Transcript 0:00 Let's learn from Michael Riemer, CEO of Vocinity. Thank you for having me. Let's hear about Vocinity. Tell us a bit about it. Sure. 0:09 So Vocinity was started a little over four years ago by Nathan Stratton, and we create video and voice conversational AI shopping and service assistance for brands and enterprises. So for 0:26 just the regular person, what does that mean? Uh, when you're looking for something, it's like hunting and pecking, right? You've gotta go here, you gotta go there, you gotta look for it, right? 0:36 And with, with Vocinity, really the bot becomes your place to talk, and then she pulls in or he pulls in whatever videos or other content that's required to support that. 0:47 Typically, when you're dealing with a high-value product like a TV or a VR headset or expensive home exercise equipment, the bot could say, "Great. Let me just show you a quick video on that." 0:59 And so adding that humanistic touch, are you saying it increases the engagement? Absolutely. 1:05 We've been able to demonstrate with several large brands and several large retailers that engaging with the virtual human, um, sells just as well as actually talking with a human themselves, and at a ninth of the cost. 1:20 People find it much more natural to be able to talk to somebody, just like we're talking right now. 1:25 So rather than, you know, typing in and then getting a long menu list of potential items, you can just say, "Hey, I'm interested in learning more about X, Y, or Z," and the virtual human has enough intelligence to understand the context of what they're asking about and be able to figure out what exactly the topics are that they want more information on. 1:45 Recently we were working with an exercise equipment company that had five or six different products, right? And people ask, "I'm, have this body type," or, "I wanna achieve these types of workout goals. 1:56 Which one would you recommend?" And we were able to program the bot in a way that provided that recommendation based on the calories burned or the level of effort, et cetera. 2:05 The real amazing experience comes from the voice activation. The voice activation and the multimedia experience, right? 2:14 Really being able to create an immersive, personalized journey where rather than typing and waiting, right, you're asking questions and you're visually engaging, you know, with either the virtual human or a video or an image, which just makes it a much more engaging and informative conversation. 2:33 Tell us about how the company got here. What is Nathan's background? 2:37 The company actually started because he called Amazon one day to ask a question about a package, and instead of being answered by Alexa, he got a 20-year-old IVR system, which he thought was kind of weird. 2:50 And that really was the genesis for, for why he started the company. What's an IVR system? So IVR are those things that we hate when they say, when you call up and it says, "Press 1 for this and press 2 for that." 3:02 It's, it's, it's a very arcane approach to... It's an interface for customers vi- on the phone, basically. I have that happen all of the time. It's- Yes, it's awful... a nightmare. It's- Yeah... 3:15 everyone's worst nightmare. Yeah. So, so he had that happen, and he was like, "Forget this. I'm gonna go-" Right... "and invent a SaaS that solves this so I never have to experience this again." That's right. 3:28 That's right. 3:28 So that's what he did, and he started with the voice, and then as we started to get some, some client traction, particularly with some of these higher value brands, visualizations became more important, and we started partnering with several different what are called digital avatar providers. 3:43 We use Rasa as it's an open source platform underneath the, as the natural language understanding, and then we've added a bunch of technology on top of it so that you can actually have conversation just like we're having right now. 3:57 And the bot will understand that and be able to integrate with back office applications. And we have the ability to transfer to a human for a voice or video call if that's required as well. 4:10 In the case where somebody's wondering about a particular product feature or function, rather than talking about it, you can actually show them a video or show them a picture of it or show them a diagram of it, all while you're having the conversation with the digital human. 4:26 So you're seeing a lot of success and engagement, and it's, it's, it works really well with high-ticket items, no? Yeah. So I like to joke, right, if you're selling an apple, it's probably a little overkill. 4:37 But if you're selling any kind of product or service, whether it's a consumer product or a B2B product that requires some explanation and additional information, it's really helpful to have that interaction because it is replacing that human with a very personalized touch. 4:54 O- one of the things that we have found is that you can actually increase the productivity and effectiveness of your existing staff because the virtual human can actually take care of a vast amount of the repetitive tasks and typical questions and then can escalate to the human when it's required, versus taking up their resources throughout the day. 5:14 Going through and answering the questions and providing the information that they're looking for in order to make a decision, the bot can even help schedule a meeting with the salesperson if, if one's not available as well. 5:26 Let's say you're on the Lowe's website and you are trying to do something and you're just not sure which wrench to buy. [laughs] Could have been that apple. 5:37 [laughs] That's my favorite example 'cause I don't know how to fix anything. [laughs] Um, so yeah, I mean, whether you're in the store or online, right, you wanna be able to get access to that information. 5:49 And again, depending on, you know, what the brand or the retailer wants to do, you can make the, the, the virtual human as intelligent, uh, as you'd like. 5:58 It's like I'm gonna scoot you around this website and I'm gonna direct it w- with my voice, and it's high speed.High speed, high tech, high touch, immersive experience in, for browsing Absolutely. 6:16 So it's, it's, uh, completely real time, just like we're talking today, right? You can interrupt the bot when she- the virtual human when she, when he or she is speaking. You can ask questions. 6:26 As, as you pointed out, you can ask to be shown certain things as well. 6:30 And really the, the, the value add is that, you know, most people today are engaging on their mobile devices, and it's really hard to type, you know, on those mobile devices quickly. 