XAPPmedia Announces 450 Voice Apps Live on Alexa, Assistant & Cortana

on October 18, 2017 at 4:00 pm

Today XAPPmedia announced it now has 450 voice apps live on Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Microsoft Cortana, a significant increase from the 130 voice apps the company had live only six weeks ago. The company was able to meet demand quickly because of its new One Voice AI platform which enables multi-assistant and multi-modal voice app publishing and management. Some of the features include automated audio encoding, image encoding, content validation, live content updates, multi-assistant integration, high availability services and tiered support. Michael Myers, XAPPmedia’s chief product officer and and co-founder commented:

“We start from the fundamental belief that every brand and media company needs to have access to consumers through digital voice assistants with multimodal interaction options. We also recognize that these companies need a partner that has already figured out how to work in the new medium and has tools, processes and technology that can help them launch a voice app quickly while ensuring reliable performance over time. The XAPP platform and managed service were developed to meet those requirements. Our customers only need to tell us their objectives and provide the content. We do the rest. These are long-term investments so we don’t stop at launch. XAPP provides services to maintain and improve voice apps over time.”

Media Companies Lead the Way

A majority of XAPP’s published voice apps are custom Alexa skills for radio stations across the country. It’s no surprise radio and audio publishers are one of the first industries to rapidly adopt voice assistants as a tool for engagement. As a recent guest on the Voicebot Podcast, XAPPmedia CEO Pat Higbie pointed out that for radio, smart speakers and voice assistants represent a sort of renaissance for radio broadcasters and audio publishers as they can bring traditional radio content back into the home. Higbie likens it to the old days when “radio preset buttons were the easiest way to access content ever.” Media companies obviously agree with Higbie and are jumping at the chance to reach a new, rapidly growing audience through voice-assistant enabled devices.

I can’t blame them. For the first time in a decade, the adoption of a new technology is working in their favor. First came the iPod and iTunes, then came the smart phone and a proliferation of on-demand music streaming services. But voice-first devices like the Amazon Echo were made for audio content. Media companies already have the content, they just need a company like XAPPmedia to help them get there. But what XAPP’s announcement highlights is that brands are being slower to adopt the new technology, which is why it’s smart for the company to offer multi-modal features as part of its One Voice AI platform. For decades, brands have relied on graphics and display first content to share their message. Multi-modal allows them to tip their toe in the pool before diving voice-first.

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