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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Intro04:30 About Justin Randall and Comwave10:30 Replacing the IVR12:23 What can 'Penny' do?13:39 How do you determine success for your conversational AI19:30 Understanding where you should start21:50 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 journey56:00 Closing thoughts from JustinLinks/booksConnect with Justin RandallCognitive Virtual Assistants Using Google DialogflowVoice Applications for Alexa and Google Assistant (Manning)Designing Voice User Interfaces (O'Reilly)Designing Bots (O'Reilly) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 AIConnect with Noam Fine on LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.netFollow Dan on Twitter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 CDI972VUX25OFFFIND OUT MORELinksstuartsilverstein.com Stuart Silverstein on Medium Stuart on LinkedIn Stuart on Facebook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 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 CDI972VUX25OFFFIND OUT MORELinksDownload the Vixen Labs Voice Commerce ReportConnect with James on LinkedInFollow Vixen Labs on Twitter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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 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 CDI972VUX25OFFFIND OUT MORELinksVoxta.comVoxta on TwitterConnect with Kavita on LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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.Save 25% with code CDI972VUX25OFFFIND OUT MORELinksSpeechlyConnect with Hannes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SPONSORED BY THE CONVERSATION DESIGN INSTITUTEBecome a certified conversation designer and save 25% with code CDI972VUX25OFFFIND OUT MOREVOICE 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.comMeet HoundSoundHoundSoundHound IncThe SoundHound Speech to Meaning blogMichael Zagorsek on LinkedInFollow Mike on TwitterSoundHound on Twitter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 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.FIND OUT MORELearn 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 agentsRegister to the RBM developer event 4th November 2020Businesses wanting to use RCS as part of a multichannel strategy can contact BT Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.