Patricia Scanlon is the founder and executive chair of Soapbox Labs, the company behind the industry's leading automated speech recognition (ASR) for children. Scanlon has a PhD in speech recognition, signal processing, and machine learning from the University College Dublin, and previously was an adjunct lecturer at Trinity College and on the research staff of Nokia Bell Labs. She founded Soapbox Labs after recognizing that all leading ASRs were trained on adult speech data and showed poor resu...
Sep 28, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 351
We return this week with the Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for September 8, 2023. Get ready for a lot of product announcements and some special segments on NVIDIA and how cloud providers are influencing the competitive landscape: NVIDIA Blowout revenue - GPU purchases are upstream of generative AI software sales. NVIDIA just announced a record quarter that was nearly double the previous quarter and quarterly record. It also forecasted a new revenue quarter for the next quarter. We put into c...
Sep 28, 2023•59 min•Season 1Ep. 350
Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for August 31, 2023. Google may have dominated the headlines this week, but it was hardly alone. Special segments this week include: ChatGPT Enterprise - What was announced, where is it headed, and what are the implications? BTW, you may be interested in the Yammer go-to-market strategy reference as point 7 in the main article . We also put ChatGPT Enterprise in perspective alongside Google’s more ambitious play. Google Uses Cloud Next to Shift Generative AI Per...
Sep 15, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 349
Oren Aharon is CEO and founder of Hour One, a leader in virtual human innovation, and a pioneer in generative AI. He joined Bret Kinsella to talk about how the technology behind virtual humans has evolved and the role generative AI is playing in the next set of features. Hour One's new Reals Activate technology can transform any video into a scripted virtual human experience. It will align mouth movements and sounds to match a script to the video of a person. This means any video of you or anyon...
Sep 01, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 348
The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown is back for August 24, 2023. Special segments this week include: What does the market data say about generative AI adoption? We look at 10 charts that explain a lot about what is happening, why it is happening, and where we are headed. Meta challenges OpenAI with an open-source automated speech recognition and translation system. Game on! Generative AI winners and losers of the week . Eric Schwartz, Voicebot.ai’s head writer, and Bret Kinsella gathered again...
Aug 31, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 347
Sarah Rojewski, Telefonica's manager of AI and automation in Germany, and Patrick Esslinger, co-founder of VUI Agency joined Bret Kinsella to talk about the evolution of conversational AI in the contact center and the introduction of generative AI. Rojewski even goes into detail about the latest generative AI project and how the company is looking at the technology. That is supplemented by a conversation about user experience and how AI technologies require new thinking and are accompanied by di...
Aug 31, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 346
It’s time for the Generative AI News (GAIN) Rundown for August 17, 2023. Special segments this week include: Using GPT-4 to moderate LLM inputs The groups pressuring CEOs to adopt generative AI Generative AI winners and losers of the week . Voicebot.ai’s head writer, Eric Schwartz, joined Bret Kinsella this week to break down all of the top industry stories. Generative AI News Links related to the stories are included below if you want to go deeper into any topics. Top Stories of the Week OpenAI...
Aug 31, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 345
The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for August 11, 2023 is here. Special segments this week include: GPTBot and OpenAI’s plans to politely crawl the web, along with how most websites will react or should react Amazon’s generative AI strategy and how that will carve out unique positioning compared to OpenAI, Google, and others The significance of Alexa’s top exec shifting to generative AI Generative AI winners and losers of the week . My Voicebot.ai colleague Eric Schwartz and I were joined thi...
Aug 18, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 344
Eric Schwartz, the head writer at Voicebot.ai, joined Bret Kinsella to break down the top Generative AI News (GAIN) of the week. Generative AI News - Featured Stories this Week OpenAI rumors spread for GPT-5 and the open-source G3PO . Is this the response to Meta’s Llama 2? Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are both expected to add generative AI capabilities in 2023. Could this finally lead to the blending of doing and knowing assistants? Generative AI Funding Fountain Inworld raised another $50...
Aug 18, 2023•55 min•Season 1Ep. 343
Eric Schwartz, the head writer at Voicebot.ai, was joined by GAIN producer and Synthedia researcher Andrew Herndon. Generative AI News - Featured Stories of the Week OpenAI introduces Custom Instructions to add personalization to ChatGPT. OpenAI removed its Text Classifier that was supposed to identify whether content was AI-written because it didn’t work. Of course, Turnitin and others still say they can spot AI-written text, but provides no evidence to back up the claims. Synthedia was the fir...
