Welcome back to another episode of Data Delicacies, where we bring the best and brightest in the industries to talk all things tech, talk all things data, talk all things hospitality.Today's show is going to be a fun one.
For those of you that have been tuning in, I typically ask the guests, hey, what is something that's coming up that is super exciting, that's going to be kind of the next wave of technology in the space?
And Voice AI has been the recurring theme that's come up. And I myself have seen it in hospitality, but also in other applications in my own personal life.So super excited to have this guest on the show today, Nick Laidlaw, the CTO of Voiceify.
Nick, how are you? Doing great, thanks for having me.Of course, Nick, thank you for coming on.
This is super timely, you know, coming off the heels of FS Tech here and all the other shows where, you know, I think voice AI has been the coolest new thing that's been popping up.
Now, new to most of us, I know you've been working on this for some time, but, you know, before we dive into kind of your story and the story of Voiceify, I want to kind of dive into the meat of what we're trying to talk about here, which is the rise of voice AI.
So very broad in that sense, but would love to just get your take on, you know, why is it now become so popular and why is everyone talking about it as the next big thing in hospitality tech?
Yeah, it's definitely been a rise.And I would say that the trajectory is moving much, much faster than anyone had anticipated.And I think that the reason why it's becoming such a big topic today is that
Once the pandemic hit and staffing issues were becoming more and more apparent in terms of being able to take orders, answer questions, fulfill orders, there's just too much that the staff and limited staff at that much were in charge of.
And so obviously looking towards technology as a way to solve that, it seems like a natural fit. It was kind of at the time where voice AI in general was starting to take a better foothold with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant and Siri.
People are just becoming more comfortable talking to some sort of assistant.And so naturally, it makes sense that that would be the type of solution.
Now, with the rise of open AI and all of the other LLMs that are out there and how much they've improved, that's why I think we're seeing such a spike right now, because there's just more attention that organizations are paying towards AI and what it can do.
And when you start to hear the capabilities of what a voice assistant can actually do, you're just naturally inclined to say, hey, well, what can this do for my business?
And within the restaurant space, because they had the problem, an immediate problem that needed to be solved, it's easy to see why they were leaning into it so much.
Yeah.And, you know, uh, I'm, I'm a big Google home.I guess I love my own home tech setup.Right.And I have Google kind of operates everything and which sucks because of the power goes out.
I feel like a caveman, but, um, you know, it's one of those things where I find that for kind of my, my very generic tasks, like, Hey, turn on the lights, set up this, uh, the thing, open the door, close the blinds, open the blinds.It's great.
But sometimes when I'm asking for very, if I'm asking for something fairly specific, That's where it loses me or have to repeat myself or it says the wrong thing.
Um, you know, and, and I can only imagine in the restaurant space where the specificity around orders can get quite complex.So, you know, I'd love to dive into some of the challenges that you're seeing.I mean, you, you're living it.
And I think some people may have, you know, they think, Hey, voice.Yeah, it's going to work perfectly.Right.Because, you know, we see it in our day to day, but talk about some of the challenges that are there that you're trying to solve.
And, and, you know, some of the others in the space are trying to solve on a daily basis.
Yeah.Great question.And you, you brought up a good example there where. Early days of Google Home and Amazon Alexa, that's the common experience that we all had when it comes to interacting with a voice assistant.
And just like you said, things like turning on and off the lights or opening the blinds or closing the blinds, that works well.But it works really well because we've all been trained in terms of how to interact with it.
You know that you say, turn on the lights or turn off the lights or turn on whatever label you've given for that specific device.Now, it's getting better now, but in the early days, if you said something like, hey, it's dark in here,
it wouldn't really understand it.And now it's getting better where it kind of understands.Some of the same challenges, we were facing that with the restaurant space in the early days too.
Because you have to be able to understand the true meaning of what a person is trying to do.When they're trying to order food,
There's so many ways that people are going to try to order a pizza, order a burger, not even just in terms of what they call the item, but how they specify how they want the modifiers or the options.
