speech recognition systems and voice assistants for organisations.
In this episode, you'll learn how one of the fundamental voice technologies works, from beginning to end. This will give you a rounded understanding of automatic speech recognition technology so that, when you're working on voice applications and conversational interfaces, you'll at least know how it's working and then be able to vet speech recognition systems appropriately.
Presented by SparksSparks is a new podcast player app that lets you learn and retain knowledge while you listen.
The Sparks team are looking for people just like you: podcast listeners who're also innovative early adopters of new tech, to try the beta app and provide feedback.
Try it now at sparksapp.io/vux
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Voice shopping on Alexa and Google Assistant smart speakers is a $2bn market today, and is forecast to explode. I've wrote about the potential of voice shopping for the Harvard Business Review last year, but things are starting to pick up.
According Amazon's Patrick Gauthier, 20% of Americans are ready for voice shopping now, and 39% of all Americans will complete some part of their purchase journey via voice by 2022.
And while it might not generate a huge percentage of sales today, the learnings that you'll gather through observing and collecting data on how customers are interacting with your brand, will be worth its weight in gold when the volcano erupts.
Presented by SparksSparks is a new podcast player app that lets you learn and retain knowledge while you listen.
The Sparks team are looking for people just like you: podcast listeners who're also innovative early adopters of new tech, to try the beta app and provide feedback.
Try it now at sparksapp.io/vux
Introducing Shilp Agarwal, CEO, BlutagOur guest today is Shilp Agarwal, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Blutag, the voice shopping platform making it possible for retailers to sell on Alexa and Google Assistant with ease.
Shilp talks us through how he sees the voice shopping landscape today, how it's changed over the last two years, and why it's going to explode in the next 18 months.
Some highlights for retailers considering Alexa for voice shoppingSelling via Alexa skills can have an ROI and offer some key learnings. Fresh Direct increased its shopping cart size by 12% with its Alexa skill, powered by Blutag.
But the ROI is about more than sales. You can get ahead of your competition by excelling in customer experience, offering voice options at different stages of the customer journey. From product research and consideration, through ordering and delivery tracking, right through to post-sales.
And you don't need to be all things to all people straight away. Instead, try focusing on smaller parts of the shopping experience that'll help you get moving quickly, offer some value immediately and learn from your users. Things like repeat purchases or delivery checking are ideal.
One thing is for sure, voice shopping is on the horizon and getting ahead now will put you in a great position.
LinksVisit blu.ai
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Corona virus hits voice as Google removes coronavirus actions, Spotify looks like it's releasing a voice assistant and Jovo lets you build voice assistants everywhere.
Presented by SparksSparks is a new podcast player app that lets you learn and retain knowledge while you listen.
The Sparks team are looking for people just like you: podcast listeners who're also innovative early adopters of new tech, to try the beta app and provide feedback.
Try it now at sparksapp.io/vux
Stories discussed in this episodeGoogle reject corona virus action
Spotify might be releasing a voice assistant
Jovo v3, build voice assistants and deploy them everywhere
Jovo Linkedin vlog
Google Read It
Google Read It Linkedin vlog
Alexa, the OS
Live broadcasting on Alexa with the Food Network
The end of Alexa Skills?
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The Food Network aims to the be Peloton of cooking with live video broadcasting on Alexa. Director of Technology and Emerging Platforms at Discovery Inc., Tim McElreath, joins us to share how.
Presented by SparksSparks is a new podcast player app that lets you learn and retain knowledge while you listen.
The Sparks team are looking for people just like you: podcast listeners who're also innovative early adopters of new tech, to try the beta app and provide feedback.
Try it now at sparksapp.io/vux
Live video broadcasting on AlexaThe Food Network are working closely with Amazon to build out features for live video broadcasting on Echo Show devices and aims to be the Peloton of cooking.
Tim McElreath shares the story of what the Food Network is up to and how they see voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa shaping the future of engagement and content distribution in future.
Through the Food Network app, you can pay a subscription to access premium content such as in-app live interactive cooking shows. This is what Tim is bringing to Alexa. Live cooking demonstrations with the ability for the audience to ask questions to Alexa and have those questions fed through to the presenter to be answered live.
We also discuss the process of making live broadcasting happen and how it's being built as first party functionality. That means that the Food Network aren't building a skill for this. Instead, they're sending a feed and metadata to Amazon for Alexa to distribute it directly. Is this a sign of the future? Moving away from skills and towards feeding Alexa content with metadata directly?
The Food Network aims to own the kitchen and Alexa is a big part of that. This episode will show you how Tim and his team are pursuing such goals and will have you thinking about how you can do the same.
LinksTry the Food Network skill (US only)
Connect with Tim on Twitter
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Jon Bloom, Senior Conversation Designer at Google, joins us to share what a conversation designer does at Google, as well as some conversation design techniques used at Google, such as 'grounding strategies'.
Presented by SparksSparks is a new podcast player app that lets you learn and retain knowledge while you listen.
The Sparks team are looking for people just like you: podcast listeners who're also innovative early adopters of new tech, to try the beta app and provide feedback.
Try it now at sparksapp.io/vux
Conversation design and grounding strategiesConversation design is one of the core skillsets required to create engaging and effective voice and conversational experiences. UX Mag recently wrote about how the role of conversation designer will be one of the fastest growing UX roles in 2020.
But what exactly is conversation design? And what does a conversation designer actually do?
This week, we're joined by Jon Bloom, Senior Conversation Designer at Google to find out.
We discuss the role, what's involved, Jon's prior experience, the resurgence of enthusiasm in the voice community, as well as some conversation design techniques you can use to start creating engaging conversational experiences.
Conversation design techniquesOne of the highlights of the conversation is Jon's take on errors.
Within the conversation design community, most people talk about 'error recovery', which is recovering from situations in a conversation where things go wrong. For example, if a user asks for a pizza, and the system says 'what flavour', what happens when the user says a flavour that the system doesn't have? Or if the system mishears the user?
Recovering from these situations is typically known as 'error recover', but Jon's perspective is different and refreshing.
Jon mentioned that within all conversations, there are no such thing as errors. There is simply 'grounding'.
Grounding includes anything and everything the two people do within a natural conversation in order to ensure understanding.
For example, if a user asks for a hotel room for Tuesday, the system might confirm with 'Here's the rooms I found for Tuesday'. Confirming that it heard Tuesday is a form of grounding.
In the pizza example, where the user asks for a flavour the system doesn't have, the system might respond with 'I'm sorry, we don't have Hawaiian, but we do have farmhouse'.
These aren't 'errors', they're natural parts of human conversations and the things we do to ensure both parties are on the same page.
We get into some great detail on this with Jon, as well as plenty more conversation design techniques.
About Jon BloomJon is a veteran in the conversation design space, with decades of experience working in speech recognition systems, conversational UX and natural language-based human-computer interaction.
He created the interface design process for the well renowned dictation system Dragon Dictation by Dragon Systems, before moving to SpeechWorks (acquired by Nuance) to work on conversation design for IVR phone systems and in-car speech recognition systems.
Jon then worked at Synchronoss Technologies working on analysing and improving speech recognition systems for IVR phone systems, then moved back to Nuance as a Senior User Interface Manager.
Jon currently works predominantly on the Google Assistant and is responsible for making interactions and experiences on Google Assistant as intuitive and as user friendly as possible.
LinksFollow Jon on Twitter
Designing Voice User Interfaces by Cathy Pearl
Voice User Interface Design by James Giangola
Google's conversation design guidelines
Google's 'error' recovery guidelines (The irony isn't lost on me that Google has called this 'errors', rather than 'grounding'. Although this does include genuine system errors such as speech recognition issues)
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Maaike Coppens returns to share how you can go from zero to hero in one voice design sprint. From nothing at the beginning to a a validated use case and prototype at the end, with fun in the middle.
Presented by ReadspeakerReadspeaker is a pioneering voice technology company that provides lifelike Text to Speech (TTS) services.
Whether you're needing a TTS voice for your IVR system, voice application, automobile, robot, public service announcement system, website or anywhere else, Readspeaker have you covered.
They've been in the TTS game for over 20 years and have in-depth knowledge and experience in AI and Deep Neural Networks, which they put to work in creating custom TTS voices for the world's biggest brands.
If you're in the market for any form of TTS technology, check out Readspeaker today.
In this episodeYou can't design conversations without having them. This is Maaike's core message, and it's true. That's why the voice design sprint was born.
Taken from the core principles behind the book, Sprint, by Google's Jake Knapp, and the Google voice sprint methodology, Maaike has adapted and created a version of the design sprint that's perfect for voice.
Everyone speaks differently and approaches a conversation from a different starting point. The art of conversation design is to create an experience that works for all and is personalised where it needs to be.
However, sometimes we're limited by the technology we're working with.
For people who're new to conversation design or voice design, it's often thought that conversations with voice assistants just happen and that the sky is the limit. You know, because the 'AI' will handle everything.
In reality, that's not the case and there's a certain amount of education and grounding required to show the limitations of the technology and what a realistic conversation looks like.
Enter the voice design sprintThrough a series of 'serious games' and interactive exercises, that's exactly what this voice design sprint does.
In this episode, Maaike takes us through the voice design sprint workshop format and runs through the exercises so that you can try them in your own voice design sprints.
LinksJoin Maaike on LinkedIn
Maaike's website
Design sprint website
Sprint by Jake Knapp
The Google Voice Design Sprint
Transcreating voice experiences with Maaike Coppens
Grice's Maxims
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VaynerMedia are one of the leading global digital agencies. Director of Innovation at VaynerSmart, Claire Mitchell, joins us to share how VaynerMedia approach voice, as well as sharing some insights on situational design and sound design.
Listen on:Apple podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | CastBox | Spreaker | TuneIn | Breaker | Stitcher | PlayerFM | iHeartRadio
Presented by ReadspeakerReadspeaker is a pioneering voice technology company that provides lifelike Text to Speech (TTS) services.
Whether you're needing a TTS voice for your IVR system, voice application, automobile, robot, public service announcement system, website or anywhere else, Readspeaker have you covered.
They've been in the TTS game for over 20 years and have in-depth knowledge and experience in AI and Deep Neural Networks, which they put to work in creating custom TTS voices for the world's biggest brands.
If you're in the market for any form of TTS technology, check out Readspeaker today.
In this episodeWhat is situational design? What does it mean for the creation of your voice application? Claire Mitchell of VaynerMedia joins us in this episode to find out.
In this episode, we take deep dive into situational design and how you can apply it to your voice first applications, Alexa skills or Google Assistant actions.
Claire also has a passion for sound design and identifies this as an area of focus for voice in 2020. We speak to Claire about how VaynerMedia have used effective sound design to improve VUX and Claire also shares some examples of use cases and applications where sound design is being used to great effect.
We also have a general chat about voice at VaynerMedia and Claire's experience in voice technology and smart home VUI overall.
LinksJoin Claire on Linkedin
Situational design
The Audible Past
Bloomberg Sonificiation
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Fritz Kahn
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Ben McCulloch shares his take on why intonation and emotion is imperative in creating high quality and trust-building voice experiences.
Presented by ReadspeakerReadspeaker is a pioneering voice technology company that provides lifelike Text to Speech (TTS) services.
Whether you're needing a TTS voice for your IVR system, voice application, automobile, robot, public service announcement system, website or anywhere else, Readspeaker have you covered.
They've been in the TTS game for over 20 years and have in-depth knowledge and experience in AI and Deep Neural Networks, which they put to work in creating custom TTS voices for the world's biggest brands.
If you're in the market for any form of TTS technology, check out Readspeaker today.
In this episodeHave you ever met someone who sounds confident? What does confidence sound like?
What about fear? Excitement? Sadness?
Believe it or not, we can detect emotion in people's voices. We can also detect personality types. Imagine the bullish salesperson or the strict teacher or the mad scientist. You can probably imagine what these personalities sound like.
Every person has a way of speaking, even if they say the exact same words. And the exact same words can be said differently in order to change the meaning of them.
Take this famous line from the US TV hit show, Friends:
Joey stars in a terrible play, but gets given an agent's card after his performance. Joey says "It's an agent. Maybe they want to sign me."
Thinking the play was terrible, Phoebe responds "Based on this play?"
Realising she's hurting Joey's feelings, she turns it around with a positive "Based on this play!!"
Same words, different intonation, different meaning.
The intonation and emotion in our voices also help us establish a rapport with others and build relationships.
Voice assistants, right now, don't have the same intonation as humans do.
Now, that's changing, of course. With things like Alexa's newsreader voice and technologies like ReadSpeaker, Lyrebird, Resemble.ai and Voice Surfer, we're getting closer to human fidelity.
But we're not quite close enough, according to today's guest, Ben McCulloch.
Ben is an audio engineer and sound designer who's worked across TV and video creating sound scapes and putting audio to video for many years. He has extensive experience in dialogue editing and is the perfect person to shine a light on the importance of intonation and emotion in human speech.
In this episode, Ben highlights the importance of intonation and emotion in building trust with uses and in providing high quality experiences. He shares some examples of the impact this can have, guidance on when to use Text-to-Speech voices and insights on the current state of play as far as synthetic voices are concerned.
LinksConch Design
Join Ben on LinkedIn
Watch I know that voice by Kevin Conroy, Jim Cummings, John DiMaggio and Lawrence Shapiro (Director)
The Human Voice: How This Extraordinary Instrument Reveals Essential Clues About Who We Are by Anne Karpf
Scoring voice experiences with Joel Beckerman
Barack Obama Lyrebird fake voice
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We catch up with 4 Amazon Alexa Champions to discuss the then, now and future of the Alexa skills ecosystem and the voice first community.
Presented by ReadspeakerReadspeaker is a pioneering voice technology company that provides lifelike Text to Speech (TTS) services.
Whether you're needing a TTS voice for your IVR system, voice application, automobile, robot, public service announcement system, website or anywhere else, Readspeaker have you covered.
They've been in the TTS game for over 20 years and have in-depth knowledge and experience in AI and Deep Neural Networks, which they put to work in creating custom TTS voices for the world's biggest brands.
If you're in the market for any form of TTS technology, check out Readspeaker today.
In this episodeThe Alexa Champions program is an honorary award given by Amazon in recognition of great service to the Alexa platform and ecosystem.
All four of today's guests are Alexa Champions, and they take us for a walk down memory lane and discuss:
- what the community and the voice first ecosystem was like when they first started
- what made them start building Alexa skills
- the signs that signalled things were going well
- the current state of the voice first community
- what they wish for in future
Steve Arkonovich and Eric Olsen were two of the very first Alexa Champions. Nick Schwab followed in the next batch, then Tim Kahle.
Steve was building skills before the Alexa Skills Kit even existed! Over time, he's built up a rack of skills published under his company, Philosophical Creations. His skill, Big Sky, is one of the most used skills on the platforms and is to this day a sterling example of a great voice first and multi modal experience.
Some of Eric Olsen's first skills were Complibot and Insultibot, skills that generate random compliments and insults for users every day. Eric is the founder of 3PO Labs has always been a keen member of the voice community and is one of the most active members in the Alexa Slack channel, offering help, advice and guidance for budding skill developers.
Nick Schwab is the founder of Invoked apps and runs some of the most used skills on the Alexa platform. His suite of sleep sounds bring in around 300,000 users per day, a side hustle that famously earned him enough money to buy a Tesla.
Tim Kahle is the co-founder of 169 Labs, based out of Germany and the organiser of the All About Voice conference. Tim and co-founder, Dominik Meißner, won an Alexa hackathon in Germany in 2016, released a series of skills and founded one of the leading voice agencies in Germany off the back of it. The All About Voice conference in Munich is the leading voice first event in Europe.
LinksSteve on Twitter and LinkedIn
Eric on Twitter and LinkedIn
Nick on Twitter and LinkedIn
Tim on Twitter and LinkedIn
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Twilio is a magical tool, and Autopilot is its NLU platform that voice devs and designers need to check out. In this episode we're taking a look at what Autopilot is, what are its core concepts, and how it differs from other NLU services.
To get $10 free, use our referral link at www.twilio.com/referral/ZQRq9v
Music featured in this episode:
Blossoming by Sound of Music
Logjam by Sound of Music
Saunter by Sound of Music
Massive_Attack by Sound of Music
Tiny_Spoons by Sound of Music
Adva Levin joins us to share why you should design personas for your voice apps, how you can create them, as well as how to work with voice acting talent.
Presented by ReadspeakerReadspeaker is a pioneering voice technology company that provides lifelike Text to Speech (TTS) services.
Whether you're needing a TTS voice for your IVR system, voice application, automobile, robot, public service announcement system, website or anywhere else, Readspeaker have you covered.
They've been in the TTS game for over 20 years and have in-depth knowledge and experience in AI and Deep Neural Networks, which they put to work in creating custom TTS voices for the world's biggest brands.
If you're in the market for any form of TTS technology, check out Readspeaker today.
In this episodeClifford Nass and Scott Brave, in their book Wired for Speech, showed that whether you want to or not, humans cannot help but form a picture in their minds about the voice they're hearing.
Just from a voice alone, we can form an understanding of the gender, age, education, location and mood of someone, and more.
So whether you create a persona for your voice applications or not, your users will form one anyway.
That's why its so important to create one, so that you can try and establish some consistency in the mind of your users.
Having a persona documented is also like a style guide for conversation designers. It helps guide writing and creates synergy on projects where many designers are needed.
Adva Levin has created some of the most recognisable and award winning Alexa skills, including Kids Court, and also provides consultancy and design services for organisations through her company, Pretzel Labs. Most of Adva's work requires some kind of persona design. So who better to take us through the why's and the how's?
LinksPretzel Labs
Adva Levin and Pretzel Labs on Twitter
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Sarah Andrew Wilson, Chief Content Officer at Matchbox.io, shares the secret sauce for creating the kind of Alexa skills you can build a business on.
In this episode:This week, we speak to Sarah about the Matchbox.io stable of skills and discuss:
- What it’s like maintaining 18 Alexa skills
- The Opearlo acquisition
- Unique advice for people and companies just getting started
- The 3-step Matchbox.io philosophy that runs through each of its Alexa skills
- Ecosystems and community and how the two drive engagement
- ISPs and how Matchbox.io is monetising Alexa skills
- How changing 1 word led to a 17% increase in conversions
- How Matchbox.io gets its skills discovered
- The potential for advertising on assistant platforms
LinksMatchbox.io website
Matchbox.io on Twitter
Question of the day
Question of the day Facebook group
Sarah on LinkedIn
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The first episode of the new year is both a reflection on how far we've come in the last 12 months, and what to look forward to in the year to come.