Aug 13, 2023•54 min•Season 1Ep. 342
Project Voice gathered again in Chattanooga, Tennessee in April 2023. I had the opportunity to interview several innovative companies while on site. 2:16 - LilyPad AI, Genady Knizhnik - Conversational AI for English language learning 11:09 - Conversation Design Institute, Hans Van Dam - Conversation design evolution 23:11 - Speechly, Collin Borns - Speech recognition tools to combat voice chat toxicity 31:00 - ConverseNow, Ben Brown - Conversational AI for restaurants 42:51 - Calen, Irakli Besel...
Jul 27, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 341
Here is the Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for July 20, 2023. Special segments this week include: Meta launches Llama 2, making it open source and free for commercial use. We talk about the implications for the LLM market. Did GPT-4’s performance really degrade, as has been reported? We look at the research paper results, evaluate the methodology and consider a rebuttal. We also cover the generative AI winners and losers of the week . My Voicebot.ai colleague Eric Schwartz joined me this week...
Jul 23, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 340
The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown is back and was recorded on July 13, 2023. Special segments this week include: Anthropic’s ChatGPT competitor Claude 2 landed, and it has some intriguing features. The discussion also includes a quick demo. Is ChatGPT’s website traffic drop a reason for concern? We break down the numbers and also touch on a brand new FTC action against OpenAI. We also give you a new list of generative AI winners and losers of the week . My Voicebot.ai colleague Eric Schwartz...
Jul 17, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 339
How are ChatGPT and the rise of large language models impacting conversation designs and designers? Today, in Part 2 of our series on conversation design, we have four more experts weighing in on how the profession is changing and what designers should consider and do about it. Joining me today in a series of one-on-one interviews are: Maaike Coppens is vice president of product at OpenDialog AI, where she started as head of UX and conversation design in 2020. She was a product designer at XAPPM...
Jul 14, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 338
Host notes - My apologies about the audio quality. We recorded on the road, and the mic setup didn't work as planned. The YouTube video audio is a little bit stronger if you want to watch this week. Also, the conversation and guest commentary is very good, so I wanted to put it out there anyway. In particular, I think you will like the discussion around LLMs and Theory of Mind, generative AI in education, and the potential erosion of generative AI startup valuations. The Generative AI News (GAIN...
Jul 13, 2023•58 min•Season 1Ep. 337
How are ChatGPT and the rise of large language models impacting conversation designs and designers? Today, in Part 1 of our series on conversation design, we have four experts in the field weighing in on how the profession is changing and what designers should be thinking about. Joining me today in a series of one-on-one interviews are: Maaike Groenewege is an independent conversation designer and the creator of Convocat. She is currently the conversation design lead, prompt engineer, and NLU tr...
Jul 05, 2023•41 min•Season 1Ep. 336
The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown this week was recorded on June 29, 2023. Some special segments include: Generative AI search metrics compare wait time and word production per answer for Bing Chat, Perplexity, and Google SGE. The venture capital and acquisition funding fountain flowed again with a giant acquisition, financing rounds for CalypsoAI, Loora, and investment by Amazon and the UK’s NHS. We also give you a new list of generative AI winners and losers of the week . Generative AI New...
Jul 04, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 335
Voicemod is a pioneer in audio expression. The company is best known for its real-time voice changer technologies that are popular in the gamer communities, where users can sound like a cartoon character, a movie actor, another gender, or anything you can imagine. The product's capabilities and popularity extends to other use cases as well, including use for recorded speech, sound bed generation, and more. Jaime Bosch is CEO and co-founder of Voicemod, founded in 2014. Voicemod raised $14 millio...
Jun 30, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 334
The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown is back and was recorded on June 22, 2023. Some special segments this week include: The New EU AI Act and how large language models (LLM) face a big risk of non-compliance and steep fines. A new analysis breaks it down for 10 LLMs. The venture capital money fountain flowed with big funding rounds for Mistral, Synthesia, and ElevenLabs. Eric and I also bring you generative AI winners and losers of the week . Generative AI News Links related to the top stories...
Jun 27, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 333
Omar Tawakol is CEO and co-founder Rembrand, a company using generative AI to automate product placement in online videos. Earlier this year, he announced an $8 million seed funding round and this month added several more strategic investors. Rembrand represents a return to Tawakol's roots in advertising technology and his graduate work in AI. He saw there was an underutilized opportunity for product placement at scale that could be delivered cost-effectively for online influencers. AI is enabli...
