The Speechly Podcast

Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast where you can expect conversations exploring the best opportunities in the world of Voice User Interfaces. Today we have the season finale of the "Voice Pioneers Fireside Chats" series - where we have been doing interviews with individuals who have made a significant impact in the world of Voice Technology. 

Today my guest is the one and only Adam Cheyer. Adam was the Co-Founder of Siri which was sold to Apple and Viv Labs which was sold to Samsung to power the Bixby Voice Assistant. However, looking at his work before starting Siri shines a light on how Adam ultimately came to start 2 of the most used Voice Assistant technologies in the world. Before starting Siri, Adam had already built a prototype of the assistant while working at SRI International in the early 1990's. 

In this discussion we explore a range of topics such as:

- What led to the ultimate founding of Siri?

- The story behind the Apple acquisition and how Adam ultimately turned down an initial acquisition offer from Steve Jobs himself.

- The background of Siri as a standalone application and how it evolved with the acquisition by Apple.

- Why was Viv Labs started and ultimately sold to Samsung?

- What is the concept of Voice being an "Expert UI"?

- What have we gotten right with Voice Technology and what have we gotten wrong?

- Where will Voice-enabled experiences go in the years ahead?

I hope you enjoy this interview with Adam Cheyer on The Speechly Podcast.

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast and the next episode in the "Designing and Developing Voice UIs" series, where we discuss existing best practices for the Design & Development of Voice UIs as well as emerging topics relevant to the progression of Voice UI technology.

In todays discussion, we dig into the history of Voice Technology at Dominos. I was joined by our Head of Marketing at Speechly, Mandi Galluch, who before joining Speechly spent a part of her career at Dominos working on the Dom Voice Assistant. We were also joined by 3 other members of the Domino's team - Adrian Peña, John Schultz, and Tom Stack. We dug into topics such as:

- Why did Domino's start paying attention to Conversational Experiences? 

- What has gone well when building the Dom experience and what challenges have they faced?

- How does the design of a Voice-enabled experience change when users have access to a screen?

- Where do they expect voice experiences in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) space to go in 2022?

I hope you enjoy this interview with Mandi, Adrian, John, and Tom on The Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast where you can expect conversations exploring the best opportunities in the world of Voice User Interfaces. Today we have the next interview from the "Voice Pioneers Fireside Chats" series - where we have interviews with individuals who have made a significant impact in the world of Voice Technology. We will explore the past work that makes them a “Pioneer” while also exploring topics around the current and future user behavior with Voice-Enabled experiences.

Today my guest is Dr. David Nahamoo. David is the CTO of Pryon, an AI company that delivers augmented intelligence for the enterprise. However, prior to becoming the CTO at Pryon, David had an extensive career at IBM. He led award-winning teams for nearly four decades and ultimately became the IBM Research Speech CTO. David's extensive experience in the space gave us a unique view into how various pieces of Speech Recognition and Natural Language Understanding technology have evolved over the last few decades.

We discussed various topics such as:

- How have the problems in Speech Recognition changed from the 1980s to present day 2022?

- How have the techniques for developing Speech Recognition changed from the 1980s to present day 2022?

- What have been some of the best use cases for Speech Recognition and Voice UIs at IBM?

- The importance of setting reasonable user expectations with Voice-enabled exeriences.

- Key trends to pay attention to in Speech Recognition and Natural Language Understanding in 2022

I hope you enjoy this interview with Dr. David Nahamoo on The Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast where you can expect conversations exploring the best opportunities in the world of Voice User Interfaces. Today we have the next interview from the "Voice Pioneers Fireside Chats" series - where we have interviews with individuals who have made a significant impact in the world of Voice Technology. We will explore the past work that makes them a “Pioneer” while also exploring topics around the current and future user behavior with Voice-Enabled experiences.

Today my guest is Jeff Adams. Jeff has been in the Voice Tech space for decades. His first role in the space was at the company known today as Nuance, however we discuss how they went through a few different names along the way. Following his time at Nuance he joined Yap as a VP of Research, the company who would later be sold to Amazon as the first acquisition for the Alexa project. After spending a few years at Amazon after the acquisition, Jeff started his own Speech Technology company called Cobalt Speech where he is the CEO today. 

We discussed various topics such as:

- How did Jeff first get interested in Voice Technology?

- How did Jeff's roles change from Nuance, to Yap, to Amazon, to Cobalt and what use cases did he help bring to market?

- Background on how Jeff helped Yap achieve the "first known example of fully automatic speech recognition matching human performance."

- What have been some of the biggest changes in Speech and Language Technology over the last few decades?

- What are the most important problems to solve with Speech and Language Technology in 2022?

