Voice Tech Podcast

Adam Emfield is the Head of User Experience at Cerence, formerly known as Nuance Automotive. Join us for a fascinating conversation about voice UX in the automobiles of the future. Discover Cerence's vision for a multi-modal, multi-sensor, multi-assistant driving experience, plus the many advantages voice brings to drivers and manufacturers.

Then dive into the latest design concepts of voice in the car, including personalisation and contextual awareness, and how speech anthropomorphism and emotion detection can increase user trust. To round off, you'll hear about the future of autonomous vehicles, with the various levels of autonomy explained, and how voice plays a role in each.

This conversation a highlight reel of insights and revelations, and brings together two of the most exciting and transformative technologies of our lifetimes; voice and self-driving cars. Enjoy! 

Links from the show:

• Cerence http://bit.ly/2p8MHEb
• Nuance http://bit.ly/2CyduwB
• Voice at CES http://bit.ly/2NBPRd6
• Reuters article on CES https://reut.rs/2NB1JMl
• Autonomous driving levels 0 to 5 https://tek.io/33CNnRc
• Top Anthropomorphic Cars http://bit.ly/2Czj0iE
• Harmon Kardon car http://bit.ly/2CwlZZ7

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Bob Stolzberg is the founder of VoiceXP, a platform that lets you build engaging voice experiences for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Samsung Bixby without writing a line of code. Find out how VoiceXP's super simple form based approach lets users have build multimodal voice apps with custom voices and API integrations for a wide variety of use cases.  

We also learn about some of the big trends in voice, such as why now is the perfect time to set up a flash briefing, what the word on the ground in Silicon Valley is, and how all websites will soon have a voice interface. This is an energetic conversation packed with useful insights and fun demos, so don't miss it!

Links from the show:

• VoiceXP: https://VoiceXP.com  
• VoiceXP on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2qj9KMM
• VoiceXP on LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/32iI8V3
• VoiceXP on Twitter: http://bit.ly/2CbYZhP
• Alexa comedy - Funny or die: Under a rock with Tig Natarro http://bit.ly/32c8XKz
• Book: Design how people think http://bit.ly/33fmMcN
• Book: Badass: Making Users Awesome http://bit.ly/2oP17cq

Sponsors:

• Manning books: https://www.manning.com << 40% off all books code: PODVOICETECH19 
• VoiceTech Paris 2019 tickets: http://bit.ly/35Mo3tv << 20% off code: VT19-VTECHPOD 

Find us here:

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Rob Lubow is the co-founder of Botcopy, a tool that lets you build custom chatbots for your website, powered by Dialogflow. Rob explains the benefits of text-based chatbots, shares some chatbot design tips, and explains how to quickly build your own using Dialogflow and Botcopy. We discover the major uses for website chatbots, and a new trend for full screen bot landing pages. 

Rob explains some of the limitations of voice bots, such as high cognitive load, and the many advantages multimodal chatbots have over voice bots. An experienced startup founder and bot developer, Rob shares his advice for people building a conversational UI products and startups, such as not trying to emulate a human with a voice-only interface. Finally we learn why Rob considers himself a transhumanist, more interested in putting the best of humanity into a bot than creating a new sentient species.

Links from the show:

• Botcopy: https://Botcopy.com << first 500 conversations per month FREE 
• Rob's article on bot writing: http://bit.ly/2BLHQeD
• Rob's article on website chatbots: http://bit.ly/31QwzEz
• Rob's 2017 podcast interview: https://apple.co/2MPbW7i
• Intercom CX: https://www.intercom.com/
• Drift CX: https://www.drift.com/
• The Transhumanism Handbook: https://amzn.to/2Pu8T6x

Sponsors:

• Robocopy Conversation Design Course http://bit.ly/2Q3QRts << 20% off with code VOICETECH20 
• The Voice Course - Udemy course - https://voicetechpodcast.com/thevoicecourse << Get 30% with code HALLOWEEN19 
• Georgian Partners Impact Podcast: https://voicetechpodcast.com/impactpodcast
• FinderFox voice-enabled news: "Alexa, enable FinderFox" @AskFinderFox

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Micah Hollingworth is CEO and co-founder of Broadw.ai, an AI powered ticketing agent and integrated marketing platform for live Broadway events and theatre-goers. We discover how voice and conversational AI are being used in the theatre industry, helping to tackle the most pressing challenges faced by consumers and ticket sellers.  

