Conversations with Hans van Dam Hans van Dam

Join host Hans van Dam for his conversation with Matt Buck, the banjo strummin’, guitar pickin’ CTO of Voxable, a company he founded with his wife, Lauren, in order to seize upon a market opportunity.

Most of the voice solutions Matt and Lauren were seeing were pre-packaged, ready-for-implementation products; the design work was already done and little to no room remained for customization. But how, then, could users ensure their voice assistant reflected their brand? They couldn’t, really, and this is how Voxable came to be, offering a tool that enables users to design their own ideal voice assistant from scratch.

Voxable is the conversation design platform for teams that want to build better voice and chat apps. In December 2020, Voxable pivoted from conversational agency work to focus on a product informed by the Voxable founders' extensive industry experience and user research conducted with top conversation designers.

Matt describes his transition from a developer, to a businessperson and salesperson-cum-engineer as Voxable set about bringing its product to market: the day-to-day of running a company, building relationships, marketing and raising awareness, listening to users, and positioning Voxable for future opportunities.

It’s an interesting conversation about being at the right place at the right time and having the vision and wherewithal to seize upon opportunities, some of which may only be emerging, and some of which may not even exist yet, but will as voice technologies increasingly become part of our daily lives.

Don’t miss this one!

Highlights


05:00 Matt Buck: From engineer to salesperson.
11:30 Recognizing the opportunity.
16:30 Voxable’s target customers.
20:00 Making it user friendly.

Episode links:


Voxable
Matt’s LinkedIn

Show links:


Conversations with Hans van Dam
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube

Perhaps you remember that moment in the 1990s when the internet and email transitioned from things only computer science majors talked about, to things everyone knew and used? It just sort of… happened. Maarten Lens-FitzGerald thinks that we're approaching a similar transition with voice assistant technology, and he’s a passionate evangelist for the value of voice.

Sure, there are already smart speakers all around us—from the phone in our pocket, to our automobiles, to the Alexa device on the kitchen counter—but, as Maarten reveals, voice technology is still very much in its nascent stage.

In this episode, Maarten talks with host Hans van Dam about his work helping organizations understand the value of voice, and navigating the challenges of implementation. Challenges like language, age, and standardization. Sure, for English speakers, voice technology may already seem commonplace, but what about multilingual environments like Europe, where not only is there more than one language, there are also regional dialects of those languages?

Maarten also explores the question of older people, who are not as technically savvy or computer literate as your typical early adopter? And, just like things were with the internet and email in the Wild West 1990s, voice technology is currently a mélange of proprietary technologies that will require agreed-upon standards and protocols before it can become truly mainstream.

There’s still a way to go, and still lots of work to be done, but Maarten is confident that voice assistant technology will soon be as commonplace as, you guessed it, the internet and email.

“Alexa: Taco's maken.”

Highlights


02:15 Introduction, voice evangelist.
04:39 It’s all about change management.
07:10 The point of emergence.
09:47 The need for standards.
15:30 Project Zilver.
19:20 The Dutch Voice Coalition.
33:00 Finding compelling use cases.
40:00 Mindset, skillset, culture and systems.

Episode links:


Maarten’s website
Maarten’s Linkedin
Project Zilver
@Dutchcowboy

Show links:


Conversations with Hans van Dam
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube

Per Ottosson is a man on a mission. As CEO of Stockholm-based Artificial Solutions, Per wants his clients to be as productive as possible in their AI journeys.

How?

Join host Hans van Dam and Per discuss the challenges organizations frequently face when deciding to incorporate conversational AI.

It starts with leadership that understands the value of AI and is willing to make the required investments. But then what?

As Per reveals, it’s a road of trial and error that’s been well travelled by now, and there is no longer a need for most companies to start from scratch, or having to make do with off-the-shelf solutions that don’t reflect their brand. Thanks to the solutions provided by a company like Artificial Solutions, the journey is easier than many chief executives might think.

By leveraging internal talent in collaboration with advisors like Artificial Solutions, and by applying concepts like localization and hybrid learning, organizations wanting to get into the AI game can do so more easily and economically than ever before.

Per also discusses the challenges of operating in multilingual environments, and provides some case studies that reveal solutions to irritating-yet-all-too-common problems, like AI that clumsily translates language with no nuance or context. (At present, Artificial Solutions works with 86 languages.)

He also discusses how AI technology needs to be flexible to adapt to cultural, linguistic, and even generational differences.

Essentially, it’s about making AI easier to use, while keeping it engaging and relevant: a challenge that Per Ottosson and Artificial Solutions are passionate about, and a discussion you’re sure to enjoy.

