The Voicebot Podcast

Topics today include Amazon's new Astro Robot in operation, the rise of voice AI in the contact center, the increase in acquisitions and large funding rounds, custom branded assistants, Google's sunsetting of conversational actions, and a whole lot more.   Speakers breaking down the news of 2022 so far: - Sarah Andrew Wilson - former CCO at Matchbox.io before Volley acquisition - Paul Sweeney - chief product officer at Webio - Eric Schwartz - head writer at Voicebot.ai - Bret Kinsella - founder of Voicebot.ai

Braden Ream is CEO of Voiceflow, a leading conversational AI design collaboration solution combined with a no-code platform for deploying voice apps. Voiceflow was founded in 2019 and has tens of thousands of users and more than 400 companies.  Today we discuss Voiceflow's evolution into enterprise solutions, its expanding feature base, and the top customer use cases. We also delve into how the conversational AI industry has changed including the shift to custom branded voice assistants as well as the impact of the recent Google Assistant news that it is shutting down Conversational Action developer support.  

James Poulter and Vixen Labs along with the Open Voice Network and Veritone surveyed 6000 consumers in the U.S., UK, and Germany about their perception and use of voice assistants and smart speakers. We break down the findings and discuss the implications for the industry as a whole. Trends, data, industry news -- all the things you like.    Poulter co-founded Vixen Labs in 2018. He previously was head of emerging platforms and partnerships for LEGO Group where he did some voice AI work and early in his career was an associate director at Edelman.

Google announced it will be sunsetting support for third-party conversational actions–the voice apps that work with Google Assistant–in June 2023. It decided there was no point in maintaining a separate app store just for voice and it is encouraging conversational action developers to port their experiences over to Android apps. This special edition of the Voicebot Podcast showcases Allen Firstenberg and Mark Tucker, both active developers of conversational actions and other voice app experiences. Firstenberg is a GDE for Google Assistant and Mark Tucker is an Alexa Champion so both have some notable accomplishments in the space. They are both also well known in the voice developer community in part from their Two Voice Devs podcast and YouTube show. We discuss the impact on the Google Assistant and Alexa ecosystems and how this will shape the future of voice assistants. 

Brandon Kaplan founded Skilled Creative in 2017 and continues to serve as CEO. The agency is well known for delivering voice AI strategy, solutions, and analytics for top media and consumer good companies ranging from Meredith and HBO to Pottermore and Pepsico. In 2022, Skilled Creative was merged with two other agencies to form Journey to create a new "experience" agency with expertise in immersive technologies such as AI, Metaverse, and physical world activations. Kaplan also serves as Chief Innovation Officer of the combined company while directly managing the voice AI business.  We discuss the past, present, and future of voice AI, how enterprises are managing the shift to conversation, and the value of the Journey agency model. 

John Kelvie is CEO of Bespoken, a leader in automated testing software for voice assistants. We discuss his company's journey from 2016 to 2022. And, we cover the voice assistant market evolution from Alexa and Google Assistant to custom voice assistants, customer support bots, and other novel applications. That discussion also takes us from predominantly consumer applications of voice assistants to the enterprise.  You might also enjoy going back to episode 6 or 55 where John shared the perspective of the early days of Bespoken. 

Keyvan Mohajer is CEO of SoundHound (SOUN), the creator of both a beloved music recognition mobile app and one of the most successful custom voice assistant development platforms. The company recently went public and carries a market capitalization of over $1 billion. We talk about the volatility of the stock but the real focus is drilling down into the company's business model, the use cases, and what the market wants in voice assistant technology today.  Mohajer founded SoundHound in 2004 while studying for his PhD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford. The company's voice assistant technology is used in solutions for companies ranging from Mercedes and Hyundai to Snap, Netflix, and White Castle. Its music recognition mobile app has been downloaded more than 300 million times. 

Dana Young founded AIPEX in 2017 to solve a problem he faced as an independent vacation rental property host. Voice assistants could provide his guests with a better experience and save him the challenge of answering a lot of redundant questions.  He started by building Alexa skills and Google Actions. AIPEX now has a shared service instance of Alexa for Hospitality which makes the solution scalable and easy to use for other property owners, hotels, and assisted living communities.   Dana shares in detail his journey building the first self-service solution for vacation rental and hotel owners, the key use cases, and evolution of the company. 

Ilya Gelfenbeyn is CEO and Kylan Gibbs is chief product officer of Inworld. The company has a novel voice AI service that gives brains to in-game and metaverse characters and enables them to have personalities, backstories, knowledge, and the ability to converse. It's an impressive combination of conversational AI technologies for configuring characters and operating them in virtual worlds.  There is a lot of talk about metaverses and how conversational AI may play a role. Inworld has the most interesting angle I have seen to date on this topic.  Gelfenbeyn was CEO and co-founder of API.ai which was acquired by Google in 2016 and became Dialogflow. Gibbs is the former product manager for conversational AI products at DeepMind. 

Raj Koneru is the CEO of Kore.ai.  He founded the company in 2014 to tackle the need for automated interactions in messaging. That led to conversational AI services for messaging platforms ranging from white label solutions for enterprises to integration with WhatsApp Apple Messages for Business and other platforms. The company also expanded into voice services and last fall raised $70 million in a Series C funding round.    Today, we discuss the evolution of chatbots and voice assistants, what enterprises are focused on automating now, and the role conversational AI will play in the metaverse.