Audioburst Brings Audio Content Discovery to Android Auto and Bixby
Audio content search and analysis startup Audioburst has added Android Auto and Samsung Bixby to its platform list. The news marks another milestone in the company’s expansion of its real-time radio and podcast transcription and audio indexing services.
Automatic Android
The new Audioburst Auto app for Android offers voice searches and curated playlists to Android Auto users while they are driving. Along with the pre-made playlists, users can ask about news topics, weather, and traffic to create a personalized news roundup for their drive. The goal is to make as much of Audioburst’s features available for drivers as possible. Amir Hirsch, CEO of Audioburst, told Voicebot in a interview that ad hoc audio content search is not yet enabled for the Android Auto implementation, but this is a planned feature expansion.
Audioburst has been working to build out its presence in vehicles for some time. The $10 million funding round it closed in April, for instance, included investment from Dentsu and Hyundai. The automaker has been working to integrate Audioburst into the infotainment system in its cars. And, last year, LGE and Audioburst unveiled their plans to include Audioburst’s technology into the devices LGE builds for infotainment systems, including cars. Hirsch said the Android Auto implementation is an Android app, but it is focused only on use in the car at this time. A version of the app designed for other mobile use cases is under development.
Bixby and Beyond
For Bixby users, Audioburst can now provide voice searching and news feeds. Bixby devices will have access to Audioburst’s ‘bursts’ which are collections of highlights from podcasts and radio shows played in sequence. Samsung has been working with Audioburst for some time, and Samsung Ventures invested $4.6 million in the startup back in 2018.
Hirsch told Voicebot that the new Audiobust capsule is also designed so that other developers of Bixby capsules will be able to access the service from their own voice interactive experiences. For example, another capsule could answer a user question about Tesla by returning a “burst” or short audio clip from a radio interview with a financial analyst without transferring the user session to Audioburst. The content will be brought into the experience or capsule where the user is already interacting. That feature is not available today, but Hirsch said it will be forthcoming and capsule-to-capsule connections is a distinctive feature that Samsung promotes to developers about the Bixby voice assistant.
The Bixby offering is only the latest in Audioburst’s new developments since its recent funding round. The company released an audio upload platform designed to be used without code called Audioburst Studio as well as integration with news aggregator Flipboard. All of these extensions bring Audioburst’s speech-based curation and search services to new customers. The $25 million it has raised since it was founded in 2015 have placed it in a strong position to become what it calls the ‘world’s largest library of audio content, especially in the burgeoning voice enterprise space.
Follow @voicebotai Follow @erichschwartz
