Bringing speed and democratization to Voice AI

Podcast

Bringing speed and democratization to Voice AI | Marc Bernstein (CEO at Balto)

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Bringing speed and democratization to Voice AI | Marc Bernstein (CEO at Balto)

Davit Baghdasaryan

Jan 18, 2024

Transcript

In The Future of Voice AI series of interviews, Davit Baghdasaryan asks three questions to his guests:

- What problems do you currently see in Enterprise Voice AI?

- How do you (your company) solve these problems?

- What solutions do you envision in the next 5 years?

This episode’s guest is Marc Bernstein, Co-Founder & CEO at Balto AI.

Balto is an AI-Powered Contact Center that has analyzed over 200 million calls and helped thousands of professionals.

Balto unites agents with AI to enable better conversations that deliver results. Contact centers trust Balto’s real-time guidance enterprise solution to prevent missed sales opportunities, costly compliance mistakes, and negative customer experiences. Today, Balto has guided over 250 million calls, provided over 450 million real-time recommendations, and driven millions in increased revenue. Balto.ai

Summary of the conversation

Current Problems in Voice AI: Marc talks about the integration challenges in voice AI, particularly how different modalities like speech-to-text, NLP, noise cancellation, and summarization are evolving and need to be cohesively integrated.
Industry Focus and Product Integration: Marc discusses the challenges faced by industries like finance in integrating various voice AI components into a cohesive system. He also touches on the trend towards comprehensive product offerings rather than bespoke solutions.
Balto's Approach to Voice AI in Contact Centers: Marc explains how Balto contributes to contact centers, focusing on insights, speed, and democratization. He discusses real-time guidance for agents, coaching for supervisors, and quality management suites.
Natural Language Voice Agents: Marc predicts the rise of fully natural language voice agents that sound and problem-solve like humans, discussing the challenges in social acceptance and the inherent value of human interaction in certain areas.
Closing Thoughts and Future Directions: Marc provides his closing thoughts on the future of voice AI, particularly focusing on empathy and human-like interactions in AI, followed by a wrap-up of the discussion.

Takeaways

Integration Challenge in Voice AI: The need to integrate various voice AI components, such as speech-to-text, natural language processing (NLP), noise cancellation, and summarization, into a cohesive system. While these modalities have individually advanced, their true potential lies in effective integration.
Focus on Differentiation and Commoditization: Voice AI technologies are trending towards commoditization. The key to differentiation lies in creating thoughtful, integrated product offerings rather than just focusing on individual technological advancements.
Application in Specific Industries: The discussion highlights the practical challenges and opportunities of implementing voice AI in sectors like finance. It emphasizes the need for solutions that fit seamlessly into existing business processes and can be integrated with other systems.
Balto's Approach to Voice AI: Balto's strategy focuses on providing value in contact centers through insights, speed, and democratization. This includes real-time guidance for agents, coaching for supervisors, and a suite for quality management, all aimed at improving efficiency and effectiveness in contact centers.
Future of Natural Language Voice Agents: There's an anticipation of fully natural language voice agents that can match human capabilities in terms of conversation and problem-solving within the next five years. These agents will have access to extensive information and could potentially transform customer service and other fields.
Social Acceptance and Human Touch: A significant future challenge for voice AI is social acceptance and the role of human interaction. Certain tasks, especially those requiring empathy and comfort, may continue to need a human touch, underscoring the limits of AI in replacing human interactions fully.
Evolution of Voice AI in Contact Centers: The voice is still a critical channel in contact centers, and there's a lot of potential for voice AI to evolve in this space, even with the growing trend towards omnichannel solutions.