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jeff Adams on the Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast where you can expect conversations exploring the best opportunities in the world of Voice User Interfaces. Today we have the next interview from the "Voice Pioneers Fireside Chats" series. In this series you can expect interviews with individuals who have made a significant impact in the world of Voice Technology. We will explore the past work that makes them a “Pioneer” while also exploring topics around the current and future user behavior with Voice-Enabled experiences.

Today my guest is Igor Jablokov. Igor is a true veteran in the world of Speech Recognition and Voice-enabled experiences. In the early 2000's, he led the Innovation team at IBM that invented the precursor to the Watson system we know today. Following his time at IBM, Igor founded Yap - a Speech Recognition company that was later acquired by Amazon as one of the first pieces of technology to go into building Alexa. Today Igor is the Founder and CEO of Pryon, an AI company that delivers augmented intelligence for the enterprise.

We discussed topics such as:

    - What was the main objective in developing Speech Recognition for the IBM Innovation Team in the early 2000s?

    - What led to the founding of Yap?

    - What made the Speech Recognition technology at Yap around long duration dialogues unique?

    - What involvement did Yap have with Apple?

    - What was the background on the Amazon acquisition of Yap?

    - Differences between "Conversational" Voice experiences & Voice as a Feature experiences.

    - Why was Pryon started to focus on augmented intelligence in the Enterprise?

I hope you enjoy this interview with Igor on the Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast where you can expect conversations exploring the best opportunities in the world of Voice User Interfaces. Today we have the next interview from the "Voice Pioneers Fireside Chats" series. In this series you can expect interviews with individuals who have made a significant impact in the world of Voice Technology. We will explore the past work that makes them a “Pioneer” while also exploring topics around the current and future user behavior with Voice-Enabled experiences.

Today my guest is Bret Kinsella. Bret is the founder of the go to site for all things Voice Tech and Conversational AI news, Voicebot.ai. However, prior to starting Voicebot Bret got started with Voice Technology as the CMO at XappMedia, early pioneers in voice-enabled interactive audio advertising. With 2021 coming to an end, I couldn't think of a better guest to have a discussion with on the key trends from the past year and what to pay attention to in 2022. We discussed topics such as:

- What was the experience like as the CMO XappMedia?

- What led to the start of Voicebot.ai?

- What were the key trends from the Voice Tech space in 2021?

- What will be the key Voice Tech trends in 2022?

- Why is Voice Tech taking off in the Enterprise? 

- What role will Voice Tech play in the Metaverse?

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Bret Kinsella on the Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast where you can expect conversations exploring the best opportunities in the world of Voice User Interfaces.

Today is the second interview from the "Voice Pioneers Fireside Chats" series. In this series you can expect interviews with individuals who have made a significant impact in the world of Voice Technology. We will explore the past work that makes them a “Pioneer” while also exploring topics around the current and future user behavior with Voice-Enabled experiences.

Today my guest is the one and only Noelle Silver. Noelle provides an amazing perspective on Voice Technology given her vast experiences across many well known companies including Amazon, Microsoft, NPR, Redhat and IBM. However, listening to this interview you will quickly realize that despite having an amazing career, Noelle is driven by using her experience to educate more people on how to enter the world of Voice Technology and Artificial Intelligence.

We discussed topics such as:

- What was it like to build 100 of the first skills to ever exist on Alexa?

- What did Amazon get right and what did they get wrong with the launch of Alexa?

- What are the common scenarios where a Voice User Interface can add value to an experience?

- What are the differences between a Multi-Modal Voice UI and a purely Conversational Voice UI?

- What are the different considerations when building a Voice UI for Consumers vs the Enterprise?

- What do we need to pay attention to now with Privacy and Security in Voice-Enabled experiences to ensure we have a healthy ecosystem in the future?

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Noelle Silver on the Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to a new series on The Speechly Podcast - the "Voice Pioneers Fireside Chats" series.

In this series you can expect interviews with individuals who have made a significant impact in the world of Voice Technology. We will explore the past work that makes them a “Pioneer” while also exploring topics around the current and future user behavior with Voice-Enabled experiences.

The main goal of this series is to use the lessons learned from the Voice Pioneers to inform and inspire the current generation of product builders in the world of Voice User Interfaces.

This week I am joined by Ian Freed, Co-Founder and CEO of Bamboo Learning, the leaders in creating voice-enabled educational applications. Before starting Bamboo Learning, Ian spent over a decade at Amazon having jobs such as Tech Advisor to Jeff Bezos and VP of Devices where he overlooked Alexa-Enabled hardware.

We dug into topics such as:

    - What is it like to be Tech Advisor to Jeff Bezos?

