We’re used to hearing Text To Speech in conversational AI, but that’s not the only option available. Voice assistants don’t have to use synthetic speech - they can use recordings of a live voice talent instead.Andrew Muir, Lead Dialogue Designer at PolyAI, explains the benefits of using voice talents. One of his points really resonated with me - why voice talents ease users into the experience!00:00    Start00:24    Tell me about yourself?02:38    What's your favourite bot?03:26    What are your biggest concerns about ChatGPT?05:58    What journalistic skills do you use in conversation design?08:42    Why do you choose to use voice talent at PolyAI?13:10    So voice talent eases users into the experience?13:52    Where would you choose to use synthetic voices?15:56    Are you using voice talents and cloned voices?17:03    Please tell me about your relationship with the voice talents?19:14    Do you give the voice talent freedom to create their work?19:50    Do voice talents push back against being used in AI projects?21:36    Voice talents could get left behind by synthetic voices22:46    Are voice talents proactively cloning their voices?23:21    How do you approach updates to avoid spiralling costs?26:24    Do you adjust the design based on a voice actor's performance?30:40    Is a synthetic assistant with an empathetic voice a design sweet-spot?31:51    Do you think there's scope for non-human character design?36:38    The way words are said matters38:56    The user observes everything about the bot41:16    How do you approach voice localisation at PolyAI?45:44    Personas are received differently in different locales46:43    You have to know the culture intimately to localise48:47    We have to expect we will keep updating our work50:35    Where can people find out more about you? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

NatWest's Mark Worden, expert in designing and implementing the world's first accessible chatbot, discusses the importance of accessibility in conversational AI and shares their experience with developing Cora, the bank's chatbot. They discuss the impact of COVID-19, the need for color contrast in website design, the process of designing an accessible chatbot, the challenges of the generative AI movement, and the significance of accessibility in design and AI in retail.

Yvonne Zgraggen is a Product Owner in the Data, Analytics and AI division at Swisscom, a major telco provider in Switzerland. With a background in computer linguistics, UX and conversation design, Yvonne has a wealth of experience that anyone working on conversational AI systems can learn from.Today, Yvonne joins us to share how Swisscom is approaching conversational process automation and top lessons learned from being a Product Owner for conversational applications.00:00 Introduction and presenting Unparsed event use VUXWORLD and save 50% or visit the Unparsed website and proceed to the checkout https://unparsedconf.com/discount/VUX...05:05 Welcome Yvonne07:22 Computer linguistics 08:40 Starting at Swisscom10:42 Early AI use cases13:39 Product Ownership 17:20 Balancing requirements 20:11 Stakeholder feature management22:30 Data & privacy 24:50 From conversation designer to product owner32:23 Educating stakeholders34:34 The new 'hype cycle': Chat GPT38:58 Automating business processes44:28 Conversational UI's47:28 Advice to conversational AI practitioners48:40 Outro Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Let’s talk about proactive messaging!Michelle Parayil, Conversation Design Manager at Haptik, knows all about it. She’s learnt a great deal about proactive messaging with conversational AI, and shares her learnings and experiences. When’s the best time to do proactive messaging? How do we avoid a notification pile-up when sending chat messages proactively? Can a bot that’s too proactive create a bad user experience? It’s all in there, and more…A wee note about this episode: Michelle called while she was in the middle of a thunderstorm! That’s dedication for you. There’s a few booms and bangs in the background, but she’s still loud and clear. Hope you enjoy it.00:00 Start02:08 What's the most useful thing you use at work?03:22 How do you select the right use case?04:24 Should we aim for bots to mimic humans?06:32 What is proactive messaging?08:14 What are the challenges and benefits of proactive messaging?11:30 Is there a danger of a notification pile-up?13:30 Can proactive messaging be done 24/7?15:26 Can an overly proactive bot create a terrible experience?17:38 How does data influence the time when we message the user?20:21 Are there different ways to interpret the user's explicit 'no' to proactive messaging?23:05 How can a bot fallback if they proactively messaged at the wrong time?24:31 When would you recommend to not use proactive messaging?26:28 Does proactive messaging create a strong impression of the bot's persona?27:21 In which channels do Haptik use proactive messaging?30:59 What do you think is the future of proactive messaging?33:13 Outro Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Let’s talk careers! This Conversations2 is an interview with Hilary Hayes, who’s a conversation designer, multimodal interaction designer, teacher and mentor. I reached out to Hilary in the hope she’d chat about career paths. Why? The job title ‘conversation designer’ is still relatively new, the industry is going through rapid transformation, and recently there were layoffs throughout the tech industry which affected many people, including conversation designers. Sadly, Hilary was one of those designers who got laid-off (she worked at Meta), however as you’ll see in this interview that’s absolutely their loss. Hilary’s got a lot of insights from her years of experience, she’s not afraid to call out our industry’s issues, and she’s enthusiastic and supportive. I think all conversation designers can take a lot from her. We all wonder about our careers, so listen up for a nice wee chat about careers in conversation design!00:00 Start 00:13 Introduction 00:51 On UXR 02:18 30 seconds, go! 04:00 The importance of data in conversation design 05:24 Nominate one conversation designer we should all know 07:42 What can designers do away from work to help them be better designers? 14:44 Do conversation designers need lots of life experience? 20:13 On getting certification as a conversation designer 22:11 Talking matters 24:34 What do you need to feel your career is on track? 27:13 We need to talk to each other to stay up to date 31:27 We need to learn from each other 32:17 On mentoring 32:54 UX designers moving into conversation design 35:52 LLMS in conversation design 39:26 AI mirrors us 43:03 Has the industry evolved the way you expected it to? 46:33 Assistants could schedule our lives but they don't yet 48:04 Bots using humans to exploit internet security 50:15 What areas of conversation design don't get enough attention in the industry? 51:22 Are conversational designs serving users well yet? 56:58 What do you hope to do next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Of all the industries that can and could utilize conversational AI, banking, insurance and the wider financial services sector has some of the biggest opportunities.To walk us through the kinds of business problems faced by FSI companies, the types of use cases conversational AI is solving for, and to highlight some of the successes, value and lessons learned, I’m joined by Dave Schreffler, SVP Financial Services Sales - Kore.ai, and Peter Berbee SVP Financial Services Product - Kore.ai.Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/Find out more about https://kore.ai/ and book a demo here - https://info.kore.ai/kore.ai-demo-req... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh wow, is that the time?! VUX World has been going for 5 years! For this episode of Conversations Squared the focus is on the man who's usually asking the questions - Kane Simms! What's he learned in the past 5 years? Where's the industry headed? What about Alexa and Google Assistant? Listen to Kane's responses to these questions and more...0:00 Intro4:00 Conversations and listening7:00 We need patience for conversational AI9:00 30 seconds, go!11:10 What surprised you most about the industry when you started VUX World?17:45 What do the words 'artificial intelligence' make you think?20:55 Can you summarise the developments you've seen in the last 5 years?26:15 Channels for enterprise conversational AI30:35 Was the timing bad for Alexa and Google Assistant?33:00 What inspires you to keep going forward?36:20 What excites Ben about the industry?38:40 The potential of conversational AI39:30 Outro  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Invoca is leading the conversational intelligence charge. CEO Gregg Johnson joins me to dive deep into conversational intelligence, what it is, how it works and how businesses are utilising it, as well as the imperative role of context.Visit: https://www.invoca.com/Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/Find out more about Kore.ai and book a demo here - Kore.ai request demo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Conversation analysis should be a part of every conversation design team’s workflow. You may be doing it already without realising exactly what it is. I reached out to Dr Maria Aretoulaki to find out exactly what conversation analysis is, why it matters and how she would use it for a new project. Maria is the Director at DialogCONNECTION Ltd and she works with GlobalLogic (a HITACHI Group company) where she’s SME for ML/AI, design-led and data-driven Voice & Conversational AI (VOCAI) and VUI and CUI Design, and a Coordinator of the Web3 and Blockchain CoE. Maria is a true veteran of conversational AI, so it was fantastic to chat with her! 00:00 Start 00:20 Maria's Introduction 02:38 Maria's VUI experience 05:33 30 seconds, go! 07:01 On 'copywriting' as a term for conversation design 08:45 What would you call the craft of utterance writing? 12:18 what surprised you most when you started designing conversations? 15:04 Customers creatively swearing at bots 17:09 What is conversation analysis? 22:03 What is ontology? 26:33 Ontology of human experience 30:10 Where would you expect to use conversation analysis in a new project? 33:10 What would you look for in the data? 36:09 Are recordings better than transcriptions? 38:48 Do transcriptions give enough detail? 43:20 How much detail is enough? 44:48 TTS and voice talent 48:08 Should conversation analysis adapt to different modalities? 51:58 Are ontologies intents? 53:51 Where can people learn more about conversation analysis? 57:51 Where can people follow you? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matt Taylor, CEO, Knowbl, joins me to discuss the realities of building a conversational AI platform on top of LLMs from the ground up.Visit https://knowbl.com/Join VUX World at the EU Chatbot Summit where we’ll be hosting a full day of enterprise AI best practice content, with the likes of Vodafone, Love Holidays, LNER and many more. We have a 30% DISCOUNT for you too: VUXEU23 to attend: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/Find out more about Kore.ai and book a demo here- Kore.ai request demo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.