6:43 So one of the values that we bring is not only does it work on a mobile device as well as on the web, but you can actually use it in stores as well just by scanning a QR code that's on any item or merchandise and actually have the virtual as- assistant show up on your personal phone and ask any questions that you have, rather than, you know, trying to find an associate in the store. 7:05 And we also have d- deployed it on a smart sign where we've built in, um, some special microphones and algorithms for proximity detection. So in other words, I walk up to a la- the lawnmower section, and I'm like, "Ugh, 7:19 they're all the same." I don't know anything, right, exactly. [laughs] They all look the same. Why is this one 200 and that one 800? So there's a QR code on there, and it's a little bit of features and benefits. 7:30 So everyone wants to be an educated consumer, and there's literally not a human to be found. And then chasing after that orange vest or whatever it is- [laughs]... 7:39 getting in the line of people that are like, you know, poor, poor person, they're, like, being a, you know, accosted. The minute they stop with one, they have a line of a next person. We've all been there. 7:49 So you, you can then s- scan, bring up your phone, and now you're, like, basically having a virtual salesperson speak to you about that one, and then you can do the same and compare, or maybe they actually compare. 8:03 Maybe you can actually mention another one. Yep. You, you... 8:06 if that's, if that's, you know, important for that particular implementation, you can, you know, recommend a specific product based on the specific requirements of the customer. 8:16 And as I mentioned before, you can even escalate that. You know, let's say that there's a specialty person, um, who knows about lawnmowers, but maybe then they're not in that store that day. 8:26 You can still use our technology to talk to the bot, and they can escalate to a voice or a video call and have, through custom routing rules, get it to the appropriate associate who might be able to help with that transaction. 8:38 Mm-hmm. I'm visualizing as you're speaking, like, I could see anywhere where there, you need a lot of information. So let's take the beauty industry. 8:46 It's the same information that they would use to train a sales associate, except the bot never forgets and only gets smarter over time. Sure. 8:53 One of the nice features about the product is once you build the bot, you can use it on your phone lines just as well as your website and your store, and it's all the same experience. Mm. 9:03 Now, the bot, the virtual capabilities are smart enough to know that if you're on the phone, don't ask them about showing them a picture, right? 'Cause that... 9:12 obviously doing things like triage is something that, generally speaking, conversational AI is really good at. How about travel? Do you see it being used there? 9:22 Anything where visuals help make the sale, right, lifestyle kinds of things are gonna be, uh, important to be able to interject those, um, those videos as part of the conversation because nothing's better than having a conversation with somebody, and while you're talking with them, you're seeing a picture of a beautiful Caribbean island that they're describing. 9:45 But now you're seeing it while you're actually talking to them. It keeps you engaged in that actual sale by having that all happen in real time, as you said. Correct. Correct. 9:59 I don't know if you saw it, but Louis Vuitton has a brand ambassador now. Her name is Libi, L-I-B-I. And basically she's this. It's the same thing, right? It's an engagement- Yep... a way to have an engagement. 10:12 You can have your own fully custom avatar. You can have your own f- fully custom voice specific to the brand, and it's all, again, using the same back-end system with the conversational AI as the basis. 10:24 We've started to work on implementing this exact same solution in the metaverse because all of the core technologies are basically the same. So as the metaverse gets bigger, right, you wanna have, again, autonomous, 10:38 scalable interactions that don't require humans unless you need to escalate. 10:44 From our point of view, it's, it's really about at scale being able to have the digital workforce or digital humans that perform repetitive tasks where you're using your human counterparts for the higher value things as needed. 10:59 When you're dealing with, with products, um, that do require an actual sales engagement, right- Right... those are very people intensive, right? You've gotta have somebody pick up the phone. 11:08 You've gotta call somebody, right? 11:10 So we're actually now having clients who are using our virtual humans as SDRs and actually calling clients or engaging clients, qualifying clients, setting up the appointments for the salespeople. 11:22 So you don't have to worry about whether you're following up on all your leads because every lead, everybody that touches your website, anybody that calls you, right, can, can flow into this channel of engagement where the virtual human is really helping the, a- again, digital salesperson or digital SDR to really help the process and even, as I mentioned, schedule leads or transfer leads. 11:48 What happens if it's a hot lead, right? 11:50 You've defined some requirements to say if they say this, this, and this, or they have these attributes, I want you to transfer them immediately to a salesperson, and the virtual human can do that as well. 12:00 You're telling me I wouldn't know that if a virtual sales assistant called me and qualified me and et cetera, et cetera. You know, it's really hard to tell. 12:10 Now, you know, s- some people like to try to beat the bot, right? It's like, you know, who's the president of the United States or, or, you know, irrelevant things if they think it's a bot. 12:18 But for the most part, it's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty immersive and natural experience. 12:25 One of our partners is, uh, launching a big campaign this week to have the bot basically be the frontline sales engagement, qualify customers, and schedule appointments for their salespeople. 12:37 Do you think everyone's ready for this? That's a great question. I think millennials and Gen Z's are obviously much more open to these types of experiences than some of us gray hairs. 12:48 But I think once people experience it and the difference between what we're providing, it's a very compelling value proposition. I definitely look forward to watching that and see, seeing how it goes. It's... 13:02 it can be such a great asset for all forms of selling, whether you're trying to remove, like, a menial task or trying to have access to way more information than any human could- Right... 13:17 and certainly keep the visuals at the forefront. I mean, those three things alone are major points to, to check it out. So I invite everyone to check it out. We'll put the website below, and we wanna thank Michael. 13:32 Oh, my pleasure, Christine. Thank you so much for having me today.