It's literally the sky's the limit in terms of what people might say.And that's just problem number one, the fact that you're in a situation where in your home, if you're speaking to a device,
It's in a closed environment, it's quiet, it's got a direct line of sight to it.If you're on the phone or if you're at a drive-through or at a kiosk, there's all kinds of noise that you're dealing with.The audio quality on the phone, it's terrible.
There's a lot that has to be worked through in order to make that experience a good one.
And I think, uh, the one question I think I ask all the time, or I think people ask her like, Hey, voice AI for drive-through, but to your point, there are so many variables from, you know, if you have your music on your radio, if your car's loud, if you're.
If you're in a place where it's raining or it's snowing, or if you're too far from the mic, there's all these things.
Cause even, I mean, I know my experience, even with, if there's somebody on the other side of that drive-through, you still have a problem, right?Like their sound is muffled.Mine is muffled.Someone in the back is trying to yell their order out.
I'm like, Hey, just yell through the window and all these things.So I can only imagine the complexity and then people just get frustrated.
And again, I think what we're seeing now too, is we're so used to speed of delivery, but at all these errors, I'm sure then that's what gets people frustrated at a kiosk or at a drive-through.
Exactly.You brought up a good point too, just about being able to understand the context of the scenario.
The fact that there might be four people in the same room, I might be on the phone placing an order and someone's yelling what they want in the background, and I'm telling them to shut up so that I can hear
And there's just so much that the assistant has to be able to cut through and truly understand to make that ordering experience a good one.So it's definitely, in the world of voice AI, taking orders is probably the most complex problem to solve.
There are other situations where you can handle that very, very effectively with ordering food.It's the biggest challenge for sure.
So you talk about that as the biggest challenge, you know, what are you seeing now is like the very product applications where it's working really well.
Yeah.So just as an example, what we do at Voiceify is, We try not to just let generative AI kind of control the conversation and try to just learn the menu on its own and just tune and tune and tune.
We take a different approach where we can create rules around the menu. and let generative AI help us in those situations where we're trying to figure out who's speaking, or did they really want this specific item over that item?
And that's the place where generative AI makes a lot of sense to help, but then leverage the menu as a way to adhere to the specific rules of what the restaurant is going to allow.
So, I mean, you mentioned giving us like, I'd love to hear an example specifically about what that would be like.
Yeah, so great example.So we have a customer, they're a breakfast concept out in California with around 30 or so locations. With their menu items, there are so many different options.Some are required, some are not required.
Some may have a default option.So let's say I'm ordering a breakfast that comes with eggs and has a choice of a side of toast, and you get to choose a drink.
Now, if you are just going to just give a large language model, the menu, and to tell it to figure out what to prompt and what not to prompt. It might do fairly well, but it may not be 100% accurate.
So there may be some times where it prompts right and sometimes where it doesn't.And so that's a situation for us that's unacceptable.
We need it to know that that breakfast item, you have to choose your choice of eggs, how your eggs are going to be done, and you have to choose a choice of side.
and know that it will 100% always make that prompt if the customer doesn't specify it up front.
Got it.Got it.Interesting.Yeah. I mean, the breakfast menu can be pretty complex too, right?Cause there's so many different ways you can get your eggs done and the sides and the toast and the jams and this and that.So exactly.Yeah.
And we, we learned about how, how many different ways someone can order their eggs is just, it's incredible.
Yeah.That's, uh, um, that's fine.I, I, I played basketball at my university and, you know, a lot of the road trips, breakfast was a big meal and.
a team of 15 guys, I would see that like everyone gets their eggs 15 different ways in some very odd ways.So are there specific types of concepts that
uh, it kind of works better for, and the other others that are just too complex right now, or is this the use case that you have right now, solve it for most of them?
Yeah.Great question.We, we aim to solve most types of cuisine and one of the places where it's been said is the biggest challenge is with pizza.
Yeah, because when you order a pizza, you can order it, you know, not only just when you're referring to the pizza, you can order it in so many different ways.Yeah.But you can do it in halves or in quarters.
Or, you know, can you do this half with original crust and this half deep dish? That is one of the more complex of the cuisine types.
But because of the way, like I was talking about before, where we're making sure that we're adhering to the rules of the menu, we have better consistency over the ability to understand all of those different options.