This is a special episode as it's the first of a new decade. And in this episode of the rundown, we're getting deep.
Biggest news stories of 2019:Apple acquires Pullstring - Was this an acqui-hire? Or is Apple using the Pullstring tool internally? Will we ever find out? Either way, 2019 started out with a big acquisition from a big player and showed good early signs of a growing industry.
Sonos acquires Snips - Given the importance of privacy, Sonos might have struck gold with Snips, the privacy first voice tech company based in Paris. The sad thing for the industry is that Sonos will not support third party activity any longer and is keeping the tech for its own speakers.
This could happen more and more as big companies realise the value of having voice technology and the talent to create and implement it. I just hope there are enough tools leftover to support the community and third party developers.
Voice startup funding set to triple in 2019
Google BERT: understanding searches better than ever before, and ERNIE from Baidu, which can understand subjects and topics better than ever before, too. With these two developments on the AI front, the chances of understanding what users are asking for and being able to offer the correct response is increasing. ERNIE beats humans as far as its reading comprehension capability is concerned.
Most overhyped news stories of 2019:Voice interoperability initiative - On the face of it, this sounds great. Lots of organisations joining together to create standards that will allow multiple voice assistants to run on a single device so that users can choose which assistant they'd prefer to use for a given task. In reality, given that Google and Apple aren't involved in this, will it have the benefits that it proposes? Well, perhaps if Alexa is your go-to assistant, then yes. This way, Alexa is the core assistant, but then Cortana and Einstein (Salesforce) can be used for more specific tasks.
Humans review Alexa recordings - Maybe it's just because we're so deeply ingrained in the industry that I assumed that humans reviewing mismatched or failed utterances would be obvious. Seemingly, though, the public did not. I understand that users are concerned with privacy around voice assistants and that the industry needs to respond and develop trust. However, I think this story in particular, and the others that followed it, blew things out of proportion and were used as scaremongering.
Most underhyped stories of 2019:Google AI runs on device - When this was announced at I/O'19, it got some coverage, but it wasn't made as big a deal of than I'd have thought. This is the kind of thing that Snips used as it's core differentiator. Now, Google can run automatic speech recognition on the device and takes Google Assistant a step closer to being a privacy-first assistant.
The great Google action outage - In October, Google pulled almost all of the actions on Google Assistant offline without warning. Thousands of actions just vanished. It later transpired that it was due to a potential security risk around a phishing vulnerability, but the company didn't communicate anything to anyone, at all. The story was covered by Voicebot and that's about it. Imagine if all of the apps in the app store vanished over night, without warning. I thought it was big news that deserved more coverage.
Hugging Face raised $15 million - The big two (Amazon and Google) are talked about more often than anything else. We're guilty of this ourselves sometimes. But we know that voice is about more than those two. It's about more than smart speakers. It's the interface of the future and the opportunities for using voice span well beyond the big two. And so when we see a company that is trying to build the definitive natural language processing library, that's big news.
Other links we spoke about in the show:How voice assistants could change the way we shop - Kane Simms, Harvard Business Review
Team Say It Now finishes third in Alexa Cup
Oren Jacob discusses conversation design on VUX World
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How do NPR approach designing voice applications? And how do they engage users to make sure that they're designing the right things for the right people, Ha-Hoa Homano, Sr. Product Manager, Emerging Platforms at NPR joins us to share all.
LinksRead more at npr.design
Learn with npr.codes
Follow Ha-Hoa on Twitter
Audio player functionality suggestion on Alexa.uservoice.com (still pending)
Sierra Fontana and Carissa Merrill are working hard to make the US Bank's voice services accessible to all. They join us on this episode to share how they're approaching accessibility for voice and why it's so important to prioritise accessibility early.
Presented by the Conversational Academy. Save 10% on the world's no.1 online conversation design course.
LinksWCAG guidelines
All about VoiceItt with Sara Smolley
Join Carissa Merrill and Sierra Fontana on LinkedIn
Facilitating a panel discussion on voice design with Ben Sauer of Babylon Health, Charlie Cadbury of Say it Now, Jen Heap of Vixen Labs, Rozzi Meredith of Voxly and Quirine van Walt Meijer of Microsoft.
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Adam Greenwood is the CEO of the human tech agency, Greenwood Campbell. Last year, Adam and his team trialled placing voice assistants in residential homes in the UK to see whether voice assistants can help alleviate loneliness for senior citizens.
We discuss the project and the results, as well as get Adam's take on the current state of voice and what he'd like to see in 2020.
Presented by the Conversational Academy. Save 10% on the world's no.1 online conversation design course.
This episode was broadcast live on LinkedIn. To catch the next live broadcast, join Kane Simms on LinkedIn.
LinksAdam Greenwood on LinkedIn
Greenwood Campbell website
Watch the Alleviating Loneliness video
Greenwood Campbell on Twitter
Podcasts referenced in this episodeAsk Marvee with Heidi Culbertson
Helping Susan with Ruby Steel and Will Merrill
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Taken from Kane's talk at the Bots, AI and Voice meet-up in London on 20 November 2019.
The meet-up was ran by Roy Murphy of Synthetic. Check out the meet-up page for info on the next meet-up.
Connect with me on LinkedIn to watch all future talks live, including the panel discussion on voice design at MUXL2019.
This episode is a bonus episode looking at this week's discussions on LinkedIn.
We complain about discoverability and retention, but who's actually doing anything about it? Are you putting the budget required behind getting your apps used and are you utilising the tools available to you to retain users? More importantly, are you creating the right thing for the right person in the first place?
Join the discussion next week
Is discoverability of Alexa skills, Google Assistant actions and other voice applications the duty of the platforms i.e. Amazon and Google, or is it the duty of the brand or developer creating them? We discuss this, as well as discoverability challenges within voice applications with Voiceflow co-founder, Braden Ream.
LinksSave 10% on the Conversational Academy online conversation design course
Try out VoiceFlow
Follow Braden Ream on Twitter
Join the VoiceFlow Facebook community
Jeff Adams was the founding manager of the Alexa speech group; the team that made Alexa listen and talk. Jeff joins us to share the origin story of Alexa: where it come from and how it was created, and why the device was called 'Echo'.
Jeff also explains the details behind the three core parts of speech recognition: lexicons, acoustic modelling and language modelling, how the Doppler became the Echo and about his company Cobalt Speech.
Linkswww.cobaltspeech.com
info@cobaltspeech.com
http://www.cobaltspeech.com/coblog
Kane hosted the MUXL: Voice innovation 2019 Meetup on October 24th 2019 at Amazon HQ, and this is the opening talk. It covers the most recent smart speaker adoption rates for the UK, debates the 'voice first winter' and shares some recent behavioural trends from Code Computer Love.
LinksGartner AI hype cycle, July 2019
UK Smart speaker adoption stats from Voicebot.ai
Chinese smart speaker adoption, Canalys
Code computer love UK smart speaker usage Survey, October 2019
Communicating address information to voice assistants is hard. Josh Wigmore, Head of Product, joins us to share how What 3 Words are making this possible.
Win a ticket to All About Voice 2019All About Voice is the biggest and best voice conference in Europe. It's in Muchich on October 11th and feature talks from Amazon, Google and plenty more. Plus, yours truly is hosting the event.
Win a free ticket by sending a tweet using #aav19 and tell us your best voice experience of 2019.
In this episodeJosh Wigmore, Head of Product at What 3 Words joins us to share the challenges of addresses in voice, how What 3 Words are helping, how you can use What 3 Words in your voice apps and what the big tech providers need to do to allow accurate address communication.
LinksVisit What 3 Words
What 3 Words for developer
Try the What 3 Words Alexa skill
Follow What 3 Words on Twitter
Connect with Josh on LinkedIn
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Proposing a new term for the voice first industry to consider: VTA - Voice-to-Action.
It's the same as a call to action, only it's exclusive to voice first platforms and interfaces and relies on the call to action and the response being given and responded to on the voice first interface.
In this video, we walk through a definition of VTA, as well as provide some examples of where Voice-to-Action is being used.
We also walk through some of the other terms that have been created as the voice first industry blossoms as well as see how other industries evolved their own kind of language.
For the full write up and all of the reference points and links, visit the show notes page: https://vux.world/voice-to-action
To leave a comment or send us your questions to be answered on the podcast, visit https://vux.world/ask
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Claire Medcalf, Lead Creative at Rehab Agency, joins us to share her learnings on moving from a copywriter to a conversation designer and how you can do the same.
Presented by BotmockBotMock is a purpose-built conversational design tool that'll have you rapidly prototyping and testing in no time.
Check it out for free
Become an expert conversation designer with the...The Conversational Academy is THE course that'll teach you the ins and outs of conversation design. Prepare yourself for the UX role of the future and enrol on the course today.
VUX World listeners will save $100 when you enrol at conversationalacademy.com.
In this episodeThis week, Dustin and Kane catch up with Cannes Lions Gold-Winning Creative Lead, Claire Medcalf and discuss how she went from copywriter to conversational designer.
We chat about the similarities and differences between the two, Claire's learnings in designing conversations, where the role will go in future and how you can become a conversation designer.
As adoption of voice user interfaces become more prevalent, so too will the role of Conversational Designer. This episode will give you a glimpse into the life of a conversational designer and help you establish your own path to doing the same.
LinksVisit the Rehab website
Follow Claire on Twitter
Connect with Claire on LinkedIn
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Is it down to Amazon to help you get your Alexa Skill discovered? Is it up to Google to send Google Assistant traffic your way? Or is it up to you, the developer or brand, to promote your wares and drive traffic yourself?
Discoverability is widely touted as one of the key challenges in the rise of voice adoption and usage. But what if it's actually something else?
What if, the key to unlocking the VUI is psychological? What if it's about changing our habitual usage of our phone? And, if so, is that the job of the big tech companies? Or are we all partly responsible?
Mindsay CEO, Guillaume Laporte joins us to share how you can use conversational AI to improve and scale your customer care and support.
Win free tickets to All About Voice 2019
All About Voice is Europe's biggest and best voice event, and the team at 169 Labs are offering two free tickets to VUX World listeners!
To be in with a chance of winning one of two free tickets to the event in Munich on October 11th, all you need to do is:
Send a tweet using #AAV19 and tell us your favourite voice experience of 2019 so far.
Winners will be announced on next week's show!
In this episodeWe dig deep into how conversational AI is helping some of Europe's biggest airlines scale their customer care operations, and give you some food for thought as to how you could do the same for your industry or clients.
Guillaume also shares with us some of the best surfaces to implement conversational AI, as well as some of the most successful use cases to focus on and where you should start when thinking of introducing conversational AI for the first time.
We discuss the differences between customer care and customer support and the future of the two in a voice-first world.
LinksMindsay website
Mindsay on LinkedIN
Mindsay on Twitter
Email Guillaume
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Mike Page, CEO and Co-founder Phebi, joins us to discuss voicifying the web and collapsing the path to purchase.
Presented by BotmockIf you're using things like Lucid Charts and Microsoft Visio to design your conversational experiences in, you should check out BotMock. Those tools are business process mapping tools, are limited and will disrupt your rapid prototyping capability. BotMock is a purpose-built conversational design tool that'll have you rapidly prototyping and testing in no time.
Check it out for free
In this episodeIt would be easy to read the headlines and think that voice is all about smart speakers. It'd be easy to think that it's all about 'big tech', and the big two in particular: Amazon and Google.
However, voice is an interface and, as we've spoken about many times on the podcast, we'll see voice increasingly appear on every surface.
Helping to bring voice into other mediums is Mike Page and his company, Phebi. It allows eCommerce websites to add vCommerce capabilities and is pushing forward the charge to bring voice interfaces to the web.
In this episode, we discuss how you can add voice capability to your website, user adoption, client and business awareness, the voicified web and much, much more.
LinksVisit getphebi.com
Connect with Mike on LinkedIn
Follow Phebi on LinkedIn
Email Mike
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Dustin and Kane speak with Charles Dawes and Patrick Byrden of TiVo about how they're helping users discover content through the power of voice, and the future of TV.
Presented byIf you're using things like Lucid Charts and Microsoft Visio to design your conversational experiences in, you should check out BotMock. Those tools are business process mapping tools, are limited and will disrupt your rapid prototyping capability. BotMockis a purpose-built conversational design tool that'll have you rapidly prototyping and testing in no time.
Check it out for free
In this episodeWhen sitting down to watch TV, 60-80% of the time, people know what they want to watch. The problem is finding that thing. Knowing where to look, what channel to check, which on demand platform to search.
Finding content on TV is hard.
And what about the 20-40% of people who have no clue what to watch? How do they find something relevant? We've all been down that rabbit hole of skipping through film after film, trailer after trailer on Sky or Netflix, only to get tired and give up in the end.
These are the problems TiVo are seeking to solve with its voice technology solution.
For those of you in the US, TiVo will be a household name. A verb. And, for those in Europe and beyond, chances are, you've heard of TiVo. What you might not know, is that TiVo power the voice capability for Samsung TVs, Sky Q, Virgin and more. So even if you haven't interacted with the customer facing set top boxes, you may well have used its voice solution.
In this episode, we speak to Charles Dawes, Sr Director, International Marketing, and Patrick Bryden, Sr Director, Customer Solutions about how TiVo are fixing the broken content discovery model through the use of voice.
We discuss the TV landscape and the problems they seek to solve, usage of the solution and how they measure success, the technology used and architecture, personalisation and recommendations, maintenance and constant improvements, and whether the remote control is a thing of the past.
LinksFollow TiVo for Business on Twitter
Visit the TiVo for Business website
Connect with Charles on LinkedIn
Connect with Patrick on LinkedIn
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This week, Dustin and Kane chat with Nico Acosta, Director of Product and Engineering at Twilio, about how companies are approaching multi-channel conversational strategies.
Presented byIf you're using things like Lucid Charts and Microsoft Visio to design your conversational experiences in, you should check out BotMock. Those tools are business process mapping tools, are limited and will disrupt your rapid prototyping capability. BotMock is a purpose-built conversational design tool that'll have you rapidly prototyping and testing in no time.
Check it out for free
In this episodeWe chat to Nico Acosta about how he's observing companies approach their conversational strategy using Twilio's Autopilot platform. This builds on the episode with Elaine Lee where we spoke about Autopilot from a design perspective. This time, we're zooming out and looking at how Autopilot can fuel your whole conversational strategy across all channels.
Nico has a fresh perspective on technology architecture, building on conversations we've had with Matt Hartman and Charlie Cadbury and providing detail on how to actually build once and deploy across all conversational channels, including voice assistants, chat bots and phone lines.
We discuss some of the parallels and similarities between IVR design and development compared to voice assistant creation, and how the IVR, voice assistant and chatbot industries are converging.
Nico also shares some insights into the kind of use cases that are working well, including a chat bot that automatically generates a website for a small business based on a short conversation. Nico also shares his dream application of Twilio Autopilot, which is all about obliterating being put 'on hold' when calling a company.
LinksFollow Nico on Twitter
Check out Autopilot
Become an expert conversation designerThe Conversational Academy is a fantastic online course that'll teach you the ins and outs of conversation design. Prepare yourself for the UX role of the future and enrol on the course today. VUX World listeners will save $100 when you enrol at conversationalacademy.com.
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In this episode, we discuss the Siri announcements from WWDC19, the Alexa announcements from reMARS and the Future of Voice Commerce report.
WWDC Announcements
Alexa Conversations
Alexa Cross-Skill Scenarios
The Future of Voice Commerce report
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After being published in the Harvard Business Review with the article, How voice could change the way we shop, Kane gives a high level overview of the piece in a presentation to those who attended the General Assembly event, Voice Commerce: the future of shopping?
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What we discuss in this episodeMeet the expert: voice search and discovery with Dustin Coates:London
San Francisco
Seattle
Google Assistant:What's new with Google Assistant? Announcements from I/O19
Google Assistant passes 1m actions
About the interactive canvas
How to templates for Google Assistant
Schema mark up for how to tutorials
Schema mark up for FAQs
App actions for Google Assistant
Google Assistant for smart home
Mini apps
Google Pixel 3a and 3aXL
Everything elseMicrosoft's voice report 2019
Delete Alexa recordings
Echo Show 5
Become an expert conversation designerThe Conversational Academy is a fantastic online course that'll teach you the ins and outs of conversation design. Prepare yourself for the UX role of the future and enrol on the course today. VUX World listeners will save $100 when you enrol at conversationalacademy.com.
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We're honoured to be joined by Amazon Alexa Chief Evangelist, Dave Isbitski, to discuss the conversations that he's having at C-Suite level about how brands should be approaching voice and where it's all heading.
Become an expert conversation designerThe Conversational Academy is a fantastic online course that'll teach you the ins and outs of conversation design. Prepare yourself for the UX role of the future and enrol on the course today. VUX World listeners will save $100 when you enrol at conversationalacademy.com.
In this episodeDave Isbitski is the Chief Evangelist at Amazon Alexa and spends his days touring the world speaking and educating brands on why they should be adopting a voice strategy and how they can do it.
We chat to Dave about what he's observing at Chief Exec level within brands across different industries and how he's advising brands to approach voice. We also look at the bigger picture, where voice is heading and what brands can do today to put themselves in prime position tomorrow.
This is a key episode for digital and innovation leaders and C-Suite execs as you'll hear first hand from Amazon on how you should be thinking about and approaching voice in your company. From visioning and scene setting to resourcing, planning and scaling. You'll also hear about the opportunities that are waiting for you once you start down this path.
It's also an important episode for anyone working at agency level, as you'll see some of the techniques Dave uses to sell voice to big companies and understand where the technology and user behaviour is heading.
We dive into details on:
- Voice in the enterprise
- Short and long term roadmap planning
- The similarities between voice now and mobile then
- How to get users to discover your skills
- Conversation design
- Relationship building
- The future of voice and how to plan for it
Lots of you sent your questions in for us to ask Dave, which we do at the end and Dave shares plenty of tips for designers, developers, agencies and creators in this space.
Thanks to everyone who sent their questions in, it was a great way to end the show.
LinksDave's details: thedavedev.com
Dave Isbitski on Twitter
Vote and propose Alexa features: alexa.uservoice.com
Dave's podcast: alexadevchat.com
Recent podcast appearancesHear Dave discuss the evolution of Alexa on Voicebot
About Dave, his role and Alexa in Canada on Alexa in Canada
Dave on what's changed in voice on Voice Summit
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This week, we're finding out how Ruby Steel and Will Merrill made Alexa more accessible for Susan as part of BBC 2's Big Life Fix.