Jun 22, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 332
We have another Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for you today. It was recorded on June 16, 2023. Some special segments this week include: OpenAI’s function calling, expanded context window, and price cuts Generative AI search, brands, latency, and features that matter Eric, special guest Michal Stanislawek, and I also go through the generative AI winners and losers of the week . That has been a fun addition to the show. Generative AI News (GAIN) Links related to the top stories in today’s show...
Jun 18, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 331
The latest Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown is live and was recorded on June 8, 2023. Some special segments this week include: Apple’s Vision Pro opts for gestures over voice commands, and generative AI is nowhere to be found. OpenAI and Google both reveal better generative AI reasoning skills for chatbots, and Google may be in the lead! We break down two very different approaches to make large language models (LLM) better at math, science, and complex thinking. Eric and I also have the generat...
Jun 12, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 330
Aleksandr Tuilkanov is a lawyer specializing in AI policy, regulation, and legal frameworks. Early work in GDPR and AI regulation before the generative AI frenzy led him to be hired by several governments to help draft AI policy. Few people that have focused on AI policy exclusively or a significant period of time, and his insights are grounded in that experience. His work was influential at the Council of Europe, a key player in the latest EU AI regulatory framework. We talk about imitation vs ...
Jun 08, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Season 1Ep. 329
The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for June 1, 2023, is here. We have some special segments for you today with hosts Eric Schwartz from Voicebot.ai and Bret Kinsella. These include: An Nvidia video demo of a humanlike conversation with an in-game non-player character Live demos of Bing search inside of ChatGPT and Google Bard’s similarity A short video showing how the Google Search Generative Experience beta release works. Eric and Bret also introduced a new segment, generative AI winners and...
Jun 04, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 328
Robert Scoble did the first live stream of a ride in a Tesla. The driver was Elon Musk. The Siri mobile app launched to the world in his living room. He is the leading author on spatial computing, is an AR/VR expert, and has seen a lot of technology innovation up close over the years. He and I caught up at Project Voice in April for a live interview right after he interviewed the three Siri co-founders onstage. In addition to his comments on the evolution of tech and Silicon Valley over the past...
Jun 02, 2023•1 hr 58 min•Season 1Ep. 327
Your Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for May 25, 2023, is here. Spellbook’s Scott Stevenson joined Eric Schwartz from Voicebot.ai and Bret Kinsella (that’s me) to discuss the news and his company’s $10.9 million funding round. We have some exclusives for you if you want to hear the latest about the OpenAI GPT-powered lawyer copilot from Spellbook. These include the surprising number of lawyers that signed up in April and the enormous customer onboarding backlog. Plus, Spellbook is hiring aggre...
May 30, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 326
Microsoft Build 2023 was more hotly anticipated than Apple WWDC which is hard to believe. However, that is the new reality created by ChatGPT and OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft. In this special episode of the generative AI news rundown, (GAIN), Voicebot's Bret Kinsella and Eric Schwartz break down the five top announcements from the event and the implications for users and for the market. Topics include: Bing Search coming to ChatGPT Microsoft adopted ChatGPT Plugin model for Bing, GPT AI m...
May 30, 2023•30 min•Season 1Ep. 325
My guest today is a giant in the world of voice assistants and AI. Adam Cheyer is the co-founder of Siri, which was originally an app that, as you know, was acquired by Apple and launched as the key feature of the iPhone 4s in 2011. That is how Siri came to define expectations for modern-day voice assistants. However, Cheyer and one of his Siri cofounders Dag Kittlaus, were disappointed that Apple decided to dramatically narrow the scope of the assistant to better align with its goal of making S...
May 24, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 324
Here is the Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for May 18, 2023. Eric Schwartz from Voicebot.ai and Bret Kinsella break down the biggest industry stories of the week. Some of those stories include OpenAI, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Anthropic, Zoom, Gather, and an AI virtual girlfriend that went viral. - Has Alexa been generative AI all along? Amazon says so, sort of. But is it true? - Are we emerging from the AI Autopilot Era to the Copilot Era with more human control? Satya Nadella says so. But is...
May 20, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 323
The Generative AI News (GAIN) rundown for May 11, 2023, is here. Special guest and Google Developer Expert (GDE) Allen Firstenberg joined me to go in-depth on all the Google I/O stories. We discuss Bard, extensions, conversational search, the PaLM and Gemini models, and much more. We also review the “Google Has No [generative AI] Moat” memo. That is followed by a discussion of Wendy’s adoption of Google PaLM for drive-thru order taking, Bing Chat going general availability worldwide, the White H...
May 20, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 322
