The Voicebot Podcast

Today I have another extra episode for you to discuss the announcements from Google's 2020 Fall product launch. We knew in advance that we would finally see a replacement for the Google Home which was launched four long years ago. The Nest Audio is that replacement as the flagship smart speaker for Google. Other than that, we were expecting a new Pixel smartphone, which we did see, and a new Chromecast, which also made an appearance. There wasn't much for the voice industry to sink their teeth into in terms of advances but I wanted to give you an update on what we did see and offer the perspectives of a couple of other event observers. To maintain consistency, I also asked Jefferson Graham of USA Today and Eric Schwartz of Voicebot.ai to join me. They were both on the recent episode focused on the Amazon product launch so we are getting their hot takes today in contrast to what we saw from Amazon. Jefferson Graham is the leading consumer tech reporter in the U.S. and Eric Schwartz is the lead reporter at Voicebot.

Today's episode is all about Amazon's big 2020 product launch event. We break down what was announced, what will be successful, and what it says about Amazon's product strategy. First up today you will hear my conversation with Ben Fox Rubin of CNET. He covers Amazon exclusively and joins me for the second year in a row. Next, we have my interview with Katherine Prescott of VoiceBrew, the most popular newsletter for Alexa users. Then, I throw down again with Jefferson Graham of USA Today. He was on our extra episode 169 which offered a preview of the event. We call out whether his, and my, predictions were right, and what consumers are really going to adopt among the new device offerings. I wrap up with Eric Schwartz, the head writer for Voicebot.ai. He has some interesting insights into services Amazon is pushing to keep people connected.

Amazon's 2020 product launch is coming up in a few days so Jefferson Graham of USA Today joins me for a preview of what to expect from Amazon during this year's event. We also look back at the many 2019 announcements and discuss which ones look like a success and which not so much. We talk about video, smart displays, smart TVs, Echo Frames (smart glasses), Echo Dot with clock, and more. It's your perfect companion for anticipating the 2020 launch even news. Jefferson Graham is the leading consumer tech journalist in the U.S. He has been a technology columnist for USA Today for the past twenty years and before that spent several years as the Tech Editor for Hollywood Reporter. In addition to being a columnist, Jeff writes the weekly Talking Tech newsletter and more impressively has published more than 1,500 episodes of the Talking Tech Podcast, which he records every day.

James Vlahos is the founder of Hereafter AI, a company that enables anyone to create a chatbot avatar of a real person. James' interest in chatbots started in the 1980s on a Commodore PET computer and was rekindled in 2015 when, as a reporter, he wrote a story about PullString's work on Hello Barbie. That led to him creating Dadbot, a chatbot that captured the memories and thoughts of his father that at the time was battling Stage IV cancer. After completing a book on tech's many decades of voice assistant innovation called Talk to Me, James founded Hereafter AI in 2019. We discuss what he learned from his early experience with rudimentary chabot designs of the 1980s and how his experience building a chatbot to memorialize his father offered unique insights into the tradeoffs of these types of endeavors. We cover a series of questions James has not been asked before and he offers some interesting insights that will be of value to any voice assistant designer. James earned a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon. Over his career, he has written for many publications including The New York Times, GQ, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, National Geographic Adventure, and WIRED.

TalkSocket just launched a Kickstarter for a physical product that makes Alexa (and other voice assistants) instantly accessible hands-free on any iPhone or Android smartphone. We talk about the product launch, the technical approach, the partnering strategy, and even how the company expects to eventually expand capabilities to China for Alibaba's and Baidu's voice assistants. Today's guests are Andrew Delorenzo and Chandler Murch, the co-founders of TalkSocket, a hardware device that makes Alexa hands free on iPhone and Android. It's a non-obvious innovation, but one that just might have the right ingredients for widespread consumer adoption. Delorenzo is CEO and has nearly a decade working in the cloud hosting business for AWS, Tencent, and Joyent. Murch is CTO for TalkSocket and has a background in IT management for companies such as game maker Valve and Ed Tech pioneer Promethean.

Ian Bicking spent 10 years at Mozilla as a software developer, engineering manager, and research engineer. His last project there was Firefox Voice, a custom voice assistant for the Firefox Browser. That experience led him to record his observations on the state of voice technology and conversational AI from a developer's perspective which he recorded in a 3,300-word blog post. Today, we discuss Bicking's 12-month journey building a custom voice assistant and what he learned. Before Mozilla, Bicking spent several years as a senior programmer at the Open Planning Project. He earned degrees in computer science and mathematics at Earlham College.

Richard Weeks is head of conversational experiences at U.S. Bank. The company has an Alexa Skill, Google Action, chatbot, and a newly minted custom assistant now available through its mobile app. Today, we talk about what U.S. Bank has learned about voice and conversational user experiences and how that influenced the decision to launch a custom assistant. We also talk about his organization, the tech stack, objectives, and more. Richard has been with U.S. Bank for the past four years after nearly 23 years with Wells Fargo where he concluded his tenure as Senior Vice President for customer experience strategy after holding many leadership roles in product management. Richard earned an undergraduate degree from USC and an MBA from the University of San Francisco.

Jeanine Heck is vice president of AI product at Comcast, the top cable television provider in the U.S. with over 20 million subscribers for its Xfinity service. The company began shipping a voice-interactive TV remote app in 2013 and a voice-controlled physical remote for its cable boxes in 2015. In 2019, the Xfinity voice remote handled over 12 billion voice requests which suggests users are making an average of about 600 voice requests per year, up from about 200 three years ago. It is a heavily used custom assistant that has been proven at scale. Heck joined Comcast in 2007 and has overseen the Xfinity voice remote project since its inception in 2013. Earlier in her career, she was a programmer and then manager at Gemini systems. Heck earned a degree in computer science and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia.

Dor Skuler is CEO and co-founder of Initiation Robotics. He is a former board director for ClearPath Networks, Senior Vice President at Alcatel-Lucent, and officer in the IDF. Intuition Robotics was formed in 2015 to reimagine the relationship between humans and machines. The company's first product, ElliQ, is an interactive smart speaker for elder adults. It can respond to requests or proactively engage with users, has a screen, and can move to offer the robotic equivalent of body language. The solution is in beta testing today and the company has been collecting user data before a commercial launch. Toyota also recently tapped Intuition Robotics to provide its Q voice assistant designed for automotive use cases. The company recently closed a $36 million funding round and has raised $58 million to date.

This week's roundtable discussion focuses on the top voice AI news from the first half of 2020. We, of course, talk about COVID-19 and how that is changing adoption patterns or the industry, smart speaker adoption figures, the voice app ecosystems and whether there is a voice app winter underway, and the rise of custom assistants, a shift to mobile and more. Guests this week include Theo Lau, founder of Unconventional Ventures, Katherine Prescott, founder of VoiceBrew, and Jan König, co-founder of Jovo.