Become an expert conversation designerThe Conversational Academy is a fantastic online course that'll teach you the ins and outs of conversation design. Prepare yourself for the UX role of the future and enrol on the course today. VUX World listeners will save $100 when you enrol at conversationalacademy.com.
In this episodeVoice first devices such as smart speakers are often touted as accessible. That's one of the main reasons voice assistants are forecast to grow in adoption and usage over the next 5 years. Voice is the new interface.
Whether you're a child, an elderly person or if you have a disability of some kind, voice is here to enable to you interact with technology and connect with those around you.
However, as you'll find out in this episode, there are some fundamental accessibility problems with smart speakers. Having to download the app in order to onboard, for example. Even the design of smart speakers themselves can be intimidating for some.
As part of the BBC 2 Big Life Fix in the UK, Ruby Steel and Will Merrill of Smart Design Worldwide looked to address these problems for Susan.
Susan has MS and requires round the clock care. Even things like changing the TV channel are a challenge for Susan and Smart Design Worldwide looked to change that.
Through creating a custom build, 3D printed casing in the shape of an owl, this 'accessibility jacket' made Alexa less intimidating. Inside, were two Echos. One for Susan to address, and that one talked to the other. Why? You'll find out in today's episode.
There are also plenty of insights into how to make your voice experiences more accessible. Some of which, like the use of small nested menus, go against the grain of current VUI design thinking.
Prepare to be inspired and challenged.
Linkshttps://smartdesignworldwide.com
Smart Design Worldwide on Twitter
Smart Design Worldwide on Medium
Ruby Steel in Big Life Fix
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Become an expert conversation designerThe Conversational Academy is a fantastic online course that'll teach you the ins and outs of conversation design. Prepare yourself for the UX role of the future and enrol on the course today. VUX World listeners will save $100 when you enrol at conversationalacademy.com.
In this episodeIn part 2 of RAIN week, we're joined by Nick Rovisa, Director, Business Development, and Matt Lang, Strategy Director. The guys share their learnings on the voice industry, including how different clients perceive price i.e. how much should a voice project cost, as well as whether to think about voice from a content or app perspective.
We dive deep into the work the team did with Nike in using Google Assistant to launch a new pair of sneakers at the half time interval during a televised Celtics v Lakers basketball game. We look at how the project came about, the lead times, the technical necessities of handling substantial transient traffic and the results of the project on sales.
We discuss how through working with Unilever and a selection of influencers, RAIN were able to achieve a 10% conversion rate of newsletter sign ups via the Alexa skill they built. The Unilever project was a 7 week pilot with a selection of influencers in an attempt to bridge the social and voice landscape. We discuss how this new medium caused confusion with influencer licensing and how to get around that, as well as the results of the pilot and what it takes to sustain a content heavy voice experience.
We discuss how to measure success and how, for some, starting to gather data to develop understanding is a better option than setting KPIs. We cover how to sell, without selling or being too overly salesy (that's a word).
Finally, we chat about what's missing in voice: virality (that's another word). This includes developing our thinking on how to make experiences spread and whether to plumb voice into the mobile and social ecosystem in order to help discoverability.
LinksRAINVisit the RAIN website
Subscribe to the RAIN newsletter (scroll to bottom)
RAIN on Twitter
RAIN on Insta
ContactEmail RAIN
Things we discussedAdoption, growth and in-skill purchases with Nick Schwab
Everything is a remix by Kirby Ferguson
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
The Conversational Academy is a fantastic online course that'll teach you the ins and outs of conversation design. Prepare yourself for the UX role of the future and enrol on the course today. VUX World listeners will save $100 when you enrol at conversationalacademy.com.
Welcome to RAIN weekThis week is RAIN week. We've got two huge episodes featuring the industry-leading and ground-breaking RAIN Agency.
RAIN are a dedicated voice agency and have worked with 23 of the Fortune 100 companies on voice projects. From Nike to Unilever, Campbells to Tide creating experiences from utility to leisure to kids and even product launches.
In this episodeIn this first episode with RAIN, we're joined by VP Emerging Experiences, Greg Hedges, to discuss how RAIN approach voice with the Fortune 100 and we get into detail on how they built the Kung Fu Panda Alexa skill for DreamWorks and Amazon.
We share some detail on what's changed in voice since RAIN pivoted in 2015 to focus exclusively on voice. We discuss how brands have moved from more tactical thinking to more strategic and how voice is something that is beginning to impact businesses, rather than be a nice marketing tick box. We also discuss how voice has changed ownership within brands, moving away from the research and innovation teams and moving into the hands of marketing.
Greg shares how RAIN has changed and adapted over the years, how the tools they use have improved, how they built using the VOXA framework and he shares some of the secret sauce RAIN use to track and analyse their voice experiences using Google Analytics.
We also dive deep into the Kung Fu Panda Alexa skill and discuss some of the technical detail in how it came to be, how RAIN approached the project and what Greg learned from a technical, design and strategic perspective.
LinksRAINVisit the RAIN website
Subscribe to the RAIN newsletter (scroll to bottom)
RAIN on Twitter
RAIN on Insta
ContactEmail Greg
Email RAIN
Things we discussedKung Fu Panda Alexa skill
The VOXA framework
Lucid charts
VUI design best practice when designing for kids with Paul Jackson
Will Hall and Jason Herndon of RAIN on VUX World
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Kane Simms and Dustin Coates are joined by Elaine Lee, Principal Product Designer at Twilio, to discuss the ins and outs of Twilio's Autopilot bot builder and how you can build trust with users through dialogue design.
Voice-Connected Home 2019, Cologne, GermanyThe Voice-Connected Home 2019 conference dives into all this and more with an incredible line up of speakers from brands like Amazon Alexa, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, BBC, BMW, Vodaphone and plenty more.
Save 30% on tickets with promo code VuxVoice.
Find out more
Learn the art of conversation design with the Conversational Academy online course.
LinksFollow Elaine on LinkedIn
Follow Elaine on Medium
Check out Autopilot on the Twilio website
Read the documentation for Autopilot
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Why do all skills start with 'Welcome to xyz'? Is an 'assistant' the right mental model for voice experiences? Mark Webster of Adobe XD joins us to tackle some of the biggest challenges in voice and discusses how design can play a role in solving them.
- Voice-Connected Home conference in Cologne, Germany on May 7th-8th. Save 30% on tickets with promo code VuxVoice.
- Learn the art of conversation design with the Conversational Academy online course.
- Take some time out with the Moment Pebble
About Mark WebsterMark Webster is Director of Product at Adobe, focusing on voice integration for Adobe XD. He is also responsible for driving product strategy for emerging technologies within XD. Mark joined Adobe through the acquisition of the company he founded, Sayspring, which offers a design and prototyping platform for voice interfaces.
Prior to Sayspring, Mark was Director of Product for Groupon, focusing on entertainment and events. He landed at Groupon after SideTour, an e-commerce marketplace for local activities he co-founded, was acquired by Groupon in September 2013. Mark started his career with a five-year stretch at the National Basketball Association, where he worked in Creative Services.
LinksFollow Mark on Twitter
Read Mark's posts on Medium
Check out Adobe XD
Follow Adobe XD on Twitter
Listen to Hans Van Dam discuss conversational design techniques
Listen to Pulse Labs discuss situational design
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This week, we're digging deep into how to craft compelling audio experiences in your voice app by using sonic branding and sound design, with Audio UX Co-Founder and CMO, Eric Seay.
In this episode: sonic brandingWe're advancing the conversation we had with Joel Beckerman of Man Made Music on scoring voice experiences, and get into specifics of how to make your VUX sound better with a combination of sonic branding and sound design.
We discuss:
- The resurgence of audio
- Why is sonic branding and sound design are important
- Where and how to use sonic branding
- How sonic branding applies to voice
- What's missing in voice from a sound design perspective
- The anatomy of an Alexa skill and where sound design can make an impact
- The 4 As: Audio As An Afterthought, and the perils of putting audio last
- Challenges in sound design and audio branding, including celebrity voiceovers
About Audio UX and Eric SeayAudio UX are a sound design and sonic branding company helping brands create a holistic Audio Aesthetic by developing an Audio DNA that is extractable, expandable, and effortlessly deployable into virtually any brand moment.
Co-Founder and CMO, Eric Seay, has a background in audio production and composition, working on sound design and sonic branding initiatives for global brands.
Earn monthly recurring revenue from your skills/actionsIf you build skills/actions for clients, then you can earn money from them each month through Speebly.
Speebly let's your client's skill/action be accessed and interacted with via your client's website.
Sign up your client to Speebly and you'll get a share of the monthly subscription fee.
Plus, if you've already built the skill/action in Dialogue Flow, it'll take you 5 minutes to set up.
Find out more
LinksAuxnyc.com
AUX on Twitter
Amazon Alexa Blueprints
Amazon Alexa sound library
Invocable shuts down
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Since starting VUX World in February 2018, things in the voice assistant industry have changed. At the last MUXL London Meet-up, Design for Voice, I presented 4 things that have moved forward and gave 4 pointers for you to take into consideration when working on your voice strategy and voice first projects.
Read the full write up on vux.world
We're honoured to be joined by Andrea Muttoni and German Viscuso, Technical Evangelists at Amazon Alexa, to dive deep into how to translate your Alexa skill into other languages.
At the time of writing, Amazon Alexa is available in over 40 countries and 12 languages, and continuously growing.
For skill builders, tapping into emerging markets is key to having your skills used on a global scale and to growing your user base.
However, if you have a skill that's in English, you can't just point it to the Italian or German skill store. You have to localise it and translate it for those languages.
In this episodeIn this episode, German Viscuso and Andrea Muttoni walk us through a step by step process of how to localise your Alexa skill.
We cover:
- Why you should localise your skill in the first place
- Front-end design considerations
- Back-end technical considerations
- Cultural differences
Andrea and German point to the importance of separating content and responses from code logic as the key to a successful localisation project. To help you visualise what that means, I've put together a little graphic that should help you picture this process visually.
This episode builds on the conversations we had about VUI design localisation with Maaike Dufour and localisation tooling with Milkana Brace and Jonathan Burstein of Jargon.
About Andrea Muttoni and German ViscusoAndrea Muttoni is the Senior Solutions Architect and Technical Evangelist for Amazon Alexa UK and IRE and German Viscuso is the Technical Evangelist at Alexa, Spain.
Andrea and German are both more than qualified to speak in detail on localisation. Andrea was born in Italy and has lived in China, USA, Luxembourg, the UK and holds a German passport. While German was born in Argentina, lives in Spain and has an Italian passport!
They both know their technical stuff, too (obviously).
LinksContentAndrea’s article on localisation
How to build an Alexa skill from scratch on YouTube
Find localisation source code at: github.com/alexa
Quickstart guide to the ASK CLI
Join the discussion on the Alexa forums: alexa.design/forums
Twitter and contact@alexadevs
@muttonia
@germanviscuso
Reach out to the team at: alexa.design/contactus
Things we discussedCrowd in - https://crowdin.com
Airtable - https://airtable.com
VUI design translation with Maaike Dufour
Localisation tooling with Jargon
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This week, Dustin Coates and Kane Simms are joined by Nick Carey, Lead Product Designer at Potato, to discuss the concept of creating an assistant on an assistant.
This episode touches on some unique topics that we haven't covered before, such as:
- How to create an assistant on an assistant and the reasons for doing so.
- The utility to affinity scale and when to create a persona.
- AI and personalised VS static content and the difference between the voice interface and the backend functionality.
We also discuss Nick's design and research process, how voice changes the interaction pattern, how character and story improve engagement and how technical development mixed with design led the team to create a randomised response builder capable of generating over a million different response combinations.
LinksVisit the Potato website: http://p.ota.to(what a cool domain!)
Twitter: NSDCarey
This week, Dustin and I are joined by journalist and author, James Vlahos, to discuss the details of his book Talk to Me: How voice computing will transform the way we live, work and think.
Where to listenApple podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
CastBox
Spreaker
TuneIn
Breaker
Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio
About Talk to MeJames Vlahos writes for the likes of WIRED, New York Times Magazine, Popular Science and GQ. His new book Talk to Mechronicles how the world’s biggest tech companies are battling to dominate voice—Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and the Assistant—the biggest technological paradigm shift since mobile phones. The book tracks the strange scientific quest—from humanoid talking contraptions of the 19th century to the latest AIs—that has resulted in our being able to say something to a voice assistant and receive an intelligible reply. And it explores voice computing’s potential to upend control of knowledge; to befriend, advise, and surveil; and to preserve memories of lost loved ones, as with James' Dadbotproject.
“Voice computing will profoundly reshape the way humans relate to machines, and Talk to Me is a brilliant and essential guide to what’s coming. James Vlahos understands how the technology works and all the complex things it will bring into the world—and he’s a superb writer too. You’ll find insights and meaning on every page, and you’ll keep turning them. This book is dynamite.” — Nicholas Thompson, editor in chief, Wired
“Conversational AI is a genuine paradigm shift in our experience with technology. Vlahos brings the whole story to life, from big-picture historical context to the impact on our intimate personal lives. A thoughtful and enjoyable read.” — Tom Gruber, cocreator of Siri
“James Vlahos has written an excellent book on how voice computing has become more and more of a growing presence in our everyday world. In Talk to Me, he provides the promise and peril of this development.” — Ray Kurzweil, inventor, author, and futurist
“The baton of disruption has been passed from the smartphone to voice, and Vlahos helps make sense of this tectonic shift.” — Scott Galloway, author of the bestseller The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google
LinksCheck out the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Book Passage.
Follow James Vlahos on Twitter
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We're joined by Jonathan Myers and Dave Grossman, founders of world-class interactive audio production company, Earplay. Jonathan and Dave take us through what it takes to create movie quality interactive stories and share with us their approach to creating some of the worlds best voice experiences, such as Jurassic World Revealed and Jack Ryan.
We're also joined by our special co-host for this episode, Florian Hollandt.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How to increase engagement and retention through storytelling
- The audio production pipeline
- Measuring success
- Making a voice game for gamers
- Earplay technology
- Working with Bose on AR interactive audio
Where to listenApple podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
CastBox
Spreaker
TuneIn
Breaker
Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio
LinksEarplay: https://www.earplay.com
Codename Cygnus: http://www.codenamecygnus.com
Earplay iOS: http://bit.ly/Earplay
Creator inquiries: talent@earplay.com
Bose AR: https://bose.com/ar
Xandra: https://www.xandra.com
Capstone: https://www.capstonepub.com
Jack Ryan: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Prime-Video-JACK-RYAN/dp/B07GX72SN2
Jurassic World: https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Studios-Interactive-Jurassic-Revealed/dp/B07D8KLPC9
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This is the recording of the opening breakfast session at TechNOVA Voice 2019, a voice-first conference held at the Hilton Tower Bridge, London, on 14th March 2019.
Kane covers where we're at in voice right now, from adoption numbers and usage figures, to emerging environments and a run through of some exemplar use cases.
View the slides and source material: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NqmndiWCF4EEke76lCFQaTKr9jyepkp0Qv_F1bV59rc/edit?usp=sharing
Find out more about the conference: https://marketforcelive.com/technova/events/voice/
An interview with Kane Simms taken from the Inside Voice podcast, the official podcast of the Voice Summit 2019.
Visit voicesummit.ai to apply to speak or buy tickets.
Diving deep into the usage of smart speakers in-store, finding out how a voice assistant is helping with product selection and driving sales, with The Mars Agency's Bree Glaeser and Brooke Hawkins.
If you've had your ear to the ground, you might have come across this example of how voice is being used to help people shop for whisky in-store. It's called SmartAisle. It's an interactive voice assistant that takes away the paradox of choice by guiding users through a conversation to find the right whiskey for them.
It's a sterling example of how voice could and should be applied in-store and is proving to increase sasles.
Today, we're speaking to the team that designed it to find out about:
- The opportunities of voice in-store
- How it's driving sales
- Design considerations for designing in-store voice assistants
- Technical challenges
- The future of voice shopping
Earn monthly recurring revenue from your skills/actionsIf you build skills/actions for clients, then you can earn money from them each month through Speebly.
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About Bree GlaeserBree is an innovation strategist, currently focused on helping brands prepare for a voice-first world. Bree leads the voice practice at The Mars Agency, and is a core member of the team responsible for dreaming up and bringing to life the first-of-its-kind voice assistant at brick and mortar retail, SmartAisle (SM).
Bree got into the voice and conversational commerce space via a background in design thinking and innovation. She has acted as a coach/industry expert supporting the Berkeley Entrepreneurship Program and other innovation groups in the Bay Area, to help students and professionals identify insights and ideate consumer/user-driven solutions.
About Brooke HawkinsBrooke started her career in voice designing interactive phone calls and voice assistants for healthcare. Since then, she’s helped co-write the Intro to VUI course at CareerFoundry, designed chatbots for Fortune 500 clients at Nuance, and now works with The Mars Agency designing voice shopping experiences for brands. When she’s not designing for brands, Brooke writes about the burgeoning field of voice ethics, and is always thinking about the new ways voice interfaces are changing our lives for better or worse.
About The Mars AgencyThe Mars Agency is a global marketing practice, specializing in marketing to shoppers, consumers and retailers across the ever-expanding omnicommerce environment. Mars uniquely refers to this environment as the A-to-V Commerce space, which incorporates everything from Autonomous to Voice commerce.
Mars, proud of its independence and growth-for-clients focus, operates internationally across the Americas, Europe and Asia through its network of 13 offices.
LinksVisit The Mars Agency website
Connect with Bree on LinkedIn
Connect with Brooke on LinkedIn
Follow Brooke on Twitter
Read more about Smart Aisle from the Marketing Dive
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This week, we're getting deep into using voice to enhance the gaming experience, with Anything World founder, Gordon Midwood.
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LinksWebsite: https://anything.world/
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/anything.world.worldwide
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_AnythingWorld
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Anything.World.Worldwide/
iOS app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/speak-to-anything/id1395178504
Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.differentcloth.speaktoanything
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As we celebrate 1 year of VUX World, we wanted to say thank you, each and every one of you, for listening week in week out and for being a part of this journey.
Here's to the next 100!
In this episode, we take a deep dive into the creation of the world's first voice-first interactive documentary: Hidden Cities Berlin for Google Assistant. The action is part of a collaboration between Google and the Financial Times and was created by Rosina Sound and Reduced Listening.
We're joined by the people behind the action, founder of Ronsina sound, Nicky Birch; interactive and immersive producer and BAFTA-winner, Michelle Feuerlicht; and audio software engineer, programmer, two-time BAFTA winner and all-round audio veteran, Nigel James Brown.
