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Voice Assistant Year in Review with Ahmed Bouzid, Tom Hewitson, and Karen Kaushansky – Voicebot Podcast Ep 74

A lot happened in voice assistant land in 2018. An all-star panel breaks it down for you this week with Ahmed Bouzid, CEO of Witlingo, Tom Hewitson from Labworks.io, and Karen Kaushansky of Robot Futures. We discuss the biggest stories of 2018, break down what Amazon, Google, and Apple did right and wrong this year, whether Samsung Bixby will succeed, and predictions for 2019. We also do a real-time Twitter poll on whether Google Duplex, the rapid expansion of voice assistant language support, Echo Dot record sales, or Samsung Bixby 2.0 was the biggest story of 2018. Join us for a fast-paced and insightful review of what happened and what is to come.

Show Notes – Ahmed Bouzid, Tom Hewitson, and Karen Kaushansky Interview

During the show, we asked Ahmed, Tom, Karen and I to name our top voice story of the year and we put our suggestions to the test on Twitter. At the end of the show, the Twitterverse had spoken and voted on our predictions with 35% for Google Duplex, 30% for Echo Dot selling out on Black Friday, 25% for smart speaker global expansion, and 10% for Samsung Bixby. A shift in sentiment after the show concluded to lean even more toward Google Duplex at 45% (Karen Kaushansky) with all of that gain coming from Echo Dot sell out (Tom Hewiston). Smart speaker expansion into new languages held steady at 25% (Bret Kinsella) while Bixby 2.0 (Ahmed Bouzid) edged up to 14%.

You can listen to the podcast interview above or at any of the locations below.

Listen on Google Play Music

 

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