Conversational interfaces capture huge amounts of data, which is key to targeting the right customers in outbound campaigns, personalising the offer, and selling tickets quickly. Hear Micah's vision for the future of voice tech in entertainment, including conversational ticket sales, integration with our content feeds, and even appearing in mainstream media. 

This conversation demonstrates the huge impact conversational technology is having on every industry, even those typically seen as slow to adopt new technologies. Prepare to change the way you see the theatre! 

Links from the show:

• Broadw.ai: https://www.broadw.ai/  
• Micah on LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/2J9EB53
• Satisfy Labs: https://satisfilabs.com
• Navigate the web using voice: http://bit.ly/33MmhGQ
• Zuora subscription payments: https://www.zuora.com

Sponsors:

• Manning books: https://www.manning.com << 40% off all books code: PODVOICETECH19 
• VoiceTech Paris 2019 tickets: http://bit.ly/35Mo3tv << 20% off code: VT19-VTECHPOD 
• SquadCast: http://squadcast.fm << 50% off Unlimited plan, $10 off Dabbler plan: VOICETECHPOD

Find us here:

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Mike Page is the co-founder and CEO of Phebi, Inc, a voice search SaaS solution that makes it easy for customers to talk to e-commerce websites. We discuss how and why adding contextual voice search to your website can increase user engagement and sales, improve data privacy and regulatory compliance, and help you develop a closer relationship with your customers. 

We discover that training custom speech-to-text models (STT) such as Phebi's allows for some interesting use cases outside of e-commerce, and how having access to the raw audio allows us to customise search results using gender and emotion detection. We learn how audio data quality can affect STT results, and how to use analytics to improve STT and NLU performance. Finally, Mike explains why it's wise for companies to opt-out of the surveillance economy. 

Links from the show:

• Phebi: https://getphebi.com  
• FREE TRIAL UPGRADE: To get 30 days free trial instead of 7, email [email protected] and mention the Voice Tech Podcast 
• Phebi Shopify app: http://bit.ly/2OPqB3R
• Phebi auto dealer case study: http://bit.ly/2qeYwZF
• Phebi / Breakthrough UX partnership: http://bit.ly/2OWjgjh
• Phebi on LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/2OJVLcP
• Phebi on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2MFkZGJ

Sponsors:

• Georgian Partners Impact Podcast: https://voicetechpodcast.com/impactpodcast  

Find us here:

• Website
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• [email protected]

Petar Ojdrovic is the founder of Home Service, a voice-based solution for vacation rental management that Improves the guest experience while helping hosts save time and drive 5 star reviews. I'm also joined by my co-host, the inimitable Charlie Cadbury, CEO of Say It Now, who elevates the discussion with his vast experience of building apps for the travel and hospitality industries. 

In this episode we learn about the typical problems vacation rental hosts and guests face during their stays in vacation rentals like Airbnb, and how hosts can use voice to tackle these. We cover designing a human into the loop, the ways multimodal should be used, how to improve intent resolution. 

Charlie introduces us to the concept of a crap wizard, and how you can avoid having your voice app users feel like one, and Petar shares advice for budding voice developers and startup founders. This in-depth conversation really showcases the potential of voice to gather data and offer value to users. 

Links from the show:

• Home Service: https://homeservice.ai << use code VOICETECH15 for $15 off annual subscription 
• Home Service on Twitter: https://twitter.com/homeserviceapp
• Home Service Blog: https://homeservice.ai/blog  
• The necessity of Multi Modal: http://bit.ly/2IyPdtU
• Automating AirBnB and Vacation rental management: http://bit.ly/35gj7Nh
• Driving growth metrics: http://bit.ly/2OrUtTN
• Say It Now: https://www.sayitnow.ai/  
• Say It Now Twitter: https://twitter.com/sayitnow_ai  
• Say It Now LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/say-it-now  
• Charlie Cadbury on Twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesCadbury
• Volara: https://volara.io
• Virtual Concierge Service: https://www.virtualconciergeservice.com

Sponsors:

• Manning books: https://www.manning.com 40% off all books code: PODVOICETECH19 
• AllAboutVoice Conference, Munich, Oct 11: http://bit.ly/30pzhAW - 15% discount with code VOICETECH 

Find us here:

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• [email protected]

Stuart Crane is the founder and CEO of SurveyLine, a new product that lets you create voice based surveys. Stuart presents the many use cases of voice surveys, and their advantages over traditional methods. He also shares some design tips for creating effective voice surveys, including how to personalise the questions for users and use a custom voice for branding. 

Stuart is also the founder of VoiceMetrics, a product that lets businesses access their own database information by voice. We discuss the reasons for his decision to pivot the business to SurveyLine, the major startup opportunities in voice right now, and the ultimate potential of voice interfaces. 