Together, the dream team take us through the creation process of Hidden Cities Berlin. We discuss the brief, the ideation and creation process, the design considerations and the technical build.
In this podcast, you'll learn about:
- Considerations for creating long-form, rich interactive audio content
- The challenges of creating interactive narrative as opposed to linear narrative
- Storytelling with empathy
- Documenting design and the 'pearl necklace' approach
- Why you should consider having two narrators
- When to give users a choice and why
- Clustering intents around one area
- Some limitations of Dialogue Flow when working with audio
- How to start with an Alpha and what to include
- Personalising experiences based on previous session behaviour
- And much more (obviously)
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LinksVisit the Rosina Sound website
Contact Nicky: nicky@rosina.io
Say 'Hey Google, speak to Hidden Cities Berlin'
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This week, we're chatting to the ex-Lego frontier-seeking, Vixen Labs-venturing, Voice2 fire-starting, voice-first-feasting James Poulter about how brands can, could and should approach voice.
As the ex-Head of Emerging Platforms at Lego Group, James led Lego through their first foray into voice with the creation and launch of the Lego Duplo experience on Alexa.
He also founded the Voice2 What's App community group with Will Harvey, which is now one of the most active online voice communities. (It's where we spend a good chunk of our time.)
James is currently CEO at Vixen Labs, a company he co-founded with CCO, Jen Heape, that offers consultancy services to global brands, helping them navigate the unchartered waters of voice.
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LinksJoin the Voice2 community
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Find out more about the Voice Summit 2019
Try the Lego Duplo skill
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Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_M0yaIYo3Ag
Here's a full blueprint for a voice design workshop. It shows you, from beginning to end, the process to go through to design world class Alexa skills.
If you're an agency trying to help brands build Alexa skills or voice apps, you can use this template to go through the VUX design process.
If you're a brand, you can use this to do the same with your teams.
Or if you're a hobbyist, you can use this to ideate and prototype in order to get to a valid use case.
For the full transcript:
https://vux.world/voice-design-worksh...
Podcasts referenced in this video:
VUI design best practice from testing voice apps with over 120 brands, with PulseLabs: https://vux.world/voice-product-strat...
Voice strategy with Ben Sauer: https://vux.world/voice-product-strat...
Tools mentioned in this video:
BotMock: https://botmock.com/vuxworld/ (for a free trial)
VoiceApps: http://voiceapps.com
Xtensio: https://xtensio.com
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This week, Dustin and I are joined by Tellables co-founder, Amy Stapleton, to discuss storytelling through Alexa and the design challenges that come with that.
By the end of this podcast, you'll:
- Be familiar with situational design
- Gain insight into designing with Amazon Polly
- Learn about complex interaction models
- See how you can use metaphors to helps users navigate (in this case, a box of chocolates)
- Understand how to build your own voice CMS and more
About Amy and TellablesAfter spending many years in IT, including 14 years at NASA as an IT manager, Amy Stapleton is driving the voice first revolution forward. Tellables build conversational story experiences for talking devices and provide a platform to showcase the work of talented authors within voice apps.
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LinksVisit the Tellables website
Follow Tellables on Twitter
Follow Amy on Twitter
Enable My Box of Chocolates
View the My Box of Chocolates list of candies
Enable the Tricky Genie skill
Check out the Pepper robot
Find out more about Airtable
Paul Cutsinger on situational design
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Today, we're discussing why you should separate voice app content from your code and logic with Jargon founders, Milkana Brace (CEO) and Jonathan Burstein (CTO).
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JargonSeparating content from code is a practice that not only makes it easier to manage your VUX in general, but also paves the way for internationalising your Alexa Skill or Google Assisntant Action for other countries. Jargon's SDK does the former (separating code from content) and their transcreation services do the latter (internationalise your skill or action for other languages.
Internationalising Alexa Skills and Google Assistant Actions: the land grabThis January, Google announced that Google Assistant will be available on over 1 billion devices. Amazon report to have now sold over 100 million Echo devices. Yet, 90% of all smart speaker activity is conducted in English. That's despite Alexa having a decent presence across Europe, Asia and South America, and Google Assistant being available globally.
Jargon's theory: not enough people are internationalising their Alexa Skills or Google Assistant Actions. And, because there isn't as many Skills and Actions in other languages, the prizes available for those who do transcreate their VUX are there for the taking.
In this episode, we take a deep dive into both and explain the benefits of managing content independently from code, as well as discuss the land grab available right now if you internationalise your Skill or Action. Oh, and how to do it!
LinksVisit jargon.com
Read Jargon's posts on Medium
Follow @jargonjourney on Twitter
Follow Jargon on LinkedIn
Check out @jargonjourney on Instagram
Download the Jargon SDK:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/@jargon/alexa-skill-sdk
https://www.npmjs.com/package/@jargon/jovo-plugin
https://www.npmjs.com/package/@jargon/actions-on-google
Check out the Dabble Labs videos on YouTube
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For the first episode of 2019, Dustin and I chat to long time fan of the show, hardcore Wu-Tang fan and resident UX research expert at AnswerLab, Chris Geison, about the ins and outs of UX research for voice.
As Principle UX Researcher at AnswerLab, Chris and his colleagues work with Fortune 100 companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook, specialising in helping them learn how people use technology so that they can design the right product for the right use case.
Chris joins us today to share some of the research that AnswerLab have conducted on user behaviour and voice, as well as talk us through the different types of UX research he uses, what each type is good for and how you can conduct user research for voice yourself.
This episode builds on concepts we've discussed previously with Ben Sauer (voice first product strategy), Konstantin Samoylov and Adam Banks (voice first user research), and Sam Howard (voice first user testing).
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LinksFollow Chris on Twitter
Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
Follow AnswerLab on Twitter
Visit the AnswerLab website
The state of smart speakers (research by AnswerLab)
AnswerLab insights
Just enough research by Erika Hall
Interviewing users by Steve Portigal
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Merry Christmas VUX World fans, today we're diving deep into dialogue design and discussing some of the nuances and details you need to think about to craft compelling and frictionless dialogue in your voice experiences, with Rebecca Evanhoe.
We're also taking a look back through 2018 and discussing our favourite events, skills, actions and devices, as well as looking forward to what's in store for 2019.
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LinksFollow Rebecca on Twitter
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Buy Erika Hall's book on Conversation Design
Music credit: Have Yourself a Merry Funky Christmas by DKSTR
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This week, we're joined by VAICE co-founder, Sina Kahen to discuss the importance of emotional intelligence and how you can design EQ into your voice experiences using the 6 'First date' principles.
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Our guestSina Kahen is an Imperial College MBA student working in the biotechnology and voice technology industries. He is currently co-founder and product manager at VAICE, a pro-bono consulting group that helps brands discover the benefits of voice and conversational AI, from strategy to experience. His recent work involves identifying the challenges presented after the recent wave of voice technology, and aiming to solve them with his understanding of behavioural science, biomimicry, and philosophy.
LinksVisit the VAICE website
Connect with Sina on LinkedIn
Follow Sina on Instagram
Convenience-First: Bursting the Voice-First Bubble
Wired for Speech
Wally Brill on persona design
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On this week's Rundown, we're catching up to run through AWS re:Invent, Amazon's biggest event of the year, and discuss everything voice-related that occurred. We'll also weave in some of the latest news happenings and analyse the implications and opportunities for the industry.
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LinksDustin's recap write ups of days one, two, threeand four
Amazon reminders API
Freebox, the French set-top box with Alexa
Alexa extends audio sample length from 90 seconds to 240 seconds
27 Amazon Polly voices made available
News anchor text-to-speech voice
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This week, we're speaking with Jon Chu, COO, Jetson AI, all about the Jetson platform and voice shopping and ordering in the restaurant, retail and hospitality space.
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LinksVisit the Jetson.ai website
Follow Jetson on Instagramand Twitter
Connect with Jon on LinkedIn
Email jon@jetson.ai
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Today, we're joined by Ammi Systems CEO, Stephen Milner, and CTO, Marcus Finlay, to discuss voice in the enterprise and how their new voice assistant, Uma, is set to revolutionise productivity at work.
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Voice in the enterpriseThis episode advanced on some of the concepts we discussed with Shawn Kanungoand discusses working examples of how Uma is helping people be more productive at work.
After 2 years in the making, Uma will be officially launched at MAD//Feston November 28th in London. The team at Ammi are offering some free tickets to VUX World listeners, so if you'd like to come and see the launch of Uma, see what she's all about and witness MAD//Fest, then just reach out to us on Twitter.
LinksCheck out Uma Book
Visit the Ammi Systems website
Follow Ammi on Twitter
Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn
Connect with Marcus on LinkedIn
Check out MAD//Fest
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We're honoured to be joined by Paul Jackson, Senior Designer at the BBC, to discuss how the Beeb are approaching VUI design, with a particular focus on designing Alexa Skills for kids.
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VUI design for kidsThe BBC is killing it in voice right now. It's one of the only companies with a full in-house voice and AI team and it consists of tens of people. It's investing heavily on what it believes is the future of content. This week, we're lucky enough to step inside the BBC and see how it's approaching voice design.
We speak to Senior Designer on the Voice and AI team, Paul Jackson, about his experience in creating the CBeebies Alexa Skill and how you can apply the learnings to your voice user experiences, regardless of whether you're creating for kids or not.
We discuss:
- The make-up of the BBC's Voice and AI team
- How the BBC are thinking about and approaching voice
- The challenges of Natural Language Understanding with kids
- User research findings from testing skills with kids
- Translating real-world insights into mimicked voice experiences
- Best practice for designing VUI experiences for kids
- Some of the BBC's 12 principles of designing for voice
- Limiting options and choice
- Balancing discovery and choice
- The use of sound, audio and recording with talent
- The implementation approach and skills within skills
- Release cycles and continuous improvement
The whole episode is littered with clips from the CBeebies Alexa Skill as we move through the conversation and highlight examples of design thinking and how it translates to the end-result.
This one is not to be missed.
LinksFollow the BBC UXD team on Twitterand Instagram
Follow Paul on Twitter and Instagram
Enable the CBeebies skill
Head to Mobile UX London
Enquire about the Designing for Voice Course(mention VUX World to save 10%)
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Samsung has opened up Bixby to developers, so we've rounded up two Samsung Bixby Developer Experts, Bob Stalzberg and Roger Kibbe, to get to the heart of what this means for the voice community.
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LinksFollow Bob on Twitter
Follow VoiceXP on Twitter
Visit the VoiceXP website
Follow Roger on Twitter
Follow VoiceCraft on Twitter
Visit the VoiceCraft website
Check out the Samsung Bixby Developer Portal
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Discussing the latest insights and research in voice SEO and showing you how you can get discovered on Google Assistant, with the MD of Rabbit and Pork, John Campbell.
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Voice SEOVoice SEO is a roaring-hot topic. All the top marketing and business publications have been writing about the importance of voice searchall year. But, little has been documented on how to actually do anything about it. Until now.
John Campbell is the Head of SEO at Roast, London, and has more recently become the founder and MD of a new voice agency, Rabbit and Pork.
John's experience in the SEO field is serving him ideally in breaking into the voice assistant space. Through using traditional SEO tools and techniques, John has been experimenting with ways in which brands can be found on voice assistants, and he joins us this week to share what he's learned recently.
It'll blow your mind.
In this episodeIn this episode, you'll learn some practical tips on what you can do to have your content found on Google Assistant. Using the latest research, data and insights, John takes us through some of the work he's been doing recently and shares the results he's been achieving.
Amongst other things, we discuss:
Implicit invocations* What they are and how they're used * The benefits of being the implicitly inovocated action, including gaining search volume data and keeping people engaged * How past advice on the web is a little out dated * Developing a strategy for your own business/skill * How to set up implicit invocations on Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa * What results can you expect? * What the future could hold with implicit invocation ranking * How to find key phrases that people might be voice searching
We discuss Roast's studies of 10,000 key phrases and discuss the trends in how Google Assistant serves results, including starting to rank actions in search results and serve them as a higher priority that featured snippets. The graph below, for example, shows how, prior to an action existing, Google Assistant wasn't serving a search result at all. Once the action was launched, Google Assistant started sending people to the action, rather than serving nothing.
We discuss how you can spot these opportunities and create an action where there isn't currently a Google Assistant search result.
Explicit invocations* What it is and how it's used * How you can promote your action or skill, including how to target specific Alexa or Google Assistant owners in online ads * How to measure the success of promotional activity
We also discuss the future of voice SEO and where it's all heading, including skill-to-skill connections and much, much more.
LinksVisit the Roast website
Rabbit and Pork website (coming soon)
Follow Rabbit and Pork on Twitter
Follow John Campbell on Twitter
Follow Roast on Twitter
Check out the latest Voice SEO report from Roast
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This week, Dustin Coates and I discuss the importance of sound design in voice experiences with the founder of Man Made Music, Joel Beckerman.
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Sound design for voice experiencesMan Made Music were voted the third most innovative company in music, behind Apple and Spotify. Its founder; author and composer, Joel Beckerman, has scored experiences for the worlds most iconic brands, including AT&T, Disney, Nissan, Mercedes, Southwest Airlines and IMAX, to name a few.
On this episode, Joel joins us to discuss:
- The importance of scoring experiences, such as theme parks and electric cars
- Branding opportunities within sound design
- Sonic cues and subtlety
- User centric sound design
- What's missing from most voice experiences?
- What happens when you recreate the sound scapes for three Alexa skills?
- Are smart speakers changing audio branding?
- What's involved in creating a sonic identity?
- The importance of a brand anthem
- How brands can get started with sonic branding for voice assistants
- What will the future sound like?
LinksVisit the Man Made Music website
Check out Joel's book: The Sonic Boom: How Sound Transforms the Way We Think, Feel and Buy
Visit Joel's website
Follow Man Made Music on Twitter
Watch all of the IMAX videos
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VUI design for the elderly10,000 people turn 65 every day in the USA and the UK has an ageing population, too. In America, the over 65s control over 70% of the country's discretionary spending. The opportunities in providing value to the once-termed 'silver surfers' could be hugely profitable, and Heidi Culbertson has her finger right on the pulse.
Over the last 2 years with Ask Marvee, Heidi has trained and tested voice experiences with literally thousands of older people. Today, Heidi joins us on the show to share with you what she's learned.
In this episode, we discuss:* Why voice for the older generation is so important * What opportunities exist in providing value to older people both on the B2C and B2B side * How Ask Marvee is helping the older generation's wellbeing * How to segment and target this market (they're not all the same) * What's different when designing a voice experience for the elderly * VUI design best practice for older adults
LinksVisit the Ask Marvee website
Follow Ask Marvee on Twitter
Follow Heidi on Twitter
Email Heidi: heidi@askmarvee.com
Watch Heidi's talk at the Voice Summit 2018
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A deep dive into the three pillars of conversation design: psychology, technology and creative writing, with Robocopy's Hans Van Dam.
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Conversation designConversation design is more than simply putting some words on a page and hoping for the best. The assembly of words is only part of the job of a conversation designer.
To design natural conversations that mimic what we're accustomed to having with our fellow homo sapiens, it takes an understanding of the three pillars: psychology, technology and writing.
In this episodeThis week, we're joined by Hans Van Dam, founder of conversation design agency, Robocopy, and creator of top conversation design training program, conversationalacademy.com, to be taken through the details of what it takes to design great conversational experiences.
Hans takes us through:
- Why understanding the technology is important. Human and computer brains are different. Appreciating what's different and the constraints you're operating in will help you work within your limits and get the most of of your conversation.
- Why psychology is key. We discuss things like anchoring, framing, social proof and plenty more psychological tools that can help you improve the user experience and success of your conversations.
- Why copywriting is all you have and how to make the most of it. We've covered how writing for the screen is different to writing for the ear in our conversation with Oren Jacob of Pullstring. We take that concept further in this episode and discuss some of the mistakes brands make when designing conversation, as well as who should be designing them.
We also get into detail on things like the importance persona design, measuring success and a whole host more.
LinksVisit the Robocopy website
Check out the Conversational Academy
Follow Hans on Twitter
Nudge by Case Sustein and Richard Thaler on Amazon
Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Rules for Writing Fiction
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Translating the recent happenings in voice news into insights and recommendations for designers, developers and brands.
As ever, lots has been occurring recently. In this episode of the rundown, we discuss:
The state of voice assistants by Adobe and how we're seeing increased usage in the 'third category'. That is, people are using more in-depth functionality on their voice assistants. That opens doors for richer voice experiences and suggests that customers can handle more complex, transactional interactions.
The picture of voice shopping - thanks to Charlie Cadburyfor sharing - and how voice is being used, not just for making transactions, but throughout the purchase journey and after sales as well. This looks at voice commerce in a more broader setting and shows that there's opportunities for brands in and around the shopping experience, not just at the transactional end.
Alexa for business room booking and whether the productivity gain will be worth climbing into bed with Amazon.
Skill to skill connections and the potential for joining together voice experiences. Whether that'll take-off and whether there'll be opportunities for paid referrals within skills.
AVS for Set-Top-Boxes which will allow set-top-box manufacturers to add Alexa to their devices. Another nod to a multi-modal future.
Google Home hub launches without a camera and is yet another sign and the screen and voice will play a joint role in the home.
Google rolls out payments for Assistant that lets brands and developers offer digital goods for sale on a one time or subscription basis. Monetisation is creeping upon us and with that comes opportunities for those who can find the right voice experience that's worth paying for.
Google Sign-in for Assistant which lets customers sign in to third party actions via their Google account. This is the voice equivalent of the 'sign in with Google' or 'sign in with Facebook' that we see on websites and is a great friction-stripping step for voice.
Facebook announce Portal and whether it'll ever catch on.
If you have a news story you'd like us to cover in the next episode of the Rundown, or if you have a question you'd like Kane and Dustin to answer, hit us up on Twitter, Instagramor get in touch.
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Pulse Labs founders, Abhishek Suthan and Dylan Zwick share their advice on VUI design best practice that they've learned from conducting voice first usability testing with over 120 brands.
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The search for VUI design best practiceIn web design, there are standards. Common design patterns and best practice that you'll find on most websites and apps.
The burger menu, call to action buttons, a search bar at the top of the page. These have all been tried and tested and are par for the course on most websites.
In voice, that best practice is still to be worked out. And today's guests have begun to uncover it.
Pulse Labs is a voice first usability testing company. They conduct global remote user research by testing voice experiences for brands. Think of it almost like usertesting.com, but specifically for voice.
