Conversations Squared #9 Andrew Muir

We’re used to hearing Text To Speech in conversational AI, but that’s not the only option available. Voice assistants don’t have to use synthetic speech - they can use recordings of a live voice talent instead.Andrew Muir, Lead Dialogue Designer at PolyAI, explains the benefits of using voice talents. One of his points really resonated with me - why voice talents ease users into the experience!00:00    Start00:24    Tell me about yourself?02:38    What's your favourite bot?03:26    What are your biggest concerns about ChatGPT?05:58    What journalistic skills do you use in conversation design?08:42    Why do you choose to use voice talent at PolyAI?13:10    So voice talent eases users into the experience?13:52    Where would you choose to use synthetic voices?15:56    Are you using voice talents and cloned voices?17:03    Please tell me about your relationship with the voice talents?19:14    Do you give the voice talent freedom to create their work?19:50    Do voice talents push back against being used in AI projects?21:36    Voice talents could get left behind by synthetic voices22:46    Are voice talents proactively cloning their voices?23:21    How do you approach updates to avoid spiralling costs?26:24    Do you adjust the design based on a voice actor's performance?30:40    Is a synthetic assistant with an empathetic voice a design sweet-spot?31:51    Do you think there's scope for non-human character design?36:38    The way words are said matters38:56    The user observes everything about the bot41:16    How do you approach voice localisation at PolyAI?45:44    Personas are received differently in different locales46:43    You have to know the culture intimately to localise48:47    We have to expect we will keep updating our work50:35    Where can people find out more about you? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.