Voice on Voice

Google continues the trend of trying to make talking to a voice assistant easier by simplifying ways to “wake up” their Assistant, using new customizable quick phrases. Amazon, meanwhile, is experimenting with injecting ads into common questions.

Have you ever wanted to control a video game with your voice? That reality is fast approaching. In this issue, we spotlight Amazon’s new integrations with video games, part of a broad trend of voice integration being a key part of multimodal (multi-input and multi-output) experiences. We also highlight two stories related to innovations in the restaurant industry. In these, we see companies like ConverseNow and OpenCity join the march of startups invested in providing voice AI in restaurants and drive-thrus. Read on to learn more.

Universal Studios, who owns parks in California, Florida, Japan, Singapore, and Beijing, recently filed a patent for incorporating voice commands into their rides. It details an interactive version of the Pepper’s Ghost effect (used to cast “holograms” or “ghost-like images” on panes of glass). With a patent like this, figures like wizards from Harry Potter, dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, or Nintendo characters like Mario and Bowser could appear in these panes of glass and move or change based on what you say and gesture, heralding a new style of interactive ride that could help Universal Studios bolster sales and compete with other amusement parks.

These past few weeks have seen a raft of fundraising in the voice space, and the variety serves as a stark reminder of the different spaces in which voice can drive value.

This week, the focus is on small but meaningful updates a range of big tech companies are making to their voice assistants and device ecosystems.

This week the world of voice tech we highlight a story where an AR headset, and the voice assistant that commands it, assisted a surgeon in conducting a successful surgery— a promising new application of voice in health and medicine

If you asked a handful of professionals who work in and around voice technology about the state of maturity of the industry, you’d probably get a wide range of answers. Is it still in the realm of experimentation and assessment, or has it arrived as a fundamental pillar of any digital strategy, one to be invested in for the long term?

Can third-party voice apps thrive on Amazon, Google, and Siri’s voice assistant platforms? That is the question that voice news confronts us with this week.

This week, Voice on Voice highlights three themes in the voice space: the evolution of generative language models, innovations in the voice shopping experience, and some diverging US and international governmental attitudes toward voice.

In our era of texting, where sometimes it feels like no one actually talks to one another let alone makes eye contact, it’s important to remember the potency of the human voice. And today’s stories begin with a vivid reminder: 7 billion voice-based messages are sent across the world, on just one platform: WhatsApp.