After working with over 120 brands, the founders; Abhishek Suthan and Dylan Zwick, have stumbled upon some of the most common mistakes that designers and developers make in their Google Assistant Actions and Alexa Skills.
Through design iterations and further testing, they've worked out what some of that best practice looks like.
In this episodeOver the course of this episode, we hear from Abhishek and Dylan about some of the most common mistakes designers make when it comes to voice user experience design.
We discuss how these issues can be fixed, as well as further best practice when designing for voice, including:
- How to architect your voice app and design flat menus
- How to handle errors and recover from failure
- Framing experiences and handling expectations
- When to apply confirmations and when to make assumptions
- And a whole host more
This episode is one to listen to again and again. No doubt the standards will change as and when the tech advances and usage grows, but for now, this is probably the best start there is in defining best practice in voice.
LinksVisit the Pulse Labs website
Email Dylan Zwick
Follow Pulse Labs on Twitter
Follow Dylan on Twitter
Follow Pulse Labs on Facebook
Follow Pulse Labs on LinkedIn
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This week, we take a deep dive into voice first social networks and messaging, as we explore whether these platforms are poised for success or doomed to fail. We also discuss some of the challenges in building a voice first product, including the limitations of the tech stack and how VUI design is a way of compensating for this.
To take us through the world of voice first social, we're joined by Daniel Gonzalez, co-founder of voice first messaging platform, SoundBite.
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In this episode, we discuss:* The current state of play in social voice, how most voice first social platforms are using an old social media model and how SoundBite differs. * Design challenges in designing social voice platforms, multi modal implications and perfecting a narrow use-case. * Details of the inherent technology challenges built into today's voice assistants and how to compensate for it with VUI design. * The future of the voice assistant technology landscape and how SoundBite are working towards it, including using Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and acoustic modelling instead of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP).
LinksSoundBite website
Follow Daniel on Twitter
Email Daniel
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Voice first technology has the potential to transform organisations. Join Dustin and I as we dig into how voice is being used to create efficiencies within businesses with Silver founder, Shawn Kanungo.
Silver, an agency based in Canada, is helping organisations use voice to streamline business processes, access line of business systems and improve productivity. We speak to the founder, ex-Deloitte digital transformation guru and speaker, Shawn Kanungo, to find out how it's done.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How voice plus other exponential technologies will disrupt every industry & government agencies
- What voice looks like when it's combined with robotic process automation (RPA) and more
- What does voice mean for a digital transformation strategy for an enterprise?
- How Silver take a human-centered approach to voice by doing ethnographic research
- Organisational culture and whether workers are ready for enterprise level voice
- The future of voice and whether we'll see a billion dollar company built on a voice platform
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Linkshttps://silverdrip.com
https://www.shawnkanungo.com/
Silver on Instagram
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Silver on Facebook
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It's been a busy few weeks with both of the top two voice assistant platforms announcing new devices and software improvements, but what does it all mean for brands, designers and developers?
Google Home Mini becomes top selling smart speakerThat's right, the Google Home Mini smart speaker outsold all other smart speakers in Q2.
Google's intense advertising over the summer months looks like it could be starting to pay off. It still isn't the market leader. Amazon still holds that spot, for now.
Takeaway:At the beginning of this year, Google Assistant was a nice-to-have feature in your voice strategy. Google's progress over the summer and the recent sales of the Google Home Mini now mean that obtaining a presence on Google Assistant is unavoidable for brands looking to make serious play in this space.
We discuss whether you should use a tool like Jovo for developing cross-platform voice experiencesor whether you should build natively.
Dustin's pro tip:
If you need access to new feature updates as and when they're released, you should build natively. If you're happy to wait, use something like Jovo.
Google rumoured to be launching the Google Home HubIt's rumoured that Google will be releasing a smart display to rival the Amazon Echo Show.
In the podcast, we said that this will go on sale in October. That's not the case. The actual sale date hasn't been announced yet.
Takeaway:With more voice assistants bringing screens into the equation, designing and developing multi modal experiences is going to be an increasing area of opportunity over the next year.
Google becomes multi-lingualGoogle announced multi-lingual support for Google Assistant. That means that you can speak to the Assistant in a different language and have it respond back to you in that language without having to change the language settings. This is a great feature for households that speak more than one language.
Takeaway:Although this might not be widely used initially, this is a great step forward in providing a frictionless user experience for those who speak more than one language. For brands, this brings the necessity to internationalise your voice experiences closer to home.
Check out the podcast we did with Maaike Dufour to learn more about how to transcreate and internationalise your voice experience.
Amazon announces about a million Alexa devicesAmazon announced a whole host of Alexa enabled deviceslast week, including:
- Echo Dot V2 and Echo Plus V2
- A new Echo Show (with a 10 inch screen)
- Echo Auto (for the car)
- Echo Sub (a subwoofer)
- Fire TV Recast (a TV set top box)
- An Alexa-injected microwave
- A clock, with Alexa built in
- Echo Input (turns any speaker into a smart speaker)
- A Ring security camera
- A smart plug
- An amp
Takeaway:These new devices, whether they succeed or fail, present opportunities for brands, designers and developers in that they provide an insight into a user's context. That can help you shape an experience based around that context.
For example, you can now target commuters with long form audio through Alexa while they're driving. You can provide micro engagement through Alexa while your customer is cooking their rice.
This could be the beginnings of the 'Alexa Everywhere' movement, which will be laden with opportunities for those who seek to understand where users are and what they're seeking to achieve at that time.
Alexa Presentation LanguageThe Alexa Presentation Languageallows you to design and develop custom visuals to enhance your user's screen-accompanying Alexa experience.
Until now, if you wanted to serve visuals on an Echo Spot or Echo Show, you'd have to use one of 7 design templates. This announcement means that you can create your own designs and even do things like sync visual transitions with audio and, in future, there'll be support for video and HTML 5.
Takeaway:As with many of the items in this week's Rundown, there's an increasing emphasis on multi-modal experiences. Over the next year or so, expect more voice + screen devices. This will mean that you'll need to start thinking about how you can add value through visuals as part of your offering.
Kane's pro tip:
Even though there are more options for voice + screen, still focus on creating voice-first experiences. Don't let the screen take over. Lead with voice and supplement or enhance with visuals.
Alexa smart screen and TV device SDKThis announcementenables device manufacturers to create hardware with a screen that runs Alexa. For example, Amazon will announce the details of how Sony have used the SDK to add Alexa capability to their TVs.
Takeaway:For hardware brands, you can now add Alexa to your products. For the rest of us, watch this space. This is yet further evidence to suggest that voice + screen experiences are going to be something users come to expect in future.
Introducing the Alexa Connect Kit (ACK)ACK allows device manufacturers to add Alexa to their hardwarewithout having to worry about creating a skill or managing cloud services or security.
Essentially, you can add an ACK module to your device, connect it to your micro controller and hey presto, you have an Alexa enabled device.
It's the same thing Amazon used to build their new microwave.
Takeaway:Another opportunity for hardware brands to add value to your product line and another signal that Alexa will potentially be spreading further and wider. If you haven't thought about how this might impact your business and the opportunities you might find in future, this is a good time to start that thought process.
Two final Alexa announcements:Whisper mode, which enables a user to whisper at Alexa and it'll whisper back.
Hunch, which is Alexa's first move to become proactive in suggesting things you might want to do based on previous behaviour.
Takeaway:In unclear whether either of these things require developers to markup their skills for this in any way or whether Alexa will take care of everything for you.
Finally, BixbyBixby will be opening up for public Beta in November after a few months in private beta.
There was a webinar this week, exclusive to the private beta members, which included a host of announcements. I'm still trying to get hold of the webinar or someone who can shed some light on it and we'll try and bring you further news on this on the next Rundown.
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This week, we're speaking to serial entrepreneur, Yann Lachelle, COO at Snips, about the privacy by design alternative to Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
Privacy is a hot topic. With the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the introduction of GDPR in Europe, people are becoming more aware and more concerned with how companies are using their data.
On the enterprise-side, one of the challenges preventing companies from implementing voice is the apprehension towards sending sensitive data to Amazon or Google.
Enter, SnipsThe Paris-based startup is bringing a privacy-first approach to their voice assistant. We speak to Snips' COO Yann Lachelle about the details and how you can use it
In this episodes, we discuss:
- What Snips is and its position in the market
- Why privacy is a concern for consumers and companies
- Snips' approach to voice and privacy
- Edge computing and how Snips is tackling security
- Open sourcing the backend of the Snips assistant
- Blockchain and decentralising the voice ecosystem
Our guestYann Lachelle is a serial entrepreneur. He's founded and sold several companies and has a 100% record of founding and exiting. Yann's experience in the startup world is vast and his knowledge on AI and the voice industry is more than impressive.
As COO of Snips, Yann is helping Snips make technology disappear by bringing to market the world's first privacy-by-design voice assistant.
Yann brings us some inspiring stories, intensely relevant insights and plenty of observations that'll help you get a full understanding of what Snips can offer you or your clients.
Where to listenApple podcasts
Spotify
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Spreaker
TuneIn
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Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio
LinksVisit the Snips website
Try Snips for developers
Join the Snips community on Discord
Check out Snips' whitepaper explaining the details of their blockchain ambitions
Find out more about Snips and blockchain
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This week, Dustin and I catch up with John Kelvie, CEO and founder of Bespoken, and learn all about the three types of testing that can help you create and sustain great voice experiences.
We discuss:
- Unit testing:how to test your code locally without having to deploy into the cloud and test through your smart speaker or phone. This can save developers a whole load of time and effort in the development phase.
- End to end testing:how to automate testing of utterances and intents to make sure you're returning the correct response to the various utterances that can be fed through your skill or action. This saves the QA folks time as you no longer need to fire up your skill or action and physically test every possible utterance.
- Continuous testing:making sure that your continue to keep on top of the ever-changing AI operating systems and ensuring your skill or action is always operating as intended.
We also discuss the convergence of usability testing and technical testing and how they can play together, as well as hear John's take on the future of voice.
Where to listenApple podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
CastBox
Spreaker
TuneIn
Breaker
Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio
Linkshttps://bespoken.io
Bespoken on twitter
Check out Bespoken's webinars
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Tony Lizza, Project Manager at Apollo Matrix, shares his battle scars from working on the technical implementation of the Netflix 13 Reasons Why interactive cinema experience.
This was a voice and video experience that was deployed through the mobile web browser and was used to promote Netflix's biggest show, 13 Reasons Why.
Dustin Coates and I talk to Tony all about the creation of the experience and the technical challenges Tony and his team faced in implementing something so bleeding-edge, including taking advantage of new APIs that allow developers to access a user's mic and video from within a web browser on mobile and how to handle a lack of that functionality within the walled gardens of social media.
We discuss using a fallback touch-based experience, the surprising results of user testing, as well as the technical details of how to do speech to text from within a browser and plenty more.
Here's a promo video for the experience that gives you a flavour:
13 Reasons Why - Talk to the Reasons - Netflixfrom Moth + Flameon Vimeo.
Where to listenApple podcasts
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Linkswww.talktothereasons.com
apollomatrix.com
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We're starting a new feature on VUX World: The Run Down. Dustin Coates and I are getting together each week (or bi-weekly) to discuss the recent happenings in the voice space and how that'll impact designers, developers and brands.
Alexa settings APIWe're starting off by discussing the Amazon Alexa feature that developers have been clambering for since 2016: the settings API.
With the settings API, you can access the user's timezone (among other things) and use that within your skill to personalise the voice experience for your users. You can send them targeted push notificationsat the appropriate time and use their preferred weather measurement (Celsius or Fahrenheit).
We discuss Eric Olsen's (3PO Labs) in-depth review of the settings APIand how it could be the beginning of something bigger.
Scott Huffman's 5 insights on voice techWe also discuss Scott Huffman's post (VP Engineering, Google Assistant) on the five insights on voice technologyand how they should impact your approach. For example, focusing on utilities and understanding what kind of things people use Assistant for at different times of day.
Voysis and Voicebot vCommerce studyWe delve into the Voysis and Voicebot study on vCommerceand discuss how voice on mobile is so important, yet how it's bubbling away under the surface, not grabbing many headlines.
Alexa skills challenge, Storyline and icon creationFinally, we discuss the latest Alexa Skills Challenge: Games, in-skill purchases on Storyline (check out VUX World with Vasili Shynkarenka, CEO, Storyline) and the new Alexa feature that allows anyone to create icons for their skills.
Where to listenApple podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
CastBox
Spreaker
TuneIn
Breaker
Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio
Other linksThe Power of Habit book
Hooked book
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Alexa Accelerator 2018 featured startup, Voiceitt, gives people with speech impairments their voice back. Today, we're joined by co-founder and VP Strategy, Sara Smolley, to hear all about it.
The There are millions of people across the globe who have non-standard speech. People who've had a stroke or who have multiple sclerosis or cerebral pausey, for example. Voiceitt's advanced speech recognition system, which is deployed through an app, allows those people to speak and be understood.
Once it's configured, all you do is speak through the app and Voiceitt will do the rest, handling speech to text and displaying the text on-screen whilst a synthetic voice speaks the words to you.
For all that's said about voice being accessible, Voiceitt's mission is to open up voice technology to the rest of the world.
Our GuestAfter working in Hong Kong and South Korea in marketing and startup consulting, Sara moved to Tel Aviv to help build and establish Voiceitt. Sara travels across the globe working on the strategic side of the business, building relationships, gathering insights and bringing the powerful mission and technology that Voiceitt posses to the world.
Where to listenApple podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
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TuneIn
Breaker
Stitcher
PlayerFM
iHeartRadio
Linkshttp://www.voiceitt.com
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Ben Sauer is a Design Strategist who's worked with some of the world's well known brands: Virgin, Tesco, Pearsons, British Gas, Penguin Random House, BBC. Ben worked with Clearleft as a Design Strategist for many years and more recently turned his attention to how voice will change design.
Over the last couple of years, Ben has been focusing on helping brands navigate the voice space and figure out how voice will impact their business, as well as where to start with a voice strategy.
Ben joins Dustin and I today to discuss the ins and outs of voice first design strategy, including finding a use case and the differences between voice design strategy and design strategy in general.
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * YouTube * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play VUX World on Alexa
LinksFollow Ben Sauer on Twitter
Visit voiceprinciples.com
BenSauer.net
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The first in a new series called 'Unscripted' where we have off-the-cuff, unscripted conversations with voice first leaders and practitioners to get acquainted, hear their story and find out how they do what they do.
In this first episode, we speak to Alexa Skill developing veteran, Nick Schwab, founder of Invoked Apps, about:
- User adoption of his Ambient Sound skills (his daily usage is huge!)
- In skill purchasing and his conversation rates (surprising!)
- Developer rewards and how it all works
- How much it costs to host a successful skill
- Why now is the time for Europe to invest heavily
- The discoverability crisis and what's changed
Follow Nick Schwab on Twitter
Check out Invoked Apps
In this episode, we take a deep dive into conversational commerce: what it is, what's possible and how you can turn conversing strangers into paying customers.
Our guestCharles Cadbury is the co-founder of Say It Now, a company that helps brands respond the the growing consumer need for immediacy. Charlie's history is impressive. He's seen more than 1,000 client briefs and delivered over 300 digital projects, many of them related to commerce. After working with Lola Tech to create the Dazzle platform, Charlie's attention remains focused on conversational interactions and helping brands convert conversations into commerce.
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * YouTube * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play VUX World on Alexa
LinksCheck out the Say It Now website
Follow Charles on Twitter
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We celebrate the 6 month anniversary of VUX World by reviewing the modev Voice Summit event that took place last week in Newark. We anchor on the Voice Summit to take stock of 2018 and look forward to what brands, designers and developers should be focusing on over the next 6 months.
To guide us through #VOICE18, Dustin and I are joined by Tim Kahle and Dominik Meißner, founders of 169 Labs.
Win 2 free tickets to the All About Voice conference in Munich on 12th October169 Labs are running a voice first conference of their own on 12th October in Munich: All About Voice.
For a chance to win 2 free tickets to the event, just send a tweet using #AllAboutVoice and answer the question: why is 2018 all about voice?
169 Labs will pick a random winner who'll receive 2 free tickets to the conference.
Use the code VUXWORLD to save 10%.
Buy tickets
LinksCheck out the Voice Summit website
Visit the All About Voice website
Visit the 169 Labs website
See the 169 Labs and Amazon Twitch broadcast
See Tim Kahle's slides from his talk
Read Dustin Coates' write up on day 1
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This week, we’re speaking to RAIN agency’s Will Hall and Jason Herndon about how their three pillars of: strategy, creativity and technology, are leading the world's biggest brands to voice first success.
In this episode: voice strategy, creative prowess and technological geniusIn this episode, RAIN’s Executive Creative Director, Will Hall, and VP, Engineering, Jason Herndon guide us through the practicalities of how they shape voice strategies and implement voice first solutions for the world's biggest brands.
Whether you're a brand, a designer or developer, this episode will help you understand how and where to start.
It’ll give you things to consider and help you align voice first initiatives with core business drivers.
It’ll show you what you can expect from working with (or at) a voice first agency and give you some examples of how industry-leading brands are approaching voice.
It’ll also present some of the challenges you’ll face and maybe even challenge your own thinking on whether your organisation is set-up for success, including showing you why 'systems thinking' is so important.
You'll understand how to hone-in on use cases that provide value.
You’ll learn how to structure a voice first project; the skills and resources you’ll need and who needs to be involved, as well as the process of going from nothing to implementing a world-leading voice experience.
It’ll show you tools that you can use for design and development, as well as guide you on the value of testing early.
It’ll also give you some ideas on how far ahead you should plan your roadmap and cover why a crawl, walk, run approach is most appropriate.
As ever, we go deep into all of the above and more - this episode is a longer one than usual, and it’s densely packed with nothing but insights.
Our guestsWill Hall is the Executive Creative Director at RAIN. Will has worked on countless projects for global brands and blends the strategy and creative sides of projects together, making sure that the strategic aims of clients are brought to fruition with the appropriate creative.
Jason Herndon, VP, Engineering at RAIN, has worked with the world's largest brands on technical architecture and development and, at RAIN, is responsible for turning big ideas into reality.
About RAINRAIN has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands on some of the most headline grabbing Alexa Skills.
Campbells Kitchen and Tide were two of the first branded Alexa Skills and are still cited today as pioneering examples of how valuable voice can be for brands.
The Warner Brothers’ Dunkirk interactive story, which we discussed in our episode on voice games with Florian Hollandt, pushed the boundaries on what’s possible on the Alexa platform and brought movie-like sound design and scripting to the voice first world.
