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Alibaba to invest $1B on AI integration with smart speaker
May 21, 2020
Read MoreChinese e-commerce giant will use the funds to bolster its artificial intelligence and Internet of Things ecosystem that supports Tmall Genie, including linking more content and services from Alibaba’s wider ecosystem that spans entertainment, healthcare, and education.
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Voice Assistant Usage Seen Growing To 8.4 Billion Devices
Apr 28, 2020
Read MoreAs consumer usage of voice assistants continues to skyrocket, the companies behind those assistants look for business models to monetize all that voice. Consumers will interact with voice assistants on 8.4 billion devices by 2024, according to a new study by Juniper Research.
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Will lockdown help voice tech show what it's really made of?
Apr 20, 2020
Read MoreFrom its potential as a health diagnostic tool, to simply helping with loneliness, voice technology has reached new heights during the coronavirus pandemic. Marek Wrobel wonders if it will change things forever.
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Bank Of America's Virtual Assistant Now Has More Than 10 Million Users
Dec 12, 2019
Read MoreIt’s not only fintechs that can lure millions of customers their way. Bank of America’s voice-activated virtual assistant Erica now has more than ten million users.
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AirAsia shutters call centres to go all-in on chatbot and voice AI
Dec 12, 2019
Read MoreThe future of customer service is messaging and voice-based artificial intelligence, according to the airline.
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Tech Giants Team Up to Make AI Voice Assistants Device-Agnostic
Sep 25, 2019
Read MoreA groundbreaking project, the Voice Interoperability Initiative, led by a host of major technology companies – including Amazon, Baidu, Intel, Microsoft, Orange, Salesforce, Sony and many others – aims to let customers access multiple different AI voice assistants on any device, just by saying its wake word.
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People Want Voice Assistants to Mirror Them: Study
Sep 23, 2019
Read MoreThe study, titled Mirroring to Build Trust in Digital Assistants was conceived by scientists working for Apple as a way to look at how people respond to different kinds of responses from voice assistants. Researchers examined people’s tone, mannerisms, and other elements of conversation to learn how to build an assistant that users are more comfortable speaking with and using regularly. The report was presented this month at the Interspeech 2019 conference in Graz, Austria.
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GM will integrate Google apps and voice assistant into vehicles starting in 2021
Sep 5, 2019
Read MoreDETROIT – General Motors and Google are teaming up to install the tech giant’s voice assistant and apps, including Google Maps, into GM vehicles beginning in 2021.
The partnership, announced Thursday, marks a significant milestone for both the automotive and tech industries as the sectors continue to converge in attempt to better integrate into cars to appease consumers who’ve grown accustomed to using technology in their homes and on their phones.
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How AI And Voice Technologies Help People With Disabilities Live Independently
Sep 2, 2019
Read MoreA group of Loughborough University academics have been awarded funding to examine how AI-voice-based technologies, such as the Amazon Echo, help people with disabilities live independently and explore how they may shape the future of social care.
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Google Again Leads in Voice Assistant IQ Test but Alexa is Closing the Gap According to Loup Ventures
Aug 19, 2019
Read MoreLoup Ventures published its annual Voice Assistant IQ test on Friday and found that once again Google Assistant led over Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri. Google Assistant answered 93% of the 800-query test questions correctly compared to 83% for Siri and 80% for Alexa. The test was conducted on smartphones to gauge voice assistant performance on mobile devices and follows a similar study from December 2018 focused on smart speaker performance. Previous tests also included Microsoft’s Cortana but it was removed in 2019 due to the company’s shift away from the consumer voice assistant segment.
Insights
The content and distribution of Azafran’s INSIGHTS newsletter is focused to our LP, incubator, research, investment and partner ecosystem. As we look to build a two-way dialogue benefitting our collective efforts, each month we highlight important news and our approach to the emerging intersection of deep technology, end to end solutions and platforms driven by voice, acoustics and imagery.
The content and distribution of Azafran’s INSIGHTS newsletter is focused to our LP, incubator, research, investment and partner ecosystem. Below are highlights from the last two issues, please sign up to receive access to past and new issues as they are published.
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Issue 15 - Focus on Emerging Tech: TinyML and Augmented AI
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Issue Fifteen focuses on the emerging technologies TinyML and Augmented AI, as they begin to take their place in the world of machine learning and deep science technology.
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Issue 15 - Why the Future of Machine Learning is Tiny, and the Future of AI is Augmented
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Augmented AI and TinyML are fast becoming key elements of the ML and AI revolution - Issue Fifteen of INSIGHTS takes a deep dive into these exciting technologies through the lens of Azafran’s Investment Thesis