Just that's one of the goals that we have is Let's, let's make sure that we understand the menu.Let's make sure that the, the assistant will adhere to the rules of the menu all the time.
Got it.Got it.No, that's, that's super interesting.And, you know, uh, I know the other piece of what you do really well is on the answering side, which I think, uh, would love for you to dive into that topic.
Cause I think that's something you talk about labor being expensive, right?Do you dedicate someone to just answer the phone?Probably not, you know, um, And talk about how you've been able to help restaurants with your answering product.
Yeah.So like I was saying, just the ability for staff to answer the phone is a clear issue in the industry.And we have a couple of products that are tailored to the restaurant sector. The first product is what we call AI answering.
This is the ability for a customer to be up and running in a matter of a day or so, where the assistant can answer the phone, answer questions.If the customer is asking to place an order for this specific product,
They can either transfer to speak to someone in the restaurant for those that are more comfortable doing that or get a text message to place their order online.
That type of service or that product has helped our customers in cases where they're just losing orders because the phone's not being answered.
And we watched and we looked at the analytics with our customers to see in those cases, are your online orders going up?And the online orders are going up.
So basically, it's alleviating the strain on the phone, pushing it to the digital channels for those customers that are comfortable doing that.The other is that, they're getting insight and analytics about what's happening on the phone.
Most franchises do not know what people are calling for, or they have an idea of what people are calling for, but they don't have our data on it.And we can give in real time, hard data that says, hey, you know what?
50% of the people that are calling are trying to place an order.20% are asking about the hours, and then 10% are asking about this and that.And they can start to make some decisions based off of that.
We have one customer that they're like a virtual restaurant and they were not taking any orders over the phone.And it wasn't until they had Voiceify in place and they were able to see how many people were calling to place an order.
via phone and they don't take orders over the phone that they decided, hey, we need to start taking orders over the phone because we're probably losing business.
So it was just digital channels only.They were kind of ignoring the phone, but then they open up the phone and we're able to open up a lot more revenue.
Right.Yeah.Interesting.I guess.Yeah.
I mean, there's times where I call into the restaurant, uh, you know, sometimes you want to make a reservation or you just want to find out the hours, or if you want to talk about a specific event or sometimes to order, cause you're like, Hey, I have a, you know, I have a question about the menu.
Maybe it's a little something unique.I need to ask.So I just want to call in and unless, you know, if it's like a tried and true restaurant, I'm ordering from the same place over and over again.It's like, yeah, boom, done easy.Right.
But sometimes it's a bit more. if it's a newer place or if I want to try a new item on it, some questions about it, definitely.Now, I'd love to take a step back here and talk about voice AI in general.There's so much going on.
It's progressing pretty quickly.What excites you the most about where this can go and some of the stuff that you're working on in the mid to long term?
Yeah.I'm excited about the direction where Number one, voice AI in the restaurant space, it's going to continue to do a better job of just understanding some of the sentiment of a customer or if they're
asking some might seem like esoteric questions, being able to understand that and to keep it into context with what they're trying to order.That's something where we're getting better and better at this, and I know others are working at that too.
The other place, and this is something that we're working on as well, is making that customer experience better because of the fact that you have AI behind the scenes.Knowing that when I call in, that yeah, I'm a loyalty rewards member.
I have so many points available to me and I can take advantage of this particular reward or being able to just do a quick reorder just based off of the fact that you know who I am.You already know where I like to have my food delivered.Why ask me?
These are all things that will actually make it in many ways faster and more efficient than a human picking up the phone and saying, oh, let me look you up and figure out what you have available or where do you want this delivered?
No, we already have that.So that's an area where I see a lot of progress being made.
Yeah.And that's an interesting one.I mean, obviously being on the loyalty side here, we get that asked a lot, right?Like, hey, how can we identify loyalty members? At, uh, on the drive-thru side, right.
Drive-thru is a big example there where you don't want to slow down your time, but people saying their phone number, they need to repeat the phone or make sure it's correct.Um, you know, I've seen people that kind of.
Theories on how you could like add like facial recognition to it.So then that's a quick way, but then there's this trickiness around that, uh, license plate stuff.But then what if you're driving someone else's car?