RAIN help brands big and small figure out the strategic value in bringing voice to your business and guide brands through the creation, implementation, promotion and development of voice first experiences.
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * YouTube * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play VUX World on Alexa
Links* Visit the RAIN.agency website (the newsletter link is at the top on the home page) * Check out RAIN's development framework, Voxa * Get in touch with RAIN or require about a project: hello@rain.agency
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This week, we speak to conversation design master, Oren Jacob, about what it takes to create successful conversations with technology.
There are so many complexities in human conversation. When creating an Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action, most designers try to mimic human conversation. Google itself has taken steps in this direction with the fabricated ‘mm hmm’ moments with Google Duplex.
But does all of this have an actual impact on the user experience? Does it make it better or worse? How natural is natural enough and does it matter?
What other factors contribute to conversation design that works?
PullString CEO and co-founder, Oren Jacob answers all in this week's episode.
In this episode on conversation designWe get deep into conversation design this week and discuss things like:
- How natural should conversations with voice assistants be?
- Why you shouldn't just try to mimic human conversation
- The power of voice and what tools designers need to create compelling personas
- Whether you should you use the built in text-to-speech (TTS) synthetic voice or record your own dialogue
- How any why writing dialogue is entirely different from writing to be read
- The similarities and differences between making a film and creating a conversational experience on a voice first device
- The limitations and opportunities for improved audio capability and sound design
- The importance of having an equal balance of creative and technical talent in teams
- What it all means for brands and why you should start figuring that out now
Our guestOren Jacob, co-founder and CEO of Pullstring. Oren has worked in the space in between creativity and technology for two decades.
After spending 20 years working at Pixar on some of the company's classic films such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo, Oren created ToyTalk.
ToyTalk was a company that allowed kids to interact with their toys through voice.
As voice technology progressed and voice assistants and smart speakers were shaping up to take the world by storm, ToyTalk morphed into PullString, the enterprise-grade conversation design platform.
About PullstringFor over half a decade, PullString's platform, software, and tools have been used to build some of the biggest and best computer conversation in market, with use cases and verticals as diverse as hospitality to home improvement and Hello Barbie to Destiny 2. It was also used to create, the latest in big-ticket skills, HBO 's Westworld: The Maze.
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * YouTube * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play VUX World on Alexa
LinksVisit the PullString webiste
Follow PullString on Twitter
Read more about how the Westworld skill was created
Check out the details of the talk Oren will be giving at the VOICE Summit 18
Check out the details of Daniel Sinto's demo of PullString Conversehappening at the VOICE Summit 18
Check out the VOICE Summit website
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Translating your Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action is about more than translating the words in your script. It's about translating the user experience. Maaike Dufour calls this 'transcreating' and she joins us this week to show us how it's done.
Why should you translate your Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action?The world is getting smaller. Technology has enabled us to reach and connect with people from every corner of the earth with ease.
Take this podcast for example. It’s listened to in over 40 different countries, most of which don’t speak English as a first language.
In fact, the vast majority of the world don’t speak English and certainly not as a first language.
Amazon Alexa is globalAmazon Alexa is localised for 11 countries at the time of writing. 5 of them don’t speak English as a first language (France, Germany, Austria, Japan, India).
For global brands, having your Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action available in every country you do business is a no-brainer. But even for hobbyists and smaller scale developers, think about the population of those countries and the potential impact you could have if you Skill was to do well in those locales.
In this episodeWe’re being guided through the importance of making your Alexa Skill or Google Action available in other languages and what steps you should take to make that happen.
We discuss why simply translating your Alexa Skill script won’t work and why you need to recreate the user experience in your desired language.
We cover some of the cultural differences between countries and give some examples of why that makes literal translations difficult. For example, the X-Factor in the UK is a nationally recognised TV show. Whereas, in France, it aired for one season and wasn’t well received. Therefore, referencing the X-Factor in a French Skill is pointless.
Maaike tells us about how, when transcreating your Alexa Skill, you might even need to change your entire persona due to the differences in how other cultures perceive different personas. For example, in the UK, a postman is simply someone who delivers mail. Whereas, in France, the postman is a close family friend who stops to chat and knows everybody in the street personally. In the UK, the postman is a distant stranger. In France, the postman is a close acquaintance. That makes for two entirely different personas.
We discuss examples of words and phrases that exist in one language but don’t in another and how that can both open up opportunities and sometimes present challenges.
Our guestWe’re joined by Maaike Dufour, Freelance Conversation UX Designer, co-founder of UX My Botand supreme transcreator of voice first applications. Maaike, quite rightly, prefers to use the term ‘transcreate’ instead of ‘translate’ because simply translating the words that make up your Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action won’t work, as you’ll find out in this episode.
Maaike has worked on voice first UX for a number of years. Having worked with the Smartly.aiteam, Maaike now works with Labworks.ioand is helping the team break into international markets through the transcreation of popular Alexa Skills such as Would You Ratherinto other languages.
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play VUX World on Alexa
LinksRead Maaike's thoughts on Medium
Watch Maaike's talk at Chatbots and Voice Assistants London on YouTube
Follow Maaike on Twitter
Check out Maaike's website
Visit UX My Bot
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We speak to the creator of the world’s best chatbot about how to design Loabner prize-winning conversational experiences.
Steve Worswick is the creator of Mitsuku, the general conversation chatbot that has won the Loabner prizefor the last two year’s straight.
13 years in the making, Mitsuku passed the Turing testand convinced a panel of judges that it’s human over the course of a 20 minute conversation, two years in a row, to be crowned the world’s best chatbot and conversational agent.
It's featured in the Wall Street Journal, BBC, The Guardianand Wired. And, unlike most chatbots that focus on serving a specific set of use cases, Mitsuku is a general conversational agent. That means you can speak to it about anything.
This week's Flash Briefing question is from Brielle Nickoloff of Witlingo: What would an open source voice assistant look like? Send us your thoughtsand you could feature on the VUX World Flash Briefingthis week!
What about voice?Although Mitsuku is a text-based chatbot, this episode looks at how to take Steve’s 13 years of experience in creating conversational experiences and apply that to the voice first space.
In this episodeThis episode is all about how to design and create a world-leading general conversational experience.
We get into detail about how Mitsuku is built (hint: it doesn’t use natural language processing or machine learning like most other conversational AI) and how Natural Language Processing-based conversational agents don’t quite hit the mark.
Steve tells us about Mitsuku’s rule-based supervised learning and how that’s leading to better experiences.
Despite Mitsuku passing the Turing test, Steve tells us why the Turing test is redundant.
We discuss user behaviour and how people treat a general conversational agent, from counselling to romance, bullying to marriage and money worries, and how to be sensitive on those topics.
We hear how varied responses can increase engagement. So much so that one person has spent 9 hours talking to Mitsuku!
We find out how to deal with pronoun resolution and how to refer back to what was said earlier in the conversation.
We uncover how brands are using Mitsuku as part of their conversational experiences, handing off to her when a user strays away from the use cases that their bot can handle.
We chat about how Alexa fairs against Mitsuku and hear where Siri would have finished if it was entered in to the Loabner prize competition.
Perhaps one of the most valuable lessons in this episode is the importance of persisting. Creating a conversational agent, a true conversational experience, takes time. It’s not a quick fix that you cobble together with a quick Alexa Skill. It takes years of development, iteration and constant improvement. But, if you stick with it, you might end up with the next best conversational agent.
Our guestSteve Worswick started out in IT support and built Mitsuku as a passion project on the side. 13 years of hard work and 3 Loabner prizes later, he’s now working at the world’s largest chatbot agency and provider, PandoraBots.
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play VUX World on Alexa
LinksContact Pandorabots
Check out Mitsuku on Pandorabots
Talk to Mitsuku
Check out Steve's talk at the Chatbots and Voice Assistants Londonevent
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This week, we're finding out how brands can get started and enter the voice first world of smart speakers and digital assistants.
Me and Dustin Coates are joined by one of the top US voice first agencies, Witlingo. We speak with two Lead VUX designers, Luciana Morias and Brielle Nickoloff, about how your brand can bridge the gap over to voice.
In this episodeBrielle and Luciana share how they guide brands through the process of discovering their voice and establishing a voice first presence.
We discuss the new challenge of working out what your brand sounds like and how to determine whether to focus on voice first content or voice as a service.
They discuss how brands should be playing the long game and the challenge of convincing clients to start small and adopt a continuous improvement culture to grow their voice first capability.
We chat about figuring out whether your should repurpose existing content or create new and discuss some of the great guides to voice design that Witlingo produce, including the guide to making your Facebook content voice friendly.
Our guestsLuciana Morais has a background in UX research and analysis and has a wealth of design experience. Now working at Witlingo as UX Lead and VUI Designer.
Brielle Nickoloff has a background in linguistics and has published a study on The use of profane threats and insults in the Anthropomorphization of digital voice assistants. Brielle is also Lead Voice User Experience Research and Design at Witlingo.
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play VUX World on Alexa
LinksVisit the Witlingo website
Follow Witlingo on Twitter
Read Witlingo's VUI assessment guidelines
Read Witlingo's Facebook guidelines
Follow Brielle on Twitter
Follow Luciana on Twitter
Check out the Ubiquitous Voice Society
Read Brielle's paper: The use of profane threats and insults in the Anthropomorphization of digital voice assistants
It's about the interface stupid
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This week, me and Dustin are speaking with the Fresh Prince of AI, Frank Schneider, about how Speakeasy AI aims to deliver the promise of AI in voice (that’s a lot of AI’s).
How many people truly understand what their customers are asking for? Whether it’s in your Alexa Skill, your chatbot or in your IVR, you can’t hope to serve the needs of your users or customers if you don’t understand what they’re trying to do or ask.
Understanding is the most important first step you can takeOnce you truly understand the current situation, you can realise whether you’re meeting your existing customer needs, and how well you’re doing that.
Through gathering understanding, you can also work out where you’re failing and where the opportunities for improvement or expansion are.
That then helps you improve and plan for the future.
Speakeasy AI is helping businesses understand what their customers are trying to accomplish on a wide variety of conversational platforms by extracting the intent from any conversation.
Its patent-pending technology, called Speech-to-Intent, doesn’t use the typical speech-to-text engine that most voice-first platforms use. Instead, it analyses the actual audio in real time through funnelling it through a pipeline of different ‘top secret’ micro services.
This means that low audio quality and accents have no effect on its ability to understand customer intent. Plus, it also allows for further understanding of context.
In this episodeDustin Coates and I hear from Frank Schneider, CEO, Speakeasy AI, about the current state of play in the AI field and touch on the amount of bullshit that exists right now.
We discuss how conversational understanding works and why speech-to-text might not be the most optimum way to capture intent.
We delve into the ins and outs of Speakeasy AI and get the low-down on its patent-pending Speech-to-Intent technology and hear how it could be a better way of understanding customer intents, regardless of audio quality or accents.
Frank tells us all about how Speakeasy AI can help businesses improve any conversational platform. He shares the opportunities that exist in the IVR space and how much untapped potential there is for businesses who’re willing to listen.
We've discussed VUI design for IVR with Simonie Wilsonrecently, and it would seem that you could use Speakeasy AI as part of a discovery piece of work to figure out where to start, then use Simonie's techniques to begin making improvements.
We also chat about the challenges of the AI industry and how working together could bring progress.
Our guestFrank was born and raised in Philly and, after spending 9 years in education, including teaching at a school for high school kids who committed felonies, he transitioned into technology sales and marketing, where he’s spent the last 13 years.
He’s consulted and led teams providing solutions in various SaaS and AI solutions for contact centers and B2B. He was the first sales executive at Creative Virtual USA and helped grow the team from 12 to 40 employees. After a successful exit, his former CEO is now funding his new venture, Speakeasy AI.
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play VUX World on Alexa
LinksVisit the Speakeasy AI website
Follow Speakeasy AI on Twitter
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This week, we’re finding out how content creators can have their podcasts and YouTube content indexed and searchable on voice, with Bryan Colligan of Alpha Voice.
With the podcast industry thriving and more people listening to podcasts than ever, more brands are starting to launch their own podcasts. Podcasts are a perfect fit for devices like the Echo and Google Home because they provide ambient entertainment, similar to the widely popular relaxation sounds skills.
Two problems face podcast and content creators: how do you make your podcast discoverable in the first place and how do you allow people to search through your backlog of episodes in order to find something that interests them?
Podcast discoverability is almost as much of a problem as Alexa Skill discoverability. Although Google is beginning to do its bitto help podcasts be discovered online, what about on voice?
This is the problem Alpha Voice aims to solve.
Help others get their skill passed first time by sharing your skill certification stories: Send us your tipsand you could feature on the VUX World Flash Briefingthis week!
What is Alpha Voice?Alpha Voiceindexes your podcast or YouTube content and makes it all searchable on Alexa via your own Alexa Skill.
And it’s not just the podcast titles and guests you can search for. You can search for anything at all that interests you and the platform will search within your content to find your search term, then recommend that episode for you to listen to.
In this episodeWe’re talking to Alpha Voice co-founder, Bryan Colligan, about how the platform works, how he and his co-founder built it and what value it gives content creators.
We also get into detail about how the VUX of search works on voice: processing and serving potentially hundreds of search results. How do you determine which ones to display to the user?
We also discuss:
- The 5 ways to monetise content
- Skill certification inconsistencies, including censorship and 'unwritten rules’
- How you can get up and running with Alpha Voice
We wrap up by telling you all about the VUX World Alexa Skill, built using Alpha Voice! (U.S. only right now but will be available in EU soon.)
Our guestBryan Colligan is an entrepreneur and the co-founder of Alpha Voice. Bryan is based in Silicon Valley, has founded a series of startups and has been helping startups create mobile apps and improve their SEO for the last 10 years.
After reading the Mary Meeker internet trends report and learning that Google can understand 96% of what humans say, Bryan has turned his attention to the voice-first world.
After a number of failed experiments, he stumbled across the idea for Alpha Voice and is now helping content creators have their content found on Alexa.
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play VUX World on Alexa
Links* Alpha Voice YouTube * Visit the Alpha Voice website * Follow Alpha Voice on Twitter * Follow Bryan on Twitter * Connect with Bryan on LinkedIn
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This week, we’re getting deep into voice analytics and will help you learn more about how you can understand the performance of your voice first experience.
One of the biggest benefits that technology has given us is the ability to understand. To understand whether our latest PPC campaign had an impact on sales. To understand whether our new website increased our leads. To understand whether our pricing tweak made a difference on click through rates. To understand whether our foray into Facebook is sending more traffic. To understand whether our customers are satisfied.
Tools such as Google Analytics have been providing this kind of value to website owners for years. Tracking where your users come from (Google, Facebook etc), what they do when they arrive and whether they convert are the cornerstones of understanding website performance.
What about voice analytics?With the introduction of new mediums such as conversational chatbots and voice first applications on platforms such as Alexa and GoogleAssistant, how do you understand the performance of these things?
How do you know if your Alexa Skill or Google Action is successful? Send us your answersand you could feature on the VUX World Flash Briefingthis week!
Can you apply the same rules as the web? Can you even access the same data? Is there some new metrics that matter more? And how can you use all of this to understand and improve the performance and use of your product?
Well, that’s what you’re about to find out.
In this episodeWe’re speaking to Dashbot.ioCEO Arte Merritt all about the conversational analytics platform and how you can understand whether your conversational experience is working for your users.
We discuss the kind of metrics Dashbot provide including:
- No. users
- Repeat users
- Time per session
- Retention
- Sentiment analysis
- Message funnels
- Intent funnels
- Top exit messages
- AI performance
- Goals
- Behaviour flow
- Conversation flow
Arte tells us some case studies of how the tool has been used to understand and then improve conversational experiences.
We discuss some of the challenges with conversational analytics and how they relate to the voice first space and we hear about where voice analytics are heading in the future.
Our guestArte Merritt has worked in mobile and analytics for 20 years. He built an analytics platform which he sold it to Nokia before turning his attention to fill a gap in the market when he realised that Slack didn’t have any analytics. Dashbot was born and its been serving conversational designers ever since, helping them understand and improve their chatbots and voice applications. Since its creation, Dashbot has analysed 32 billion messages and counting!
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play V.U.X. World on Alexa
Links* Check out Dashbot.io * Follow Dashbot on Twitter * Follow Arte on Twitter * Alexa Skills: competitive intelligence * Check out the Dashbot Blog * Find out more about the Smart Voice Summit London
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This week, we take a look at the similarities between VUI design for IVR and VUI design for voice assistants. We also explain what VUI tuning is and why it’s important, whilst giving you some tips on how you can tune your voice user interface. We also discuss PinDrop and voice first security.
In this episodeWe speak to one of the world’s expert VUI practitioners, Simonie Wilson, to get under the hood of Passport and figure out what it is, how it works, why it’s needed and how you can use it to authenticate users with confidence whilst preventing fraud.
We also tap into Simonie’s vast VUI design experience and discuss how she goes about designing VUIs that delight rather than smite customers. We get into detail about the benefits of VUI tuning and Simonie shares her advice on how you can continuously improve a VUI experience.
Are brands failing on Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant? Send us your answers and you could feature on the VUX World Flash Briefing this week!
Privacy and securityPrivacy is often cited as a barrier and a challenge in the voice first space. How do you authenticate a user, build trust and enable people to transact in a frictionless way, all without a long, drawn out, failure stricken on-boarding process?
PinDrop is changing that with it’s product, Passport: a fool-proof way to recognise whether someone is who they say they are simply by the sound of their voice. It works in all voice first areas and can even tell whether the voice is synthetic.
Here's an example of it working with Alexa:
There is so much potential in the voice first space from a vcommerce, health and financial management perspective that technology such as this could smooth over the cracks in the verification process and enable people to transact more seamlessly in a voice first world.
Our GuestSimonie Wilson is the queen of VUI design. With over 20 years experience working in the speech and VUI design space, Simonie's career has included working with large companies such as Microsoft and GM, small companies such as startups and contracting too. Simonie has knowledge and experience in the VUI design space that few others do and is one of the few people to have extensive experience with VUI tuning.
Simonie is madly passionate about VUI design and, in this episode, shares all of that passion and some real lessons and insights from her experience that’ll help all VUI designers improve what they do.
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play V.U.X. World on Alexa
LinksVisit the PinDrop website
Check out PinDrop on YouTube
PinDrop on Facebook
PinDrop on Twitter
Connect with Simonie on LinkedIn
Email Simonie
Read about PinDrop Passport in Forbes
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This week, we’re digging into how you can create an Alexa Skill using BotTalk and we give you a template for running a voice first discovery workshop, with SmartHaus Technologies CEO and BotTalk co-founder, Andrey Esaulov.
