Southbound
Amazon swings and misses with Alexa Custom Assistant; Coast to Coast rolls in to Miami
See the footer of this email for information on a voice/AI-related business for sale.
From the river bank, to the Party Cove…
Long as it floats, we'll rock the boat.
It's all looking up, when we get down.
And get a little southbound…
Project Voice: Coast to Coast rolled into Miami today.
One of the first things I see upon stepping off the plane:
This is a 90+ minute line at Dollar Rent A Car, extending to the right and well out of the frame.
I rented a car at nearby Hertz, which gave me an interesting factoid: Hertz’s Miami daily volume was 650 cars rented per day, and their current volume (as of the last 3 weeks) is over 500 cars a day, and rising.
I’ll continue to share selected anecdotes and things I observe in traveling the country for the Project Voice: Coast to Coast tour.
Amazon Swings And Misses With Alexa Custom Assistant
Amazon announced, late last week, their Alexa Custom Assistant initative, ostensibly enabling companies to save money and more efficiently create their own custom assistants.
Amazon’s Alexa unit, back in 2017 and 2018, was truly legendary. Amazon’s leadership and fearless trailblazing advanced the world of voice technology at warp speed.
Amazon’s lead started slipping in 2019. Google used a surge in marketing alongside leveraging its existing data to create a voice assistant generally considered better at answering most queries than Alexa.
In 2021, Alexa’s lead has now fully evaporated, and Amazon and Google are now locked in a virtual dead heat. A true duopoly, here in the US.
Overlay on top of this the current overwhelmingly negative political climate toward big tech.
It wasn’t too long ago - 2017 and 2018, as Alexa surged - where mainly the progressive left railed against Amazon’s unchecked growth in the voice/AI space, routinely calling Echo speakers nothing more than surveillance devices.
Now, as of the past couple of weeks, the conservative right has taken up the cause against Amazon, deeply resentful and wary of AWS’ pulling of the plug on Parler, a right-wing social network.
Add all of this up and you get an environment where Amazon simply does not get to introduce “a simultaneous multi-assistant cooperation service” which enables Alexa to essentially intermediate usage of other voice AI’s.
Amazon indicates in the announcement that Alexa Custom Assistants help companies save money when creating their voice assistants. Problem is, I’ve never heard a company investing in voice tech or conversational AI mention cost savings even one time - they universally understand this is a significant, long-term investment into a deeply strategic asset.
Instead, the ACTUAL problem is that more and more companies do not want Amazon having access to their user data. No amount of cost savings is worth it, if you’re in this camp.
The final cherry on top here is the tone of this entire initiative, which comes off as needlessly predatory.
A secondary issue worth discussing is the way in which Alexa Custom Assistants confuse and potentially obviate the need for third-party Alexa skills. Couldn’t every Alexa skill potentially be its own custom assistant, intermediated by Alexa as “Brandon” is in this video? This is left unexplained.
I’m not sure what all this means, but it sure isn’t the Amazon of 2017.
TOMORROW: Cerence In Motion
This is a virtual event Cerence is producing to share a number of new innovations. I have seen what they’re about to announce. You do not want to miss this.
JANUARY 28: Fireside Chat with DefinedCrowd’s CEO Daniela Braga on the role of AI datasets
I’ll moderate, and this is a great opportunity to meet with a true original in the voice/AI space and one of the more exciting leaders, covering a topic at the intersection of data science and conversational AI.
FEBRUARY 1-5: Voice Tech Innovation Week, Presented By Project Voice
Tomorrow’s newsletter will address this important week of programming in depth. Registration will open at that time for anyone who wants to attend, alongside 5,000 Directors of Innovation (and those with similar titles) across the US and world we’re inviting to be part of this with us.
This curated week-long program will showcase the pioneers, trailblazers, and leaders in the voice tech / conversational AI landscape.
APRIL 12-14: Project Voice 2021 (in person; Chattanooga, TN)
APRIL 15-16: Project Voice Worldwide (virtual)
The #1 event for voice tech and AI in America will announce some program changes and a new in-person keynote speaker for 2021 later this week. We’ll share this information here in This Week In Voice VIP.
Register for Project Voice 2021 here; register for Project Voice Worldwide here.
MULTIMODAL VOICE/AI BUSINESS FOR SALE: The original inventor of visual IVRs has created a technology which enhances an ordinary call by joining a data session to it, positioning the experience between a standard phone call and a videoconference.
This approach allows interoperability with phones worldwide and turns an ordinary phone call into a smart home speaker with visuals. Any company wanting to expand into multimodal IVRs, phonebots, contact centers and other types of enhanced business calls would find this company of interest, regardless of vertical.
If you’re interested in learning more, I’m happy to connect you to the company’s founders, who can share more about their story, and why and to whom they’re looking to sell.