    - Did Amazon have a plan for Alexa on the Fire Phone?

    - What would Voice Experiences look like today if Amazon owned a Mobile Platform?

    - What did General Voice Assistant platforms get right & wrong with the rollout of Voice Assistants?

    - How do Voice Experiences for children differ from older demographics?

    - What are the benefits of Multi-Modal Voice Experiences vs purely Conversational Voice Experiences?

I hope you enjoy this interview with Ian Freed on The Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast and the next episode in the "Designing and Developing Voice UIs" series.

In this series we will be having open discussions with members of the Product Team at Speechly exploring topics related to the Design & Development of Voice UIs in everyday technology.  We will discuss existing best practices for the Design & Development of Voice UIs as well as emerging topics relevant to the progression of Voice UI technology.

Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast and the next episode in the "Designing and Developing Voice UIs" series.

In this series we will be having open discussions with members of the Product Team at Speechly exploring topics related to the Design & Development of Voice UIs in everyday technology.  We will discuss existing best practices for the Design & Development of Voice UIs as well as emerging topics relevant to the progression of Voice UI technology.

Today I am joined by Otto, Co-Founder and CEO at Speechly, to have a discussion on Voice Form & Tap-To-Talk Components for React and Web as well as Evaluating Deployed Voice UI Models.

We dug into topics such as:

- Why are “Voice Forms” a good use case for a Multi-Modal Voice Interface?

- What are the benefits of Tap to Talk vs a Wake Word in Mobile and Web based Voice experiences?

- What are the benefits of evaluating the accuracy of a Voice UI Model configuration using a set of test utterances vs just testing with real users out of the gate?

- We also had some great questions around topics like privacy from those listening live.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Otto on The Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast and the next episode in the "Designing and Developing Voice UIs" series.

In this series we will be having open discussions with members of the Product Team at Speechly exploring topics related to the Design & Development of Voice UIs in everyday technology.  We will discuss existing best practices for the Design & Development of Voice UIs as well as emerging topics relevant to the progression of Voice UI technology.

Today I am joined by Janne, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at Speechly, to have a discussion on all things Automatic Speech Recognition.

We dug into topics such as:

- What is Automatic Speech Recognition?

- Having previous experience working on Alexa at Amazon, have there been any big changes in the arena of ASR since the Alexa project started?

- What are the main ASR problems being solved at Speechly and why are those problems specifically important to solve?

- Can we expect the problems around ASR to be completely solved within the near future?

- How conversations around ASR are becoming bigger than just improving the accuracy of the tech to include things like accessibility for all.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Janne on The Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast and the next episode in the "Designing and Developing Voice UIs" series.

In this series we will be having open discussions with members of the Product Team at Speechly exploring topics related to the Design & Development of Voice UIs in everyday technology.  We will discuss existing best practices for the Design & Development of Voice UIs as well as emerging topics relevant to the progression of Voice UI technology.

Today I am joined by Antti, the Chief Product Officer at Speechly, to have a discussion on all things Natural Language Understanding.

We dug into topics such as:

- What exactly is Natural Language Understanding?

- What approaches or technologies can we use for NLU today?

- How are rule-based systems different from machine learning based systems?

- When would you prefer to use Rule-Based Systems vs Machine Learning Based Systems?

- How does Speechly do NLU?

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Antti on The Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast and the 1st episode in a new series called "Designing and Developing Voice UIs". 

In this series we will be having open discussions with members of the Product Team at Speechly exploring topics related to the Design & Development of Voice UIs in everyday technology.  We will discuss existing best practices for the Design & Development of Voice UIs as well as emerging topics relevant to the progression of Voice UI technology.

Today I am joined by Ari Nykänen, Head of User Experience at Speechly. Ari has played a big role in creating new UI Components for Voice on the Web and we used this discussion to dig into how to effectively use UI Components like this for creating Voice-Enabled experiences.

We dug into topics such as:

    - Why UI Components are important for Voice experiences

    - The importance of Multi-Modal design for Voice UIs

    - How to effectively use Voice UI Components in your project

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Ari Nykänen on The Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast! Today I am joined by Brandon Kaplan, Founder and CEO of Skilled Creative. In the conversation, we explore Brandon's model of "Voice as a Program" when creating Voice-Enabled experiences for clients.

In this discussion we dig into the following topics:

- What is "Voice as a Program" and why is it important?

- How outcomes can vary for Project based work vs Program based work with Voice Tech.

- Ideal use cases for Voice Tech within Media & Entertainment.

