The Top 44 Leaders in Voice for 2019

Today, Voicebot launched our first list that recognizes top leaders in voice technologies, with a particular focus on voice assistants. There has been a lot of focus on the technologies that have made voice assistants possible ranging from neural networks run in the cloud, low-power wake word engines, speech synthesis, far-field voice recognition, and many others. However, there has been far less focus on exploring the role of individuals that are influencing how the voice assistant era came to pass and how it is evolving. Voicebot’s Top 44 Leaders in Voice was developed to spark more discussion about the people that are driving the trajectory of the voice assistant era.

44 Leaders in 4 Categories

The list published today is segmented into four categories including visionaries, technologists, product and design pros, and influencers. There are 11 people in each category and we faced some tough decisions about well-deserving professionals that didn’t make the 2019 list. We discuss the methodology in more detail here as well as provide background on our panel of judges. Many thanks go out to Karen Kaushansky, Theo Lau, Doug Schumacher, Nick Schwab, and Eric Schwartz for lending their time, insight, and expertise to the process.

Who’s on the list? It’s a mix of big-company executives, startup founders and other people that are helping to both incrementally move the industry forward and shape its path. The top three in each category plus some other companies represented are included in the table below. Go to the Top 44 Leaders in Voice page for the full list and to see detailed bios and the rationale for each of those people included you can also go to each individual category page.

Help Us Make This Better in the Future

We recognize that any list you create will be accompanied by some controversy and disagreement. Typically, those concerns stem from valid arguments that certain people should have made the list. Of course, with a fixed number, there is always some deserving person left out. We recognize that many people have made a big contribution that didn’t make the list. Our panel of six judges weighed many factors in compiling the list and some were advocating for professionals that just missed the cut. Let the debate begin. Let us know what you think on Twitter at @voicebotai and @bretkinsella. Where did we get it right or wrong from your perspective? All comments will be taken into account when we consider future lists.

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