Links from the show:

• SurveyLine: https://www.surveysbyvoice.com/  
• VoiceMetrics: https://www.voicemetrics.io/  
• HBR article - Using Smart Speakers to Engage your Customers http://bit.ly/2n3H7BL
• Alexa for Business https://amzn.to/2ouoHuk
• True Reply: https://truereply.com

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Jonathan Rechtman is the co-founder of Cadence Translate, a language services company that help corporations and financial firms conduct business and investment research across the language barrier. Jonathan is a true expert in the field, having worked for the UN, celebrities and businesspeople alike. He explains the state of translation and interpretation today, how the process works, the skills and technology interpreters use, and how the profession is being impacted by the latest developments in technology. 

We discuss the do's and don't when hiring interpreters, how you can get the most value from your translated audio, some skills that interpreters have that you can use in your daily life, automatic interpretation devices, unified communications as a service (UCAAS), and much more. 

One of the most interesting discoveries to come out of our discussion is the similarity between the mental processes of a human interpreter and the state of the art natural language processing stack that smart speakers use, a connection that can inform our approach to designing voice interfaces.

Links from the show:

• Cadence Translate: https://www.cadencetranslate.com (Discount on first use of interpreting/translation service) 
• Join Cadence as an Linguist: https://www.cadencetranslate.com/learn
• Free ebook on Due Diligence for Linguists: http://bit.ly/2magvye
• Twilio UCAAS: https://www.twilio.com
• Zoom UCAAS: https://zoom.us

Sponsors:

• Georgian Partners Impact Podcast https://voicetechpodcast.com/impactpodcast  
• Manning books: https://www.manning.com 40% off all books code: podvoicetech19 
• AllAboutVoice Conference, Munich, Oct 11: http://bit.ly/30pzhAW - 15% discount with code VOICETECH 
• Bespoken Testing Webinar, Sept 25: http://bit.ly/2LE4HgH  

Find us here:

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• LinkedIn
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• [email protected]

David Borish is Chief Creative at PRIMO AI, a New York startup that recommends the highest performing Speech-to-text (STT) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) services for a particular dataset and geographical region. We discover what the biggest problem with speech to text systems is today, and why trying to solve it by hiring data scientists can be prohibitively expensive. 

We also discuss the advantages of acquiring a technology patent, why David chose to recently enter the voice space, and the approach he takes when selecting his next entrepreneurial challenge. David is a seasoned startup veteran who believes passionately in the future of voice, and our conversation contains many valuable lessons to take away. 

Links from the show:

• Primo AI: voiceprimo.com  
• Become a beta tester: [email protected]  
• David Borish homepage: http://www.davidborish.com  
• Headspin: https://www.headspin.io
• Kaldi: http://kaldi-asr.org/
• Google Cloud STT: http://bit.ly/2QkCYHN
• Phebi Voice Search https://getphebi.com

Sponsors:

• AllAboutVoice Conference, Munich, Oct 11: http://bit.ly/30pzhAW - 15% discount with code VOICETECH 
• Robocopy Conversation Design Course http://bit.ly/2Q3QRts - 20% off with code VOICETECH20 

Find us here:

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Don White is CEO and Co-Founder of Satisfi Labs, an AI-powered Knowledge Management Platform that offers conversational search and commerce solutions for fan, guest, and customer engagement. Don describes the types of companies and industries most interested in implementing question and answer solutions, and reveals the number #1 question their customers ask. 

We cover how these Q&A models work, how scalable they are, and how they are deployed to clients. We also discuss the benefits of voice search, and how ready consumers are for the transition.

Don also shares some design tips too, such as how to handle unexpected user queries, the reasons for response bias, and the importance of asking follow up questions. And we answer the most crucial question of all: where to buy Bacon on a Stick.

Links from the show:

• Satisfi Labs: https://www.satisfilabs.com  
• Satisfi Funding press release: https://prn.to/2LFXzRa

Sponsors:

• Georgian Partners Impact Podcast https://voicetechpodcast.com/impactpodcast  
• Manning books: https://www.manning.com 40% off all books code: podvoicetech19 
• Bespoken Webinar, Sept 25: http://bit.ly/2LE4HgH  
• AllAboutVoice Conference, Munich, Oct 11: http://bit.ly/30pzhAW - 15% discount with code VOICETECH 

Find us here:

• Website
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube
• Discord
• LinkedIn
• X
• Reddit
• Patreon
• [email protected]