Highlights


02:17 Per’s background.
03:24 AI disappearing as a concept.
06:01 It’s like a bowling alley.
07:24 Your AI needs to come from within.
09:52 Be prepared to make the investment.
11:05 Leadership.
22.55 Multilingual environments.
29:10 Hybrid learning.
43:00 Don’t dumb it down.

Episode links:


Per’s LinkedIn
Artificial Solutions

Show links:


Conversations with Hans van Dam
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube

Empathy is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but what do people mean when they say something like “you need to be more empathetic”?

In this episode, host Hans van Dam gets philosophical with author and autonomous systems architect, Phil Harvey.

As is discussed in his new book—Data: A Guide to Humans—Phil talks about how empathy has been a buzzword in recent years, but not a well-understood one.

To understand—and benefit—from empathy (especially as it concerns AI technology), Phil talks about the difference between biological empathy and cognitive empathy. He also explores what we can do to improve our ability to be empathetic, including venturing outside our comfort zones into the world of art and music to develop our ability to listen, and understand and interact with the world around us.

Ultimately, if we can build machines that are better at listening to and understanding the people trying to communicate with them (i.e., being empathetic), the more authentic and productive our relationships with the technology will be.

It’s a deep discussion, ranging from data and systems, to biscuits and cakes, that will help you appreciate empathy as a skill that can—and should be—developed in order for us to succeed in our chosen field, but also in life.

Highlights


01:54 Phil’s background – an Arts degree in AI.
03:08 Empathy, a word that gets thrown around a lot.
07:16 Biological versus cognitive empathy.
10:24 What is data?
16:30 Systems optimization and too much data.
21:17 Positive interdependence versus transactional isolationism.
22:34 Conversational AI.
27:22 Potential abuse of empathetic AI.
29:39 Bringing it all together.
32:22 Using art to improve our cognitive empathy skills.

Episode links:


Phil’s LinkedIn
Data: A Guide to Humans

Show links:


Conversations with Hans van Dam
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube

We’ve all engaged with a virtual assistant or chatbot that isn’t very helpful, or is even downright annoying. So how do we improve this technology? What goes into making AI more intuitive, more natural, more helpful, more… human?

Join host Hans van Dam in a fascinating discussion with Jason Gilbert, the former film maker turned character designer who specializes in creating interactive personas for AI technology. Having worked with the likes of Facebook Messenger, Skype, Amazon Echo and Google Home, there’s a good chance you already “know” Mr. Gilbert’s work.

Jason is currently working with Intuition Robotics on robot assistant technology to help vulnerable senior citizens, work that, as he explains, goes well beyond just the technical challenges. How, for example, do you give a machine an authentic character so it forms a trusting relationship with people.

How do you teach a machine to be empathetic? Where is the line between interacting with something and interacting with someone, and what happens if that line gets blurred? Hans and Jason discuss these questions and more, and their talk is sure to leave you pondering a few of your own.

Jason discusses his current work, his work with AnnA (you may have spoken with AnnA if you have an Amazon Echo), the background of AI character development (including a mention of the Turing test for all you Blade Runner fans), and the technology’s future potential across myriad applications.

As it turns out, trying to make machines more human might just teach us a bit about humanity.


Jason's LinkedIn
Intuition Robotics

Show Links


Conversations with Hans van Dam
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube

Online marketing, eCommerce, and call centre managers face some pretty tough challenges these days.

Tasked with transforming emails and calls into web traffic, this task can take a long time. And if a company’s website is lacking, visitors will leave in the middle of a transaction!

This sounds like a no-win situation, but Jordi Torras, CEO and Founder at Inbenta, has a solid solution for senior execs in this predicament: Inbenta.

Jordi and host Hans van Dam explore how Inbenta helps companies automate conversations by chatbots.

Initially, Jordi tackled the big problem of frequently asked questions (FAQs) on websites. Most companies have them, but users aren't fans, mostly because even with a search engine the results are all the answers containing every word in the question, and that can be a pretty long list!

Back in the 2010s, Jordi and his team developed successful technology to match user questions with answers. When the age of conversational AI arose, the FAQ-search engine problem remained the same.

Jordi’s early work placed him and his team in the perfect position to create solutions. Inbenta can match user questions with intent, and there’s no need for any training of company staff. In fact, with customer data Inbenta can go live within 24 hours.

Ibenta understands the meaning of what someone says, and that can be mapped to intent. Inbenta is built on a linguistic model, rather than a statistical one.

Inbenta has the linguistic model that requires no training and it extracts potential intent. It then uses machine learning for disambiguation, based on user behavioral patterns.

Jordi Torras on LinkedIn.

Hans van Dam on LinkedIn.