The use of smart voice and speaker services is no longer confined to the home as it is reaching out to companies to revolutionise their relationship with their customers. ‘Voice Conference Spain’ is part of this new scenario as a discussion forum organised by Amazon, everis and Esade to present the latest developments in this technology and encourage industries working with it to share their experiences.

The first edition of this initiative was held on 15-16 November at BBVA Open Space and was attended by pioneering companies including Iberia, Endesa, Mapfre and BBVA. It also hosted a 10-hour hackathon in which 12 teams developed a business idea based on the Alexa Skills Kit.

Technology working for people

In his talk, Marc Torrens, Academic Director of the M.Sc. in Business Analytics at Esade, pointed out that the technologies used in voice assistants “enable human beings to focus on what they do best”. In his view, this is the most relevant feature of what he called the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ which “is exponentially faster than its predecessors and for the first time impacts all sectors equally”. Hence the Esade professor believes it is crucial to move forward not only technologically but also ethically: “The challenges we have to face are, first and foremost, safeguarding privacy and transparency and responsible decision-making, because we are going to directly impact the distribution of wealth, education and politics”.

Along the same lines, Eric King, Alexa Europe Director at Amazon, emphasised the need for these devices to allow “greater transparency and user control” than other mobile and screen apps so that “in five years’ time, all companies can interact with their customers through them”. The owners of more than 100 million Alexa devices have already experienced this reality through over 100,000 skills or apps. “Soon, companies will have to ask themselves what their brand should sound like or what tone of voice their company should have”, added King. “They will also need to rethink their business models to make life easier for their consumers through features they cannot yet imagine”. He concluded: “That’s the key to Alexa, to generate engagement and wonder, because this technology learns from people and not the other way around”.

Meanwhile, Marcos Obed, Head of Conversational Services at everis Europe, argued that “an omnichannel strategy involves finding support through all digital channels to deliver the best customer experience”.

A long way to go

Voice assistants are already in more than 80 countries including Spain, where demand is growing above average and has only been outstripped by the United States and Germany. As a result, some companies have already built it into their customer relationships. This is the case for Iberia, which presented its skill at ‘Voice Conference Spain’. Nacho Tovar, its Head of Innovation and Digital Transformation, said that “this technology will be a better consumer interaction hub than the Internet with no downloads, proactive features and links to a range of apps”. However, building it won't be easy. “Designing a voice interface is more complex than a screen interface, but when you do it you realise that this is the future because you need a multidisciplinary team featuring profiles which, in some cases, still don’t exist”. As Esade professor Marc Torrens noted, we are still in the early stages of these technologies, as is the case with artificial intelligence. “Science grows linearly and technology exponentially. We’ve been at it for barely 70 years”.

This first ‘Voice Conference Spain’ event was also attended by Julio Villalobos, Corporate Director at Esade; Marcos Obed, Head of Conversational Services at everis Europe; María Barceló, Academic Director of the EMDB at Esade Madrid; Mario Armas, Voice Assistants Evangelist at Everis; Carmen Reina, Head of Data Culture at Orange; and Anna Aubá, Head of Computational Linguistics at Everis.