What if there's multiple people in the car? It's like an ever-evolving Rubik's Cube that we're all trying to solve together.
I want to touch on that piece because I've heard it come up from just more kind of in theory, but what are your thoughts on that?
The voice AI, but kind of being teamed up with some sort of facial recognition or visual component, so then you can kind of tie a guest or recognize a guest a little bit easier through the facial side.
Is there a legality thing there where it doesn't work?
Well, from a technical perspective, 100% doable, you know, and being able to create that connection to a customer and then provide personalized results. how comfortable customers will be knowing that this is happening.
I don't know if the average consumer is there yet.And I think that it's going to change over time because we're all now getting accustomed to going to the airport.
Every time you go to the airport, they're taking your picture and doing facial recognition.This is just the way of the world today.So as time goes by and people are more comfortable with it, I think that we're going to start seeing it more and more.
But the technology, the technology is there to be able to do it.It's going to be more around the rules of how it's used.
Yeah.Yeah.Cause I know, uh, I know in places like Japan, they've, they've had this stuff for a while, a lot of facial recognition stuff.
And, uh, it's just trying to see like, you know, I know as it starts for people over here, what that's going to look like.Uh, another topic that I've, I've heard, you know, folks talk about is, you know, kiosks are becoming huge now.
Um, you know, I spent some time in Europe this summer, I think. Most fast food joints there had the bigger chains like the McDonald's in the world had like kiosks.
So like when you walk in, you're you're kind of forced to use the kiosk before you make your way to the counter.
Do you see voice AI becoming big on the kiosk side or do you see that still being a very like, you know, kind of someone's going to use their hands to work or do you see voice AI becoming prominent on the kiosk side as well?
I see it where It will be a big thing as long as the voice AI is working in conjunction with the screen.Because if I start talking to the kiosk, I want to see that what I'm ordering is taking effect on the screen.And I would want to be able to
Maybe I'm in the middle of an order and I've spoken a portion of my order, but then I see something and I want to be able to touch that and then for the voice AI to understand that as well.
I think that when the combination of the two really starts to take hold, that's when you're gonna see it more and more within the kiosk.
There is a technical problem that a lot of folks are trying to solve, us included, just around the voice isolation in a kiosk environment where the kiosks are six feet apart or three feet apart from one another.
and being able to know that I'm the one placing this order, not the guy behind me, and making sure that there's accuracy there.
That's another thing that once those issues are solved, I think you're going to see it much more and more in the kiosk environment.
Got it.And then, yeah, it's going to be exciting to see how that, you know, comes to fruition.And, you know, I'm sure I'm a big gamer, right?So I'm sure that's in the gaming world, there's a lot of like VR, AR.
And I think at some point, voice also become a part of it, where you can almost interact.You know, I mean, they have that from a heads-up perspective, but in terms of like interacting with the game, I think that's going to be really cool.You know,
Is Voiceify, does it have a specific focus on restaurants or do you look at any other periphery industries outside of restaurants?
Yeah, so we have a long history.In the voice AI world, we've been around, probably we're one of the early ones.
We started in, I think it was late 2018, we started focusing on Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, different voice assistants that were out there.
And it wasn't until maybe a few years ago that we transitioned it with a focus on the restaurant hospitality space, specifically trying to solve the telephony issues that we were talking about earlier.
Because of our history, we have customers in other verticals and we also have use cases in those verticals.As an example, we're in healthcare, we're also in hospitality, hotels as a way to, again, solve issues via telephony where it's a channel that
I think a lot of folks have tried to say, you know what, this is an analog channel.I'm not going to really be able to get data out of this.
But we're modernizing that channel because people are still picking up the phone, whether it's that you're in the car, or there's no opportunity for you to pick up the phone and open up an app, or you're just accustomed to it.
There are a lot of folks that are just accustomed to placing their average order on a Friday afternoon.
Yeah.It's funny you mentioned that.I was having this chat with another guest about how the tech, not in this space, but I think in any space now, you have to appeal to such a broad generational uh, gap of folks, right?
Like you have the folks to your point that, you know, are just so accustomed to phones, sorry, to picking up the phone and calling not so much in the app side.
Then you have like the youngest generation that that's all they want is just, they don't want any interactions, just like click, click, click and go.
