Voice Tech Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Echo Echo Chamber - Adam Greenwood, Greenwood Campbell Aug 26, 2019

Show notes

Adam Greenwood is the founder of the award winning digital agency, Greenwood Campbell. We discuss his experiences building chatbot and voicebot applications, as well as the wider implications of these technologies, specifically the echo chambers they are so good at creating.

We learn what an echo chamber is, why they are so dangerous, and what we can do to avoid them. We also discover whether voice enabled devices will make the situation better or worse. Adam shares the state of the UK voice market, and highlights some of the use cases best suited to voice apps. Then we discuss voice SEO and how brands can compete here.

We then tackle the design and development of chatbots and voicebots, discussing the different ways they can be built, and the benefits and challenges of each. Adam also reveals some of the big surprises his team have had during their many successful implementations. This is a thought-provoking episode that will inform and inspire in equal measure.

Links from the show:

Greenwood Cambell http://bit.ly/30pYJGo
Adam's Echo Chamber article http://bit.ly/30owwQv
Adam's TEDx talk http://bit.ly/30pZM9w
Adam Greenwood Homepage http://bit.ly/30rLR2E
"Hey Google, talk to Greenwood Campbell"
Twitter @greenwoodcampbell
Facebook http://bit.ly/30oXSG3

Sponsors:

Phebi Voice Search https://getphebi.com
Robocopy Conversation Design Course http://bit.ly/2ZyW0dx

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The Emotion Machine - Rana Gujral, Behavioral Signals Aug 18, 2019

Show notes

Rana Gujral is the CEO of Behavioral Signals, a company that allows developers to add speech emotion and behavioral recognition AI to their products. We discuss the many reasons why it's important that machines can recognise and express human emotion, including improving human computer interaction and boosting business KPIs.

We discover why voice is the best modality for analysing emotion, then highlight some of the many business and consumer use-cases for this technology. Finally we dive into the signal processing pipeline that makes it all work, and Rana shares his advice for working with this technology.

This is one of my favourite conversations of the year so far. It's a topic close to my heart, having previously worked on voice emotion transformation in the lab, and I feel it's one of the most important technologies to close the gap between humans and machines. Rana is also a very articulate and inspirational speaker, which makes this an unmissable conversation.

Links from the show:

Behavioral Signals http://bit.ly/30dcBUl
Behavioral Signals Emotional Analytics http://bit.ly/30gw7zi
Healthcare Demo Video http://bit.ly/30fiXTf
Quentin Furhatino project http://bit.ly/30e9OdK
Quentin Furhatino Demo http://bit.ly/30fiLmZ
Twitter @behaviorsignals
Rana Gujral in Inc mag http://bit.ly/30gDLtI
Heart of the Machine - Richard Yonck https://amzn.to/30gwh9S
Callminer http://bit.ly/30cyG5u
Twilio http://bit.ly/30cyovq

Sponsors:

Georgian Partners Impact Podcast https://voicetechpodcast.com/impactpodcast
Manning books: https://www.manning.com 40% off all books code: podvoicetech19

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Chatbot Vacations - Pranas Kiziela, Eddy Travels Aug 12, 2019

Show notes

Pranas Kiziela is the CTO of Eddy Travels, a personal travel advisor that connects travellers with travel products and services. Eddy Travels is available in popular chat apps like Messenger, Telegram, Viber and Slack, and supports both text and voice based interaction.

We discuss the benefits of booking travel though a conversational interface, and the big voice-AI opportunities in the travel space right now. We tackle some of the major design considerations faced during the product build, including the limitations of the big chatbot platforms, the different challenges of working with voice and text, and how to incorporate a bot into a text conversation between two humans.

We also spend some time discussing the technical aspects, including the story of why Eddy Travels started with DialogFlow but later migrated to RASA NLU. We cover the many advantages of using an open-source framework, specifically much greater control over training the NLU models, unit testing and source control, and model management capabilities. It's a wide ranging conversation that has something for everyone, and will make you want to book your next holiday!

Links from the show:

Eddy Travels https://eddytravels.com
Try Eddy Travels on Messenger https://m.me/eddytravels
Eddy Travels on Twitter https://twitter.com/eddytravels
Eddy Travels on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/eddytravels/
RASA https://rasa.com
MLFlow https://mlflow.org
DialogFlow https://dialogflow.com
Telegram telegram.org
Viber https://www.viber.com
Slack http://slack.com

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Interactive Voice Ads - Stas Tushinskiy, Instreamatic Aug 05, 2019

Show notes

Stas Tushinskiy is the co-founder and CEO of Instreamatic, a San-francisco based company that enables voice interactivity and measurability in the audio ad market. In this episode we introduce you to a new concept that you'll very likely be hearing much more about soon; interactive voice advertisements. An innovative use of STT, TTS, natural language understanding and audio content channels, interactive voice ads are an important new channel for monetising audio content such as radio shows, audiobooks and podcasts.