We discuss the importance of starting with a solid use case and how imperative it is to base your voice app on a real-world scenario that’ll add value to your users.
What turns an average voice experience into an EPIC voice experience? Send us your answers and you could feature on the VUX World Flash Briefing this week!
We then dive deep into the practical detail of how to approach designing a voice first user experience with BotTalk and find out more about the language it’s built in: YAML. We discuss what BotTalk is, how it’s different from some of the other tools on the market, how it works, it’s features and how you can get up and running.
Finally, Andrey takes us through a voice first discovery workshop template that he uses with clients in order to take a brand from zero to hero: from ideation to prototype, and how you can do the same too.
We also traverse some other interesting conversational landscapes such as the concept of skill-first companies: brands that pop up as skills which are the core of the business, like an app is for Instagram. We chat about Artificial Intelligence and how intelligent it actually is in the voice first space. We touch on managing client expectations, monetisation and how voice is making waves in Germany.
About BotTalkThe current selection skill building tools on the market are at opposite ends of the technical spectrum. Some tools require you to know how to code from the ground-up, like Jovo and be a skilled back-end developer. Others have a drag and drop interface and don’t require any coding at all, like Storyline.
BotTalk bridges the gap between those two worlds with a tool that’s aimed at UX designers who have some basic coding knowledge, like HTML and CSS. It provides some of the technical capability you’d expect if you built something from scratch, whilst providing a more simple coding language: YAML. Think of it as HTML for voice.
Our GuestAndrey Esaulov is the CEO of SmartHaus Technologies, which specialise in growth hacking in the mobile space, and the co-founder of BotTalk, a voice first and bot application building platform.
Andrey has a computer science background, with expensive experience in the start up world and mobile growth space, as well as a PhD in Linguistics and Literacy.
Andrey’s skillset is a perfect match for this industry and his knowledge in this area is vast. Couple his computer science and linguistics knowledge with his skills in working with clients and delivering growth and you’ve got a perfect recipe for success.
LinksCheck out BotTalk
Follow Andrey on Twitter
Join the BotTalk Facebook community
Follow BotTalk on Insta
Watch the BotTalk tutorials on YouTube
Visit the Smarthaus Technologies website
Join the Alexa Slack channel
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Feature on this week's Flash Briefing
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play V.U.X. World on Alexa
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Dr. Pete, Marketing Scientist at Moz, and world-leading SEO oracle, tells all about the voice search landscape, and how you can rank for searches on digital assistants like Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
This is a jam-packed episode with deep, deep insights, advice and guidance on all things voice search related. We'll give you practical ways to compete to be the answer that’s read out in voice first searches, as well as some notions on the current and potential future benefit that could bring.
Voice searchThere are all kinds of stats around voice search, which we’ve touched upon before.
- Gartner predicts that 50% searches will be voice based by 2020
- There are already over 1bn voice searches performed per month
With more people using their voice to search, how will that affect search marketers, content creators and brands?
What’s the difference between a voice search and a typed search?
Is there anything you can do to appear in voice search results?
We speak to one of the search industry's top sources of SEO knowledge, Dr. Pete, to find out.
Getting deep into voice searchIn this episode, we’re discussing the differences between voice search on mobile, voice first search on smart speakers and typed search.
We discuss the absence of search engine results pages (SERPs) in a voice first environment and increased competition for the singularity: the top spot in voice search.
We chat about the search landscape, the effect voice is having on search, changing user behaviour and expectations, new search use cases and multi modal implications, challenges and opportunities.
We get into detail about how voice search works on devices such as Google Assistant and Google Home. This includes debating Google’s knowledge graph and it’s advantages and disadvantages in a voice first context.
We look at the practicalities of serving search results via voice. This touches on the different types of search results, such as featured snippets, and how voice handles different data formats such as tables. We get into detail about the different types of featured snippets available and how each translate to work (or not work) on voice.
We discuss Dr. Pete’s work and studies in the voice first space including his piece ‘What I learned from 1,000 voice searches' and what he found.
We wrap up with some practical tips that you can use right now to start preparing for the influx of voice searches that’ll be hitting the air waves soon and help you start to rank in a voice first environment.
Our Guest
Dr. Pete Myers (a.k.a Dr. Pete a.k.a. the Oracle) is the Marketing Scientist at Moz, the SEO giant and search industry leader.
Dr. Pete has been an influential search marketer since 2012 and has spent years studying Google’s search algorithm, advising clients and the SEO industry on best practice and guiding the industry into the future.
His research and writing on the topic has been helping brands keep on top of the search space, improve their rankings and business performance and has helped keep Moz at the top of the industry.
Mozhas been at the top of the SEO chain since 2004 and is trusted by the whole SEO industry as the place to go for SEO tooling, insights and practical guidance.
Links* Follow Dr. Pete on Twitter * Follow Moz on Twitter * Read Dr. Pete's 'What I learned from 1,000 voice searches on Google Home' * Read Dr. Pete's work at Moz
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play V.U.X. World on Alexa
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We’ve covered plenty of voice first designand developmenton this podcast. Well, that’s what the podcast is, so we’re bound to! Most of what we’ve discussed has largely been voice assistant or smart speaker-focused. We haven’t covered a huge amount of voice first application in the browser and on mobile, until now.
Mic checkYou’ll have noticed the little mic symbol popping up on a number of websites lately. It’s in the Google search bar, it’s on websites such as EchoSim and Spotify are trialing it too. When you press that mic symbol, it enables your mic on whatever device you’re using and lets you speak your search term.
Next time you see that mic, you could be looking at the entry point to Voysis.
On a lot of websites, that search may well just use the website’s standard search tool to perform the search. With
Voysis, its engine will perform the search for you using its voice tech stack.
That means that you can perform more elaborate searches that most search engines would struggle with. For example:
“Show me Nike Air Max trainers, size 8, in black, under $150”
Most search engines would freak out at this, but not Voysis. That’s what it does.
Of course, it’s more than an ecommerce search tool, as we’ll find out during this episode.
In this episodeWe discuss how approaches to new technology seem to wrongly follow a reincarnation route. Turning print into web by using the same principles that govern print. Turning online into mobile by using the same principles that govern the web. Then taking the practices and principles of GUI and transferring that to VUI. We touch on why moving you app to voice is the wrong approach.
We also discuss:
- Voysis - what it is and what it does
- Getting sophisticated with searches
- Designing purely for voice vs multi modal
- The challenge of ecommerce with a zero UI
- The nuance between the GUI assistant and voice only assistants
- How multi modal voice experiences can help the shopping experience
- Making the transition from GUI to VUI
- The similarities between moving from web to mobile and from mobile to voice - (when moving to mobile, you had to think about gestures and smaller screens)
- Error states and points of delight
- The difference between designing for voice and designing for a screen
- Testing for voice
- Understand voice first ergonomics
Our GuestBrian Colcord, VP of Design at Voysis, is a world-leading designer, cool, calm and collected speaker and passionate sneaker head.
After designing the early versions of the JoinMe brand markings and UI, he was recruited by LogMeIn and went on to be one of the first designers to work on the Apple Watch prior to its release.
Brian has made the transition from GUI to VUI design and shares with us his passion for voice, how he made the transition, what he learned and how you can do it too.
About VoysisVoysis is a Dublin-based voice technology company that believes voice interactions can be as natural as human ones and are working intently to give brands the capability to have natural language interactions with customers.
LinksCheck out the Voysis website
Follow Voysis on Twitter
Read the Voysis blog
Join Brian on LinkedIn
Follow Brian on Twitter
Listen to the AI in industry podcast with Voysis CEO, Peter Cahill
Read Brian's post, You're already a voice designer, you just don't know it yet
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play V.U.X. World on Alexa
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Voice first games are one of the most popular Amazon Alexa skill categories. So what type of voice games are available? And how do you create them? We speak to game developer and reviewer, Florian Hollandt, to find out.
Games are helping Alexa take off. According to Voicebot.ai, Alexa Skill games are the second most popular skill categorybehind smart home skills. Amazon has been encouraging the development of games, too. We've seen the Alexa Skills Challenge: Kids recently and I'd say it’s more than likely that most of the developer rewards will have gone to game developers, given the engaging nature of games.
We’ve touched upon voice first games on the podcast previously, such as our chat with Jo Jaquinta of Tsa Tsa Tzu, but we haven’t yet covered audio game development in detail, which is what we’ll do today.
Creating voice first gamesIn this episode, we’ll be getting into detail about the different kids of voice first games that are out there, as well as looking at some of the techniques you can use to create engaging games such as interactive stories.
We’ll cover things like:
- Naming a game and how a name can reduce discoverability
- The challenge of providing content
- The one game per month challenge
- The types of games that are available on Amazon Alexa
- Game design techniques
- Interactive story game development techniques
- Fake decisions - what are they and how can you use them to enhance engagement
Our GuestFlorian Hollandt is the Product Manager at Jovo, the cross platform voice app platform, and is also an Alexa game developer and reviewer. He’s created some popular games on Alexa, such as the German card game, Mau Mau, and has written a ton of voice first game reviews on Medium.
Florian is madly passionate about voice first games and his knowledge on the subject is impressive. He guides us through his experience and shares some delightful tips on how you can start creating voice first games yourself.
Links* Follow Florian on Twitter * Check out Florian's voice first game reviews on Medium
Some of the things Florian spoke about:* Voice first game design tutorial from Amazon * The Mitsuku chat bot * Woebot * One game per month website * Select a story * Magic door * Mr Robot
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Today, we’re following the story of the inspirational Bob Stolzberg of VoiceXP, and giving you some deep insights into how you can turn Alexa for Business into a business.
In this episode, Dustin and I are getting into the detail of how VoiceXP came to be, how Bob almost made $14,500 profit from his first Alexa Skill, why voice is such a big opportunity and how he turned Alexa for Business into a business.
We’re also discussing the features that come with Amazon Alexa for Business and some example use cases taken from Bob’s experience, as well as plenty of other areas such as:
- Selling to corporate clients
- The difference between a skill builder and a business
- The risk of using amazon alexa in business
- Security concerns and DR compliance
- The risks that corporate clients face and mitigations
- The importance of being a Amazon partner
- Private vs public skills
- Locking down devices
- Use cases and future use cases
- Reporting and analytics
- Agnostic roadmaps
- The hard work required to start a startup
Our GuestAfter spending 20 years working in the enterprise IT field, Bob Stolzberg founded VoiceXP, the voice first company that helps businesses create efficiencies and increase productivity through voice. Bob and his team work with enterprise clients and SMEs to implement Alexa for Business within organisations. From designing and building specific skills for clients, to the full implementation of the devices and platform.
Bob’s experience of the enterprise IT environment gives him a unique understanding of the corporate IT world, the kind of people that make purchasing decisions and the kind of risks or concerns IT professionals will perceive with new technology platforms such as this. He’s managed to overcome those concerns, mitigate those risks and build a thriving business that’s just joined one of the top startup accelerators in the US, Capital Innovators.
Bob’s an immensely engaging and passionate guy, and offers some amazing guidance and pointers for anyone looking to turn voice into a business. This is a truly inspirational listen.
Links* Visit the VoiceXP website * Follow Bob on Twitter * Listen to the VoiceFirst.FM podcast featuring Bob * Check out Dustin's book: Voice applications for Alexa and Google Assistant
Where to listen* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * Stitcher * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Pippa * Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play V.U.X. World on Alexa
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Today, we’re discussing the findings of Martin Porcheron’s study, ‘Voice interfaces in everyday life’. We uncover insights into how people actually use Amazon Alexa in the home. We find unique user behaviour, new technology challenges and understand what it all means for voice UX designers, developers and brands.
Voice interfaces in everyday lifeImagine if you could eaves drop into someone's house and listen to how they interact with their Amazon Echo. Imagine, whenever someone said “Alexa”, you were there. Imagine being able to hear everything thing that was said for an entire minute before the word “Alexa” was uttered, and then stick around for a whole 60 seconds after the interaction with Alexa was over.
Well, that’s exactly what today’s guest and his associates did, and his findings offer some unique lessons for VUX designers, developers and brands that’ll help you create more natural voice user experiences that work.
In this episode, we’re discussing:* How people use digital assistants in public * The background of Voice interfaces in everyday life * The challenge of what you call your Alexa skill * The issue of recall * How Amazon can improve skill usage * The inherent problem of discoverability in voice * How Echo use is finely integrated into other activities * The implications of treating an Echo as a single user device * The challenge of speech recognition in the ‘hurly burly’ of moderns life * How people collaboratively attempt to solve interaction problems * What is ‘political’ control and how does it apply to voice first devices? * Pranking people’s Alexa and the effect on future Amazon advertising * Designing for device control * Why these devices aren’t actually conversational * The importance of responses
Key takeaways for designers and developers* Give your skill a name that’s easy for recall * Make your responses succinct, fit within a busy and crowded environment * Make sure your responses are a resource for further action - how will the user do the next thing? * Consider designing for multiple users * Don’t use long intros and tutorials, get straight to the point * Don’t design for a conversation, design to get things done
Our GuestMartin Porcheron is a Research Associate in the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham and has a PhD in Ubiquitous Computing, a sub-set of Computer Science. Martin has conducted several studies in the field of human-computer interaction, including looking at how people make use of mobile phones in conversations i.e. how people use something like Siri mid-conversation and how those interactions unfold.
Martin’s angle isn’t to look at these things as critical or problematic, but to approach them as an opportunity to learn about how people make use of technology currently. He believe this enables us to make more informed design decisions.
The study we discuss today has won many plaudits including Best Paper Award at the CHI 2018 conference.
Links* Read the Voice interfaces in everyday life study * Follow Martin on Twitter * Read Martin's blog post on the study * Read Martin's colleague, Stuart Reeves' post on the study on Medium * Visit Martin's website
Where you can listen:
- iTunes/Apple podcasts
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- TuneIn
- iHeartRadio
- Pippa
- Any other podcast player you use or ask Any Pod to play V.U.X. World on Alexa
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Today, we're getting deep into the biggest challenges facing designers and developers on the Alexa platform: being discovered and making money. And who better to take us through it, than one of the most experienced developers on the voice scene, Jo 'the Oracle' Jaquinta.
Speak to anyone who's serious about voice first development and they'll tell you the two biggest challenges facing the voice first world right now are skill discoverability and monetisation. Vasili Shynkarenka of Storyline mentioned it and so did Matt Hartman of Betaworks when they featured on the VUX World podcast previously.
However, we rarely hear stories from people who've tried everything they can to overcome these challenges. Until now.
In this episode, we're joined by Dustin Coates as co-host and we're speaking to Jo about his vast experience of designing and developing on the Amazon Alexa platform and how he's approached tackling those two big challenges.
We also discuss voice UX design techniques that Jo's picked up along the way, as well as the tools and techniques he uses for developing skills.
This one is jam-packed with epic insights from someone who few know more than in this space right now, and includes discussion on a vast array of subjects including:
Discoverability:
- The impact of advertising on increasing skill adoption
- The effect of being featured in the Amazon Alexa newsletter
- What Amazon can do to help skill discovery
- How transferring between modalities can loose users
Monetisation:
- The challenges of turning skill development into a business
- The difference between Google’s and Amazon’s strategy
- The two ways to make money from voice: the easy way and the hard way
- Why a monetisation API shouldn't be the focus for developers
- Why Amazon Alexa developer payouts are bad for the voice environment
Design:
- The challenges of designing for voice with a screen
- How immersive audio games help the visually impaired
- How Amazon could improve the UX for users by moving to a 'streaming' approach to voice
- Why you shouldn’t be aiming for a ‘conversational’ experience
- What is the method of Loci and how can it be used when designing for voice?
Development:
- Fuzzy matching
- Building and maintaining your own library and SDK
- Cross platform development
Other gems include:
- Structural problems with the Alexa platform
- How company culture affects voice strategy
- Why it’s not early days in voice
- Alexa for business and privacy
Our GuestJo Jaquinta is a software developer with over 20 years' experience. Jo started building skills on the Alexa platform a short time after it was released, has created a host of interesting skills and learned plenty along the way through pulling Alexa in all kinds of different directions. His knowledge, experience and plenty of lessons learned were all applied in building Jo's most recent skill, the madly complex, 6 Swords.
Jo shares plenty of his voice design and development knowledge on his YouTube channel, which is full of engaging and interesting insights, and has put pen to paper to share his knowledge in the shape of two books on Alexa: How to Program Amazon Echo and Developing Amazon Alexa Games. He's also active on the Alexa Slack channel, helping people solve their development problems and consulting on voice design and development.
What Jo doesn't know about developing on Alexa isn't worth knowing. His immense knowledge and vast experience in this area are pretty much unrivalled, which is why I refer to him as 'the Oracle'.
Links* Find Jo on the Alexa Slack channel * Listen to the Voicebot.ai episode featuring Jo * Find out more about Tsa Tsa Tzu * Check out 6 Swords * Watch Jo's videos on YouTube * YouTube: making money on Alexa, the easy way and the hard way * Read Jo's books: How to Program Amazon Echo and Developing Amazon Alexa Games
Where to Listen:* iTunes/Apple podcasts * Spotify * TuneIn * iHeartRadio * Stitcher
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Today, we’re getting into detail about what it’s like to be a full-time VUI designer. We’re discussing the details of the role, the day to day duties and the skillsets that are important to succeed in designing voice user interfaces.
The role of a VUI designer has been around for a while, but it’s not so common. However, with the rise of voice as an access point for controlling technology, this is one of the roles of the future.
If you’re planning for that future and are considering seeking work in the voice first space; or if you’re a voice first design hobbyist looking to take it full-time; or if you’re generally interested in what it takes to create conversational interfaces, then this is a great episode for you.
We’re joined by two professional VUI designers, Ilana Shalowitz and Brian Bauman of Emmi, and together they’ll be taking us through the ins and outs of the role that designs voice user interfaces for Emmi’s care calls.
In this episodeIlana takes us through an overview of the VUI designer role and discusses what skillsets are important. She takes us through the interview process, bedding in, and drops some detailed knowledge voice user interface design based on her years of experience in the field.
Brian then takes us through the role in more detail and looks at the specifics of the role, where a VUI designer fits into a project, what the day to day activities and duties are, and what he found during his first 30 days.