- Efficiency vs Immersion with Voice Enabled experiences.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Brandon Kaplan of Skilled Creative on The Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast! Today I am joined by Marc Ladin, General Partner at the VoicePunch Venture Fund. In the conversation, we explore the intersection of Venture Capital and Voice Technology.

In this discussion we dig into the following topics:

- Why Marc started a fund focused on Audio & Voice Technology

- What makes a good Voice Tech investment in light of a hot Venture Capital market

- The difference in value between 3rd Party and 1st Party oriented Voice Experiences

- Current User Behavior with Voice Enabled Experiences

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Marc Ladin of the VoicePunch Venture Fund on The Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast! Today I am joined by Kim Conti (Head of Product) and Will Hall (Chief Creative Officer) of Rain Agency. In the conversation, we explore the best opportunities for Voice UIs in Mobile and Web Ecommerce experiences. We start by looking at the Voice Search Feature in the Sephora Mobile App and then branch off into a wider discussion.

In this discussion we dig into the following topics:

- New types of data that come with Voice User Interfaces

- The importance of Multi-Modality for Voice Commerce

- Categories that are best positioned to take advantage of Voice Commerce

- And much more on why brands should be starting to explore Voice Commerce today

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Kim Conti and Will Hall of Rain Agency on the Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast! Today I am joined by Otto Söderlund, Co-Founder and CEO of Speechly. In the conversation, we explore the best opportunities for Voice UIs in the Web and why more businesses should be paying attention to the space.

In this discussion we dig into the following topics:

- Why the "Conversational Model" with Voice User Interfaces is flawed

- Benefits of Voice as a Feature vs Voice as a Channel

- Why Voice User Interfaces are positioned for success in the Web

- The importance of aligning Voice User Interface features with User Behavior and Expectations

I hope you enjoy this interview with Otto Söderlund on the Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of The Speechly Podcast! Today I am joined by Roger Kibbe of Viv Labs at Samsung. In the conversation, we used the Kroger Voice Assistant Experience on the Google Assistant as a starting point to further explore the best opportunities for Voice UIs in Grocery and Retail.

In this discussion we cover the following topics:

- Getting specific when starting a Voice Technology project in Retail

- How to focus on the user when building Voice-Enabled experiences

- The Pros and Cons of Voice-Enabled Kiosk and Mobile experiences

- Why now is a good time for Retailers to be building and iterating on Voice-Enabled experiences

I hope you enjoy this interview with Roger Kibbe on the Speechly Podcast!

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Welcome to another episode of the Speechly Podcast. In this episode, we cover the following topics in the Voice User Interface space with Kane Simms of VUX World:

- The importance of getting specific when training Speech Recognition and Natural Language Understanding models.

- Where User Behavior with Voice UIs is at today and how that could have better directed the Einstein Voice Assistant rollout

- Why you should focus on user problems before prioritizing the technology used to solve the problem

- How Multi-Modality was overlooked and how to better implement Multi-Modal Voice experiences

- And much more about user behavior with Voice UIs

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Welcome to the 2nd Episode of the Speechly Podcast. In this episode, we cover the following topics in the Voice User Interface space with Kim Conti, Head of Product at Rain Agency:

- We used the Nuance Medical One Speech Recognition solution as a starting point to explore the opportunities for Voice UIs alongside the Deskless Workforce

- The value of efficiency that comes from Voice UIs.

- The foundations of a useful Voice UI.

- The importance of Multi-Modality when creating Voice-Enabled experiences for the Deskless Workforce. 

- The importance of keeping the customer at the forefront when implementing a Voice UI.

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Welcome to the 1st official Episode of the Speechly Podcast. In this episode, we cover the following topics in the Voice User Interface space with Dave Kemp of Oaktree Products:

- We used the United Skill on Alexa as a starting point to look at how Voice Tech is making its way into the Flight & Travel space.

- What types of Voice Enabled experiences are users ready for in 2021?

- What is the definition of a Multi Modal Voice Experience? Does it need to be redefined frequently?

- How can product teams embrace Multi Modal design in flight and travel when using Voice as a Feature vs. Voice as a Conversational Channel.

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Welcome to the Introduction Episode of the Speechly Podcast. In this episode, we cover the following topics:

What is Speechly?

• Speechly is the Fast, Accurate, and Simple Voice Interface API for Web, Mobile, and Ecommerce.

What can you expect in this podcast?

• A deep dive into the use cases for Voice UIs outside of Voice Assistants alone.

Why we are doing this podcast?

• The benefits of Voice UIs are mostly realized by Big Tech, while the opportunities for Voice UIs in companies existing experiences are mostly being overlooked.

Explanation of the First Season - Voice Assistant UI or Voice UI: Best Model Wins - from Clubhouse Interviews.