We discuss the problem with traditional audio ads today, then dive into the workings of interactive ads, and the huge benefits for advertisers, publishers and listeners alike. Stas shares some of the incredible engagement stats these ads are getting, 10-15% engagement levels in many cases, which are enormous compared to traditional audio adverts.

Certainly one of the most exciting concepts I've come across in a while, this is an episode you'll do well not to miss.

Links from the show:

Sponsors:

Robocopy Conversational Academy https://voicetechpodcast.com/robocopy 10% discount with this link
Manning books: https://www.manning.com 40% off all books code: podvoicetech19

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★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Talk with your Data - Adrien Schmidt, Aristotle Jul 22, 2019

Show notes

Adrien Schmidt is the CEO and co-founder of Aristotle by Bouquet.ai, a conversational analytics platform that lets you chat with your data through voice and text. Aristotle makes your data available to the whole company, and makes it faster and easier to perform complex queries.

In our conversation you'll discover the many benefits of talking with data, and glimpse the ultimate vision of casual data usage in the workplace and the home. We discuss how complex queries are performed over voice, the pros and cons of VUI and GUI, and what the next phase of voice interaction heralds.

Then we get into the technical aspects of training an NLP model on custom company data, and the security measures taken to ensure data privacy. This is an especially interesting episode that touches on many important issues in the voice space, and one you won't want to miss!

Links from the show:

Aristotle: https://bouquet.ai/aristotle
Adrien Schmidt: https://www.adrienschmidt.com/press-1
Video from Web Summit 2018: http://bit.ly/30JFCXy
Adrien Schmidt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a_schm
Adrien Schmidt on LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/30JFHdO
Aristotle on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aristotle
Aristotle on email: press@bouquet.ai

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The Bot Builder - Dr. Andrey Esaulov, BotTalk Jul 07, 2019

Show notes

The voice space is much bigger than just Google and Amazon, and there are many ways to develop voice applications. What’s missing in the voice design space? A simple markup language.

Dr. Andrey Esaulov is the CEO of SmartHouse Technologies and co-founder of BotTalk. SmartHouse Technologies specialises in consulting and development of voice applications and mobile apps. The company’s BotTalk product is a platform for creating Alexa Skills and Google Actions with a simple markup language.

From this conversation you’ll learn that you don’t need to be a developer to build sophisticated, context-aware voice applications that can benefit your business, or even become your business.

Links from the show:

Best voice-first podcasts: http://bit.ly/2RYSG8t
SmartHouse Technologies: https://smarthaustech.de/
BotTalk: https://bottalk.de/
BotTalk on Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/bottalk
Job Finder in Germany: https://vimeo.com/281597058
React Native: https://facebook.github.io/react-native/
JSON: https://www.json.org/
YAML: https://yaml.org/
myNoise: https://mynoise.net/
Storyline: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/storyline-7
Jovo: https://www.jovo.tech/
The Floor is Lava Game: https://www.amazon.com/Voice-Apps-That-Rock-Floor/dp/B07G2QFJ6D

Sponsors:

Manning Books: https://www.manning.com (40% off books with code: podvoicetech19

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★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Voice Trends & Design Tips - BBC, BMW Jun 22, 2019

Show notes

This is a special episode in which you'll hear three presentations given at Voice Connected Home 2019 event, which took place in Cologne, Germany on May 7th this year.

First you'll hear my quick 15 minute talk on 'The Voice Technology Trends of 2019, What We are Likely to See, and How it Will Affect Customer Interaction'. This is essentially a summary of many of the products and ideas I've discovered over the past year of podcast interviews, and with the voice industry moving as fast as it is, some of these are already fast becoming reality.

Then you'll hear Nicky Birch, Executive Producer at BBC R&D, give an informative and entertaining presentation, 'How to Design Your Experiences - A Producers Guide'. This presentation gives you lots of practical advice from the trenches, plus there's an accompanying PDF that contains this advice, the link to which is in the show notes.

Finally you'll hear from Marion Sardone, who is the Senior Content & Character Designer of the Intelligent Personal Assistant at BMW, Germany. In her presentation, 'From Speech Output to a Truly Intelligent Assistant', she explains why it's important for a voice assistant to be given a personality, and how they went about creating one for their in-car assistant.

