AiC Episode 89

In this episode, Teri talks about the award winners at the recent VOICE Summit 2019.

The VOICE Summit Awards were created to raise the bar for the voice first community and drive the industry forward by showcasing the next generation of voice tech pioneers. The inaugural VOICE Summit Awards went to individuals and organizations whose contributions to the emerging voice-tech community advances adoption and creates new, innovative experiences.

The finalists selected for best voice-tech innovations in twelve categories included conversational design, brand interaction, banking experience, e-Commerce, educational experience, game, healthcare experience, in-car experience, IoT voice device, media experience, multi-modal experience, shopping/e-Commerce experience, and travel, leisure or hospitality experience.

Ready? Here We Go! And the Award Winners were!

#1 Best Banking/Financial Experience

  • The winner was Bond.ai Empathy Engine by Bond.ai
  • Bond.ai is powering the world’s first empathy engine, which relates to how they are transforming banking experiences by understanding users and their scenarios, and then personalizing the banking experience.
  • Companies that want to use the technology can bring it on to Alexa, but the empathy engine is not specifically an Alexa app.
  • An example of how to use the Bond.ai bot is like telling it, “Bond, I want to grow my money by $50,000.” It might reply back something like, “Well, certainly. Do you have a short term or long term goal?” And you can say, “Short term.” And then it will say, “Excellent. I have analyzed your account and I can help you do this in 440 days. If I know a bit more about you, I can do it even faster. Let’s dive into action.” That demonstrates how it personalizes an interaction.

#2 Best Brand Interaction

  • This was won by the Alexa “Choose Your Own Adventure” Skill by Audible.
  • The skill is not available in Canada.

#3 Best Conversational Design

  • The winner was Houndify by SoundHound Inc.
  • Houndify is another voice platform similar to Alexa, Google Assistant, and the others. They are doing some very cool things. They have multiple questions that you can ask at the same time and they’re contextual.
  • SoundHound is the company behind the app that can identify a song that a user is listening to.

#4 Best Educational Experience

  • This award was won by BBC Kids by BBC Voice + AI.
  • It’s not available in Canada.

VOICE Summit 2019 Award Winners

#5 Best Game

  • The winner was Mr. Robot: Daily Five/Nine by USA Network and Earplay, and it’s not available in Canada.

#6 Best Healthcare Experience

  • This award went to Suki by Suki.
  • Suki is using an AI-Powered voice enabled digital assistant for physicians to help make them be more productive in their clinics. It helps physicians create an exam note when they see a patient.

#7 Best In-Car Experience

  • The winner was Song Quiz by Volley.
  • Song Quiz is a great name-your-tune type quiz game. One can choose the decade of songs that they want to listen to, identify them, and play against other people.
  • It’s a very well done skill and it’s available in Canada.

#8 Best IoT Voice Device

  • The winner was Kanega LTE watch by UnaliWear. This is a device that is designed for the elderly population. It has a personal emergency response system built in and the user doesn’t need to have their mobile phone, because it has a connection to data.
  • Unaliwear had a very successful kickstarter campaign.

#9 Best Media Experience

  • The winners were Resemble.ai by Resemble AI and Radio Lab by AlphaVoice.
  • Resemble.ai allows users to create a digitized AI voice from their own voice recordings.
  • Radio Lab is a skill that helps users to identify podcasts and find content based on things they want to search for.

#10 Best Multi-Modal Experience

  • This award went to Bamboo Math by Bamboo Learning.
  • This Alexa skill helps users practice math questions through a wide range of skill levels.
  • It also had word problems and is fun for kids.

#11 Best Shopping/eCommerce Experience

  • This was won by Snips by Snips.ai, a platform for people to create their own voice assistants.
  • It provides private, by design, decentralized voice assistants technology and solutions.
  • It enables users to maintain privacy because everything is local on the device, meaning nothing is sent to the cloud.

#12 Best Travel, Leisure, or Hospitality Experience

  • This award went to Angie by Angie Hospitality. This is a cloud-powered interactive guest room assistant created specifically for hotels.

And the Special Recognition Award Goes to!

  • The VOICE Summit Accessibility Award went to Prudential for putting a lot of effort, time and resources towards creating accessible technologies.

List of resources mentioned in this episode:

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