VUX World

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.LinksVisit OTO.aiConnect with Nico on LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.LinksRead voicebot.aiCheck out WitLingo and BespokenRead Voice is stuckRead The #VoiceFirst User Interface Has a Use Case Fit ProblemRead Voice first sucksFollow Ahmed, John and Bret on TwitterConnect with Ahmed, John and Bret on LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Intro02:55 About Zohaib Ahmed and Resemble.ai04:47 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 assistant21:10 Ethics of voice cloning24:20 Resemblyzer and tackling speaker verification27:40 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 emotion41:00 Heidi Cohen: Regionalisation and localisation44:45 Real time translation of speech48:20 Jay Ruparel: Thoughts on filler words like 'um', 'ah' etc51:37 Proving the value and ROI01:00:40 Where can people find out more about Resemble.aiLinksVisit Resemble.ai Follow Resemble.ai on TwitterZohaib Ahmed on Twitter and LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.