I hope you enjoy the presentations, and look forward to meeting you at a future event!

Links from the show:

Manetch Voice Connected Home 2019 event page: http://bit.ly/2Rt7aNH
BBC Voice Design Tips PDF: https://bbc.in/2RufuMW
BMW intelligent assistant: http://bit.ly/2Rt5DqM
BMW video: http://bit.ly/2Rtkf9x

Sponsors:

Manning books: https://www.manning.com 40% off all books code: podvoicetech19

Find us here:

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Digital Forensics - Tyler Hatch, DFI Forensics Jun 09, 2019

Show notes

The whole world is dependent on digital technology. It has improved lives, but made us vulnerable to exploitation. Hackers and cybercriminals have no fear of getting caught. They’re organized, sophisticated, and know how to remain anonymous. Cybercrime is now the most profitable criminal enterprise in the world.

Tyler Hatch is the founder and CEO of DFI Forensics Inc., a digital forensics and cybersecurity provider based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Tyler is a certified forensics examiner for computers and mobile phones, as well as a former practicing lawyer.

In our conversation, you’ll learn how cybercrime has evolved from simply stealing and selling data and information via the “Dark Web.”

Now, it targets specific organizations by penetrating IT networks to encrypt and disable entire networks; forcing a ransom to be paid using untraceable cryptocurrency to get the network back.

Links from the show:

DFI Forensics Inc.: https://dfiforensics.ca/
DFI Forensics Inc. on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dfiforensicsinc/
DFI Forensics Inc. on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dfiforensicsinc
DFI Forensics Inc. on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dfi-forensics/
DFI Forensics Inc. on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxyn4y_XUvahwisg9s7LLBw
DFI Forensics Inc. on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dfiforensicsinc
PREVIEW: Social Media and Instant Message Forensics: https://eforensicsmag.com/download/preview-social-media-forensics/
Apple opposes judge's order to hack San Bernardino shooter's iPhone
WhatsApp: https://www.whatsapp.com/
Signal: https://signal.org/

Sponsors:

Manning books: https://www.manning.com 40% off all books code: podvoicetech19

Find us here:

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

VivaTech 2019 - Startups, Google, Macron, Ma May 26, 2019

Show notes

This is a special episode for VivaTech 2019, Europe's biggest technology conference. You'll hear me talk with 5 of the best voice startups I came across, plus my interview with the communication manager of Google France, where we discuss the new assistant features announced at Google I/O 2019, as well as the new version of Google Duplex for the Web.

As a bonus, I also bring you two presentations. In the first, President Emmanuel Macron fields questions from a panel of successful European startup founders concerning the big issues in the European startup scene. After listening, you will better understand the European mindset and the strategies that Europe hopes to employ in order to try and compete with the US and China.

Finally, you'll hear an inspirational talk from Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of the Alibaba group. Currently on the verge of retirement, he reflects on his successes and failures, and shares his advice for would-be founders. I hope you enjoy the conversations, and look forward to talking with you too at a future event!

Interviews with:

Google France
Snapcall
Audionamix
Odhio
Pippa
Askr
President Emmanuel Macron
Jack Ma, Alibaba

Links from the show:

Snapcall: https://snapcall.io/
Audionamix: https://www.audionamix.com
AskR: https://www.askr.ai
Pippa: https://pippa.io
Odhio: https://www.odiho.com/accueil-copy
Google France: https://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleFrance
VivaTech: https://vivatechnology.com/

Sponsors:

Manning books: https://www.manning.com 40% off all books code: podvoicetech19

Find us here:

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Usability Testing for Voice - Dylan Zwick, Pulse Labs May 12, 2019

Show notes

Dylan Zwick is the Chief Product Officer at Pulse Labs, a Seattle-based startup that offers a remote testing and analytics platform for voice app developers. The Pulse Labs team are leaders in the field of voice application testing, and are official partners with both Google and Amazon, helping them to define and improve the state of the art in voice application design.

We cover the different types of testing, including unit testing, functional testing, certification testing and usability testing. Then Dylan explains how remote usability testing works, how to build your panel of testers, how and when to conduct usability tests, and how to interpret the results. You will also discover to become a Pulse Labs remote usability tester yourself, giving you early access to the latest voice apps and earning you some money too.

Dylan shares the design lessons learned from testing hundreds of voice apps for both Google and Amazon, including the importance of always moving forwards in the flow, why variation of word and sentence structure can maintain attention, and how to add variety without increasing complexity. The number of insights per minute in this conversation is off the charts - you'll learn so much from Dylan you'll definitely want to keep a pen and paper handy!

Links from the show: