The game-changing power of machines that can understand and speak natural language.

1. The game-changing power of
machines that can understand and
speak natural language.
COMPUTER SPEECH

2. ● It’s ready for prime time
● It’s evolving faster than you think
● It’s a gateway capability
● It’s changing everything
● It’s giving rise to the conversational U.I.
● It’s easier to use than you think
COMPUTER SPEECH
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3. IT’S READY FOR PRIME TIME

4. WHAT IS COMPUTER SPEECH?
A.I.’s natural language processing (N.L.P.) capabilities
allows computers to understand intent from natural
conversational speech — just like we do as humans.
In short, computers can now have a natural
conversation...just like we do.

5. Natural language text.
AND TAKE YOUR PICK...
Natural language speech.

6. ON PAR WITH HUMANS
August, 2016 — “The researchers reported a word error
rate (WER) of 5.9% …about equal to that of people who
were asked to transcribe the same conversation...”
Note: This is just the ability to identify words.
blogs.microsoft.com/next/2016/10/18/historic-achievement-microsoft-researchers-reach-human-p
arity-conversational-speech-recognition

7. WHERE IS THE A.I.?
In the system’s ability to determine intent from
natural conversational language.
e.g. “Open the door, please.”
Compared to requiring specific words.
e.g. “open sesame”
Remember: A.I. is subjective

8. OR ANOTHER ILLUSTRATION...
Run a search on google.com…
“Show me a list of dog breeds — except beagles.”
Today, google.com will show you a bunch of beagles.
Conversely, a system with more advanced natural
language capabilities would understand the “except
beagles” statement and filter results accordingly.

9. EXAMPLES IN USE TODAY
● Nike (Facebook Messenger)
● Kia Niro (Facebook Messenger)
● North Face Personal Shopper (web)
● Sephora (Kik)
● H&M (Kik)
● Rhizabot (web, personal assistant)
● Domino’s Pizza (everywhere)
● PayPal (Slack)
● Kayak (Slack)
● Westworld Aeden (web)
● Kim Kardashian Bot (Bottr)
Aggregator: chatbottle.co
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the_bots_landscape.pagedemo.co

10. And what better way to demonstrate that it’s ready for
prime time, than to show it live...
PS — this is an open source application written by Amazon

11. THE DEMO
echosim.io
gigaom.com/2017/01/30/building-voice-enabled-products-with-amazon-alex
a

12. INTEL EDISON & ARDUINO
Quarter-sized computer
Expansion board provides easier
access to computer functions
Base shield (not shown)
provides sensor connections
aws.amazon.com/iot-platform/getting-started/#kits

13. ADDING VOICE CONTROL

14. Alexa
Skills Kit
IoT
HOW IT WORKS
Manages device
Lambda
Converts spoken commands
into computing functions
Executes computing
functions
Alexa Voice
Service
Extends Alexa Voice Skills
to non Echo devices
10xnation.com/smart-home-building-blocks-intel-edison-aws
10xnation.com/voice-control-iot-devices-alexa-voice-service

15. PRICING
ALEXA SKILLS KIT
Free
AWS LAMDA
0 - 1 million
requests / mo
Free
> 1 million
requests / mo
$0.20 per 1 million requests
($0.0000002 per request)
Alexa is free, all you pay for is Lambda and any other
AWS services used with the Skill.

16. BONUS DEMOS
Simple
● text-bot.mybluemix.net
Can speak and be spoken to
● conversation-demo.mybluemix.net
● 10xnation.com/conversational-interface-ibm-watson
Can find answers in external content
● conversation-with-discovery-within-ui.mybluemix.net

17. Computers have already matched — and are quickly
exceeding — human capabilities when it comes to
understanding natural language.
READY FOR PRIME TIME
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18. IT’S EVOLVING FASTER
THAN YOU THINK

19. WORLD’S SHORTEST ADOPTION
CURVE
youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk
This skit is a great
illustration of how quickly
these technologies will
integrate into our daily lives.
Do you believe
these scenarios
could become
reality in the near
future?

20. The technology is already at human parity.
Now it’s just a question of growing A.I.’s ability to
interpret the nuances in our natural speech.
FASTER THAN YOU THINK
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21. IT’S A GATEWAY CAPABILITY

22. OPENING THE FLOODGATES
Computer speech eliminates the learning curve
normally associated with adopting new technologies.
Giving computers the ability to interact with humans
on our own terms.
Which opens the door for A.I. to integrate into our
daily lives and empower our world in ways we’ve only
dreamed of.

23. Tay had a mimic
function that was
exploited by attackers.
A similar bot in China
(Xiaoice) has been very
successful.
AMPLIFYING OUR GOOD & BAD
theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist

24. The ability to understand and communicate in natural
language allows A.I. to integrate seamlessly and
deeply into our daily lives.
Making it frictionless to use — and buy — new things.
GATEWAY FOR MAINSTREAM A.I.
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“A.I. could double annual economic growth rates in
2035”
~ Accenture

25. IT’S CHANGING EVERYTHING

26. The new ‘app’ platform.
EXPLOSION OF CHATBOTS
Google Home Amazon Echo Facebook Messenger Apple Siri

27. WHAT IS A CHATBOT?
Software that can have a conversation
through spoken or written natural language.
a.k.a. bot, voicebot, talkbot, chatterbot,
conversational agent, automated agent

28. The conversational user
interface (U.I.) is a richer
experience —
compared to websites
and apps.
Allowing you to sense
people's emotions and
their urgency.
BOTS ARE EVERYWHERE
youtu.be/jC0I08qt5VU?t=9s

29. The conversational U.I.
is more comfortable,
more natural, and
allows a more insightful
interaction.
What’s the first thing you do in hotel? Look for
remote, channel guide, open blinds, turn on
lights. How much time do you save by doing it
all in one request?
CONTROLLING EVERYTHING
youtu.be/7QM7izjVqug?t=26s

30. IN EVERY CORNER OF OUR LIVES
The remote starter
...A.I. style.
Great illustration of
how A.I. will make
existing stuff easier.
youtu.be/jCevYKNvixE

31. Control anything
through natural
voice speech.
Using Amazon Echo,
Google Home or any
other device.
LITERALLY...EVERYWHERE
youtu.be/Qzs75vxorII?t=3s

32. EVEN VOICE COMMERCE
news.starbucks.com/news/starbucks-debuts-voice-ordering
“Starbucks is taking the next
step toward evolving the
digital customer experience
by launching voice ordering
capabilities within the
Starbucks mobile iOS app
and the popular Amazon
Alexa platform.”

33. ON A PATH TO UBIQUITY
A.I.-powered speech will be in everything.
“The most profound technologies are those that
disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of
everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”
~Mark Weiser
Scientific American, 1991
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34. IT’S GIVING RISE TO THE
CONVERSATIONAL U.I.

35. Computer speech
will be the primary
interface between
your brand and
your customer.
accenture.com/us-en/insight-artificial-intelligence-ui
PUT YOUR BEST VOICE FORWARD

36. Natural
Conversation
EVOLUTION OF THE U.I.
Typing Clicking Touch Gestures
Voice
Command
Think
Less Friction
Natural = A.I.

37. RISE OF THE CONVERSATIONAL
U.I.
Sorry websites....
Conversation will
replace a large chunk
of what we use
websites for today.
youtu.be/eBo5Xa61FAo?t=1m8s

38. “By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their
relationship with the enterprise
without interacting with a human.”
~ Gartner

39. CREATE A CUSTOM PERSONALITY
Just as we use graphical
design today to create
distinction, chatbots will
be defined by their
personalities.
nytimes.com/2017/04/03/business/media/its-not-their-pop-idol-but-a-bot-fans-cheer-anyway.html

40. CREATE A CUSTOM VOICE
lyrebird.ai/demo

41. THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A SEC...
Chatbots can mimic personalities, and
We can copy anyone’s voice.
We are quickly moving into a world where you could
be having a conversation with your mother on the
phone — and not even realize that you’re speaking
with a (voice-enabled) chatbot.

42. RISE OF THE DIGITAL
SPOKESPERSON
“A.I. is making every
interface both simple and
smart…A.I. is poised to act
as the face of a company’s
digital brand and a key
differentiator.”
~ Accenture

43. Conversation is the most native U.I. to humans.
We’ve been using it since the dawn of time.
Now computers can do it too.
What kind of opportunities does that open up?
CONVERSATIONAL U.I. IS HERE
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44. IT’S EASIER THAN YOU THINK

45. PICK YOUR STARTING POINT
A.I. M
aturity
No training data required!
Purpose-Built Platform, Their Training Data
Commercial Platform, Their Training Data
Commercial Platform, Your Training Data
In-House Platform, Your Training Data

46. NOTHING NEW HERE
Most of the major cloud providers
have purpose-built A.I.-powered APIs.
Many have a free tier.
And they work exactly like
every other API you’re already using.

47. CHATBOT BUILDERS
● Chattypeople
● MEOKAY
● Smooch
● Botsify
● Beep Boop
● Chatfuel
● BotKit
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● Octane AI
● Botkit *
● Pandorabots
● Microsoft Bot Framework *
● Wit.ai
● Api.ai
● Semantic Machines

48. MESSAGING SERVICES
● Facebook Messenger
● Telegram
● Slack
● Amazon Alexa
● Google Assistant
● Apple Siri
● Skype
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● WeChat
● Kik
● Twitter
● LINE
● iMessage
● Viber
● HipChat

49. VOICE RECOGNITION APIs
Understanding spoken input.
● Amazon Lex
● Google Cloud Speech API
● IBM Watson Speech-to-Text
● Bing Speech API
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50. SPEECH SYNTHESIS APIs
Spoken output.
● Amazon Poly
● IBM Watson Text-to-Speech
● Ivona
● Bing Speech API
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51. ● archive.ics.uci.edu/ml
● deeplearning.net/datasets
● mldata.org
● grouplens.org/datasets
● cs.toronto.edu/~kriz/cifar.html
● cs.cornell.edu/people/pabo/movie-review-data
● yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist (handwriting)
● kdnuggets.com/datasets/index.html (long list)
● image-net.org (competition)
PLUS OPEN SOURCE DATASETS

52. ● gallery.cortanaintelligence.com
● bigml.com/gallery/models
● predictionio.incubator.apache.org/gallery/template-gallery
● github.com/tensorflow/models/tree/master/syntaxnet
● algorithmia.com/algorithms *
AND PRE-BUILT M.L. MODELS

53. Start with a pre-trained cloud API (no training data
required).
Most cloud providers offer a free tier. So start thinking
about the different ways to use computer speech.
Then just start testing and see what you can do.
EASIER THAN YOU THINK
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Don't get me wrong, there's an insane amount of complexity behind the scenes.
But fortunately, you need to know that stuff to take advantage of A.I.

54. NEXT STEPS

55. HOW-TO GUIDES
● Building Voice-Enabled Products With Amazon Alexa
● Cognitive Customer Engagement Using IBM Watson
● Harnessing Visual Data Using Google Cloud
● Building a Recommendation Engine Using Microsoft Azure
● Predicting Marketing Campaign Response Using Amazon Machine Learning
● Unleashing A.I.-Powered Conversation With IBM Watson
● Get into the Mind of Your Customer Using Google’s Sentiment Analysis Tools
● Discover Your Customers’ Deepest Feelings Using Microsoft Facial Recognition
● Give Your Products the Power of Speech Using Amazon Polly
● Computers Are Opening Their Eyes — and They’re Already Better at Seeing Than We Are
● How to Predict When You’re Going to Lose a Subscriber
● The Future of Business is a Digital Spokesperson — Let’s Build a Preview Using Microsoft’s Bot
Framework
● Predicting Personality Traits from Content Using IBM Watson
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How to build the demo
app from this session

56. ● Computer speech is ready for prime time
● It’s coming faster than you think
● It’s a gateway capability
● It’s changing everything
● It’s giving rise to the conversational U.I.
● It’s easier to use than you think
JOURNEY’S END
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57. COMING UP...
Laying the foundation
● Cutting Through the Hype
2 A.I. Technologies that will have the greatest impact
● Computer Speech
● Computer Vision
2 A.I. Applications with the quickest R.O.I.
● Predictive Engagement
● Predictive Personalization
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58. QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?
Gigaom A.I. Team: ai@gigaom.com
Workshop Facilitator: chris.mohritz@10xeffect.com
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59. THANK YOU