Sofia Altuna, Global Product Partnerships for Google Assistant Shares Her Passion for Voice Technology (Episode 165)

Welcome, Sofia Altuna

In this episode, Teri welcomes Sofia Altuna. Sofia shares her story, what voice technology she is passionate about, and how to humanize voice technology. Sofia is part of the global product partnerships for Google Assistant.

The Process of Validating Products

Sofia works with the product team and the engineering team with the product cycle to first validate it in the market. Sofia said that it is important to see if their partners and developers would be interested in implementing it. The next phase involves an alpha, which is tested between a few partners.

How Did Sofia Initially Get Excited About Voice?

Sofia loves to use voice to engage with technology and also loves using voice notes and speak-to-text functionality. Sofia mentioned that voice is universal and so easy for anyone to adopt. When the assistant first came out, Sofia bought it as a gift for her family members.

Sofia was also inspired by how voice was helping people with disabilities and that was a favorite part of her job. Sofia also mentioned that the “promise of voice.” Sofia believes that there is a massive opportunity in how we can engage with technology in a natural, seamless way with voice.

What Does Sofia Enjoy the Most Right Now?

Sofia loves partnerships and really making sure that what they are building is a technology that developers and partners want to utilize.

What is Sofia Looking Forward to the Most?

Sofia is excited to see how different ecosystems can be bridged by utilizing some of the things that people already have so that the result is a seamless conversation. She believes that seamless conversations are the key to having a personal assistant.

How Can Voice Technology Help with Inclusivity?

Sofia said that they look at a couple of things internally when it comes to accessibility and inclusivity:

• They are building for everyone with everyone; therefore, products are built with diversity
• The same features that are built for people with disabilities can be applicable for everyone else as well in a variety of scenarios.

What is the Origin of Voice Talks?

Sofia said that her team really depends on events to connect with partners and developers. There are so many events throughout the year such as Mobile World Congress, CES, and multiple Android events. When the pandemic started, Sofia realized that they would have to transition from live shows to virtual events and shows. Sofia mentioned that their show needed to have four components. The first was the keynote, the second was the product (that was platform-independent and not just Google), the third was to make sure that they were highlighting partners in the ecosystem, and the fourth was to include an ecosystem perspective.

How Does Sofia, Her Team, and the Developers Think Through Humanizing Google Assistant Better than Before?

Sofia said that first, they try to humanize the assistant in different ways.  Sofia hopes that we can get to a point where technology can feel human-like.  Furthermore, it was nice that the team was able to give the voice assistant a personality as well as a point of view.  Another important element is how do we personalize the experience? Sofia mentioned that they wanted to make sure that the assistant can respond based on your preferences as well as having the ability to render responses that are more empathetic and more humane.

Connect with Sofia Altuna

Connect with Sofia on LinkedIn

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