We also discuss things like:
- How to pronounce VUI (V.U.I. or "Vooey")
- The difference between chat bot design and conversational vui
- What is prosity and why is it important
- Language
- Breathing
- Error recovery
- Directing voice talent
- Reporting and measuring success
- Broader voice user interface design tips
Our guestsIlana Shalowitz is the VUI Design Manager at Emmi and has a background in marketing and design. Ilana is forming a great reputation in the voice first space and is quickly becoming a leading voice for voice in the healthcare sector. She featured at the Alexa Conference 2018, spoke at the AI Summit 2018, has featured on the VoiceFirst.FM Voice of Healthcare podcast (Episode 5) and is a keynotes speaker at the Voice of Healthcare Summit in August in Boston.
Brian Bauman is a former playwright and joined Emmi recently, taking on his first role as a VUI designer. Brian has a background in the creative arts and is a former playwright. He fills us in on what his first month as a VUI designer was like and how his creative background gave him some valuable transferable skills.
About EmmiEmmi solutions is part of the Wolters Kluwer stable and helps care organisations extend the reach of their care through using technology.
Ilana and Brian both wore on the automated voice-based outbound calls side of the company. They create call scripts and dialogue flows that are turned into real calls that patients receive and can interact with in conversation. This means that healthcare providers can speak to thousands of patients without needing make make any manual calls at all.
Links* Apply to be a VUI designer at Emmi * Join the VUI designer slack channel * Find out more about Emmi * Register at the Voice of Healthcare Summit 2018
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We’re talking to ex-Googlers, Konstantin Samoylov and Adam Banks, about their findings from conducting research on voice assistants at Google and their approach to building world-leading UX labs.
This episode is a whirlwind of insights, practical advice and engaging anecdotes that cover the width and breadth of user research and user behaviour in the voice first and voice assistant space. It’s littered with examples of user behaviour found when researching voice at Google and peppered with guidance on how to create world-class user research spaces.
Some of the things we discuss include:
- Findings from countless voice assistant studies at Google
- Real user behaviour in the on-boarding process
- User trust of voice assistants
- What people expect from voice assistants
- User mental models when using voice assistants
- The difference between replicating your app and designing for voice
- The difference between a voice assistant and a voice interface
- The difference between user expectations and reality
- How voice assistant responses can shape people’s expectations of the full functionality of the thing
- What makes a good UX lab
- How to design a user research space
- How voice will disrupt and challenge organisational structure
- Is there a place for advertising on voice assistants?
- Mistakes people make when seeking a voice presence (Hint: starting with ‘let’s create an Alexa Skill’ rather than ‘how will
- people interact with our brand via voice?’)
- The importance (or lack of) of speed in voice user interfaces?
- How to fit voice user research into a design sprint
Plus, for those of you watching on YouTube, we have a tour of the UX Lab in a Box!
Our GuestsKonstantin Samoylov and Adam Banks are world-leading user researchers and research lab creators, and founders of user research consultancy firm, UX Study.
The duo left Google in 2016 after pioneering studies in virtual assistants and voice, as well as designing and creating over 50 user research labs across the globe, and managing the entirety of Google’s global user research spaces.
While working as researchers and lab builders at Google, and showing companies their research spaces, plenty of companies used to ask Konstantin and Adam whether they can recommend a company to build them a similar lab. Upon realising that company doesn’t exist, they set about creating it!
UX Study designs and builds research and design spaces for companies, provides research consultancy services and training, as well as hires and sells its signature product, UX Lab in a Box.
UX Lab in a BoxThe Lab in a Box, http://ux-study.com/products/lab-in-a-box/ is an audio and video recording, mixing and broadcasting unit designed specifically to help user researchers conduct reliable, consistent and speedy studies.
It converts any space into a user research lab in minutes and helps researchers focus on the most important aspect of their role - research!
It was born after the duo, in true researcher style, conducted user research on user researchers and found that 30% of a researchers time is spent fiddling with cables, setting up studies, editing video and generally faffing around doing things that aren’t research!
Konstantin SamoylovKonstantin Samoylov is an award-winning user researcher. He has nearly 20 years’ experience in the field and has conducted over 1000 user research studies.
He was part of the team that pioneered voice at Google and was the first researcher to focus on voice dialogues and actions. By the time he left, just 2 years ago, most of the studies into user behaviour on voice assistants at Google were conducted by him.
Adam BanksIt’s likely that Adam Banks has more experience in creating user research spaces than anyone else on the planet. He designed, built and managed all of Google’s user research labs globally including the newly-opened ‘Userplex’ in San Francisco.
He’s created over 50 research and design spaces across the globe for Google, and also has vast experience in conducting user research himself.
LinksVisit the UX Study website
Follow UX Study on Twitter
Check out the UX Lab in a Box
Follow Kostantin on Twitter
Follow Adam on Twitter
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This week, Dustin and I are joined by Matt Hartman, partner at Betaworks, curator of the Hearing Voices newsletter and creator of the Wiffy Alexa Skill.
In this episode, we’re discussing:
- All about Betaworks
- A strategic vision for voice
- Changing user behaviour
- On-demand interfaces
- Friction and psychological friction
- How context influences your design interface
- The 2 types of companies that’ll get built on voice platforms
- Differences between GUI and VUI design
- Voice camp
- The Wiffy Alexa Skill
- Lessons learned building your first Alexa Skill
- Text message on-boarding
- Challenges in the voice space
Our Guest, Matt HartmanMatt Hartman has been with Betaworks for the past 4 years and handles the investment side of the company. Matt spends his days with his ear to the ground, meeting company founders and entrepreneurs, searching for the next big investment opportunities.
Paying attention to trends in user behaviour and searching for the next new wave of technology that will change the way people communicate has led Matt and Betaworks to focus on the voice space.
Matt has developed immense knowledge and passion for voice and is a true visionary. He totally gets the current state of play in the voice space and is a true design thinker. He has an entirely different and unique perspective on the voice scene: the voice ecosystem, voice strategy, user behaviour trends, challenges and the future of the industry.
Matt curates the Hearing Voices newsletter to share his reading with the rest of the voice space and created the Wiffy Alexa Skill, which lets you ask Alexa for the Wifi password. It’s one of the few Skills that receives the fabled Alexa Developer Reward.
BetaworksBetaworks is a startup platform that builds products like bit.ly, Chartbeat and GIPHY. It invests in companies like Tumblr, Kickstarter and Medium and has recently turned its attention to audio and voice platforms such as Anchor, Breaker and Gimlet.
As part of voice camp in 2017, Betaworks invested in a host of voice-first companies including Jovo, who featured on episode 5 of the VUX World podcast, as well as Spoken Layer, Shine and John Done, which conversational AI guru, Jeff Smith (episode 4), was involved in.
Links* Subscribe to the Hearing Voices newsletter * Check out the Wiffy Alexa Skill * Follow Matt on Twitter * Visit Matt's website * Matt's article: Interfaces on demand * Matt's article: Lessons Learned Building my First Alexa Skill * Follow Matt Hartman on Medium * Find out more about Betaworks
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This week, we’re joined by the Mycroft AI team, and we’re getting deep into designing and developing on the open source alternative to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
If you’ve tried creating voice apps on platforms such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, then you’ll do doubt be familiar with their current limitations. Push notifications, monetisation and all-round flexibility generally leave plenty to be desired.
What if there was an alternative? A platform that really did let you create whatever you wanted. Something that'll let you monetise. Something completely open to being used in a way that you want to use it.
Well, that’s what the team at Mycroft AI have built.
What is Mycroft AI?Mycroft AI is the world’s first open source voice assistant that runs anywhere. On desktop, mobile, smart speakers. In cars, fridges, and washing machines. You name it. You can put it where you like and do with it what you like as well.
One member of the Mycroft community has hooked the platform up to a webcam and created a facial recognition feature that uses a persons face instead of a wake word. When you look at the camera, the speaker wakes and is ready for you to speak to it!
As well as being open source and flexible, if you create something exceptional, then it could even become the default skill for that feature on the platform. That’s like you creating a really great weather skill on Alexa and Amazon using that as the default way to tell people the weather!
Plus, your personal data is kept totally private.
And Mycroft aren’t just creating cool software, they have a range of smart speakers as well. The Mark I speaker is on sale now and the Mark II is on Indiegogo right now.
Our GuestsToday, we’re joined by Joshua Montgomery, CEO; Steve Penrod, CTO; and Derick Schweppe, CDO to talk all things Mycroft AI.
We’re also joined again by co-host, Dustin Coates, and we’re getting into detail about:
- Where Mycroft AI came from and the company’s vision for voice and AI
- The differences between Mycroft and the other players such as Alexa and Google Assistant
- The value of an open source voice assistant
- About the platform (how it works, how you can get up and running)
- About the range of smart speakers
- Privacy and security
- The Mycroft community and what people are building
- Incentives and reasons to develop on Mycroft AI
- Dev Chops with Dustin: a new feature where Dustin gets into the dev details of the Mycroft platform
- Voice design techniques and processes
- The future of voice
Links* Visit the Mycroft website * Get Mycroft for developers * Mycroft Mark II on Indigogo * Buy Mycroft Mark 1 * Mycroft on Youtube * Mycroft on Twitter * Mycroft community forum * Mycroft chat
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But first, let's welcome co-host; Dustin CoatesWe're joined in this episode by our new co-host, Dustin Coates. Dustin is the author of Voice Applications for Alexa and Google Assistant and has been involved in the voice scene since day 1. With extensive experience in software engineering, deep knowledge of Alexa and Google Assistant development and an immense passion for voice, Dustin brings a new perspective and different angles of questioning that, not only technical folk, but non-tech people will appreciate as well.
One of the challenges with new technology platforms is that you typically need to be able to speak the lingo to develop on them. As the internet has progressed, there are what seems like a million dev languages that you'd need to be able to code in to be able to create your website or app.
It wasn’t until relatively recently that tools cropped up to allow designers and total beginners to build on the web. Tools like Wordpress, Weebly and Squarespace have made it easy for anyone to create a presence online.
The great thing about having that history of the web is that we can learn from the past and apply the things that work well to new industries and technology. That’s exactly what Vasili has done through the creation of Storyline. It's the Weebly of voice.
It has a drag and drop interface and a user friendly workflow that will allow anyone to create an Alexa Skill without needing to code a single line.
It will let more technical folk do further work if they’d like to, such as using an API integration to interrogate data, but for the less technical folk out there, what you get ‘out the box’ is more than enough to build a well-rounded Skill.
In fact, testament to how much flexibility is baked into the tool is the recent announcement of the Amazon Alexa Skills Challenge: Kids winner, Kids Court, was created in Storyline.
In this episode, we get into detail about:
- What Storyline is, how it works and how to get up and running
- Testing and publishing Skills
- How to make your Skill more discoverable
- The Storyline community
- Future features and the roadmap
- The challenges facing developers and solutions to solving them
- Vasili’s vision for where the voice space is heading
- Advice for beginner Skill-builders and voice heads
Our guestVasili Shynkarenka is the founder and CEO of Storyline. After creating and selling an agency that specialised in creating conversational experiences for brands, Vasili turned his attention to focus on Storyline.
Vasili is madly passionate about voice and has immense experience in the field. He’s super-keen for all kinds of people to get involved in creating voice experiences, no matter what their skill level. His vision for the future of smart speakers and his knowledge of creating voice experiences are inspirational.
This episode is packed with insights and tips and tricks to help people of all skill levels create an Alexa Skill.
Links* Try Storyline * Check out Storyline on Youtube * Join the Storyline community on Facebook * Read Vasili's article 'What I Learned from 5000 Reviews of Top 5 Alexa Skills' on Medium * Check out Vasili on Medium
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Find out all about the Jovo framework that lets you create Alexa Skills and Google Assistant apps at the same time, using the same code!
You know how you always need to write platform-specific code for everything? One lot of code for your iOS app, another load for Android and more for Windows (if you even bother). Well, the same challenges exist today when creating voice apps. Well, those challenges did exist, until Jovo came along.
With the Jovo framework, you can create an Alexa Skill and a Google Assistant app all from the same lot of code. It's part of Jovo's bigger mission to enable you to create multi-modal experiences with ease and to join together the sporadic tech outlets to create a unified experience across all devices and platforms.
Our GuestJan König is one of the co-founders of Jovo and we're speaking to him today about all things cross-platform voice development. We'll hear from Jan about things like:
- what 'multi-modal' actually means
- features of the Jovo framework
- the Jovo community and Jovo Studios
- the differences between developing for Alexa and Google Assistant
- the challenges of developing voice experiences
- the skills needed for building Skills
- designer and developer relationships in the voice world
- testing voice apps
- Jovo 1.0 and the future of Jovo and
Links* Follow Jan on Twitter * Follow Jovo on Twitter * Visit the Jovo website * Jovo on Github * Jovo Slack channel * Follow Jan on Medium
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Conversational AI crops up constantly in conversations about voice, but what actually is it? How the heck does it work? And how can you use it? We speak to Jeff Smith to find out.
In this episode, we cover:
- An overview of conversational AI - what it is and how it works
- The role of voice in conversational AI
- How and why brands should consider using it
- How you can get started with machine learning and conversational AI
- Challenges and opportunities such as the state of analytics and security
At the foot of the show, I said that this was:
“One of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had in my life.”
And I wasn’t lying.
Getting to grips with Conversational AIIf you’re not familiar with the concepts of conversational AI, this episode will give you a great introduction.
If you are familiar and work in the industry, Jeff drops some great nuggets and learnings from his extensive experience.
And if you’re interested in this from a branding perspective, by the end of this episode, you’ll have a full understanding of the contexts and environments where it’s useful.
Our GuestJeff Smith, author of Reactive Machine Learning Systems, has bags of experience in the area of machine learning and conversational AI. He’s built a series of AIs, including Amy and Andrew at X.ai (what a cool domain!). That’s an AI Personal Assistant that helps people schedule meetings.
Jeff now works with IPsoft and manages the conversational AI team who’re building Amelia. Amelia, as you’ll find out in the show, is an extremely sophisticated AI that can perform many human tasks, increasing productivity and business efficiencies.
Links* Jeff's book, Reactive Machine Learning Systems * Jeff's talks and content on Reactive Machine Learning * Follow Jeff on Twitter * IPsoft website where you can check out Amelia * Follow IPsoft on Twitter * Jeff's article, 'Better conversations with machines' * Check out Jeff on Medium * Hear Donald Trump on Lyrebird
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In this episode, we’re going to show you how you can build an Alexa Skill from right within Wordpress.
Wordpress powers almost a third of the internet and now millions of websites running Wordpress can all have a presence on voice. It’s all thanks to VoiceWP, the Wordpress plugin that lets you build an Alexa Skill from within the most widely adopted CMS on the planet.
You can create Flash Briefings with ease and even have Alexa read the content of your website. We all know about audio books, but this could be the first opportunity to have your website content turned into audio form and read aloud as soon as its published, without you having to go through much effort at all. It’s super simple to set up.
Our GuestVoiceWP was built by our guest, Tom Harrigan, Partner and VP of Strategic Technology at Alley Interactive, a full service digital agency that specialises in helping publishers succeed online. We speak to Tom about VoiceWP, which is allowing brands such as People.com and Dow Jones’ Moneyish.com build Alexa Skills and establish a presence on voice with ease.
And you can use it too, because it’s free and super-simple to set up.
So, if you use Wordpress as your CMS and you’re interested in testing the waters in voice, or if you’re looking for a starting point Alexa Skill building, then this episode is for you.
We’re speaking to Tom about:
- Where the idea for VoiceWP came from and how it was built
- What is the plugin all about and what features does it have
- Who’s using it right now and who is it targeted at
- How can you get up and running with the plugin and try it out for yourself
- What does the future look like and what’s coming up
Links* Check out VoiceWP * Download VoiceWP at Git Hub * Follow Tom on Twitter * Visit Tom's website * Find out more about Alley Interactive
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In this episode, we're talking about voice first user testing, why it's so imperative and how you can get started doing your own voice user testing.
Why voice first user testing?Although usability testing graphical user interfaces is as common as a trending tweet, it's a seed that’s yet to be greatly sewn in the world of voice. There are many services that will provide technical testing, but those specifically offering voice first user testing in person with real users are few and far between. Enter, Userfy.
Whether you create Alexa Skills, Google Actions or any other voice user experience, this episode will help you make sure that your voice user interface (VUI) works for the people that use it through teaching you how to approach a voice-based user testing project.
We’ll cover things like:
- The current state of user research in the voice industry
- Why is usability testing important?
- What kind of users should you test with?
- User testing processes and planning
- How to approach a voice-first testing project
- Validating assumptions
- The difference between graphical and voice user testing
- What tools and equipment you need
Introducing Sam HowardOur guest is Sam Howard, co-founder and Director of user research agency, Userfy, which specialises in user testing. Sam has a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction and a degree in Psychology. That, mixed with a love of technology and a passion for helping people, puts Sam at the forefront of the user research field.
Links:Sam Howard on Twitter
Userfy website
Userfy on Twitter
Sam's 'Usability challenges facing voice-first devices' article
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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to VUX World.
This introductory episode is all about what VUX World is all about. Here, I'll take you through:
- the aims of the show
- how we intend to meet those aims
- why it exists
- who would find it useful
- what's in store over the coming months
The aims of VUX WorldThis is an ambitious show that intends to cover three core aims for three primary groups of people:
- To help VUX pros create better voice experiences through bringing together people from throughout the industry to share insights, tools, tips and tricks
- To help brands create voice first strategies and implement voice first solutions through learning from companies and agencies who're doing it right now
- To help grow the VUX industry by introducing people such as creatives, scientists, technologists, strategists, linguistics, developers and anyone else to the voice first world
How we'll meet our aimsWe'll reach those aims through focusing on three core pillars of content.
- Why? We'll cover the 'why' aspect of the argument for voice. Why should you take this area seriously? Why develop your skills here? Why voice?
- How? We'll extensively cover the 'how' side of things, too. How can you get started? How does the voice industry work? How can you develop here? We'll cover things like tutorials, guides, tips, hints and tactics to help you learn, develop and grow to create epic voice experiences.
- What's stopping you? Every industry has its challenges. We want to delve into those challenges and uncover opportunities to push past the barriers and find opportunities to move forward.
The host of VUX WorldYour host for this journey is me, Kane Simms. I have a history in sound design and music production as well as extensive experience in marketing, UX and agile project management. My love for all things audio and passion for understanding user behaviour and technology culminate perfectly right here in the world of voice.
So, strap in, hold tight and brace yourself for the rapidly expanding world of voice. I'm glad to be your guide.
Now, without further ado, you should totally check out the first proper episode of the podcast: User testing on voice-first devices with Sam Howard.
Enjoy :)
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