Um, but you know, the reason I'd ask that was how does the restaurant industry stack up from the utilization of voice versus other industries that you you're involved with or just, you've seen just being in the field?
Yeah, you know, I will say that the restaurant industry is somewhat on the forefront.And the reason is that they were really trying to solve a serious business problem that was affecting their bottom line.
And because of that, they're trying things that some of the other verticals are just starting to do.Like I said, we're working within healthcare, one of the slowest moving verticals in the world.
So there are a lot of aspirations to leverage voice AI capabilities are there.It just takes a longer time for them to adopt and roll out some of these products.
So I would say that the restaurant space is pushing innovation, doing things with voice AI that some of the other verticals are
They're doing it, but they're not taking it as, I shouldn't say not taking it as seriously, but they're not pushing it as hard as the restaurant industry.
Yeah.Yeah.No, that's, uh, it's good to hear.Cause I think for sure with the labor issues that, uh, and then the pandemic obviously forced a lot of the restaurant industry into tech.
Cause I think even before that, a lot of, you know, surprisingly, a lot of big brands were able to get away with having a fairly archaic way of doing things.
But, you know, now with the way things are, that pushes, we're seeing it, you know, and to see, you know, we both saw it right at, at FS tech, you know, to see all the kind of. AI, ML, voice AI, right?
And in this space, it's exciting because I think it's all going to help.And I'm excited to see kind of what the next few years look like.
And I kind of want to ask you this, and you can't obviously answer voice AI because you're in this space, but what other tech are you seeing that excites you in this industry that you're going to see really come in full steam over the next couple of years?
Yeah, so I won't say voice AI, obviously, because I'm not allowed, but I will say AI in other areas outside of voice.
And it's going to be AI that is used discreetly to either help to make decisions or to uncover information because there's just so much data there that traditional data mining techniques won't work.So I do believe that, you know,
kind of championing the same thing that you're probably hearing a lot, that AI is making a big difference.
It is obviously making a big difference in what we're doing on the voice side, but I think you're going to be seeing it make a big difference in the operation side of things in terms of how their staff is actually operating within the restaurant, in the kitchen.
Those are places where AI used discreetly And I use that word carefully.I think we'll make a big difference.
Yeah.Yeah.And we're seeing a lot of really, really cool stuff in that space.And again, I think we're still in such the early stages of what AI can do.
And actually, what I thought about while you were talking about some of this stuff is a lot of these AI models are based on kind of machine learning, right?So like a database and continue to learn.
How have you trained your models to respond to the complexity of some of the things you can get asked when placing an order over the phone?
Yeah, so some of it is just based off of our models are trained on restaurant scenarios, the certain types of questions that people might ask.
And we actually try to put some fences around it so that if someone's asking about something that is just completely out of the bounds, we can allow our assistant to give a friendly response. we're going to try to get you back on track.
It goes back to what I was talking about before, where we're not just going to give a model a bunch of information about the restaurant and the menu and say, go have at it.We like to try to still keep it on the rails to make sure that
We're not allowing it to learn on its own to figure out some answer to a question that is actually just wrong.
We wanna make sure that if a question is asked that is out of the bounds, we've captured that, and then we're able to act upon that, whether it's leveraging other models to help us to inform what the answer should be, but not allowing the assistant to just come up with the answer on its own.
Got it.So there's like levels of redundancies in there just to keep everything honest.So then it's just, it's not just, you know, kind of learning off the wrong things.
Exactly.And especially with some of the other verticals that we work within, um, they're, they're highly regulated. You just cannot have an assistant coming up with some answer that's wrong.It's just game over at that point.
We take that same approach even in the restaurant space where it's not as highly regulated, but we wanna make sure that the franchises and the brands, that they know that they've actually got control over the AI.
It's not just this black box where all this magic happens and you don't know how it works and hopefully it comes up with the response you want.
Yeah.Yeah.No, it's, it's, uh, I mean, what y'all do is, is super exciting.And I think it's, uh, you've shared a lot of really, really cool stuff on this.I really appreciate you jumping on.Cause I think, you know, I can't imagine.
living in my house without my Google assistance.It's crazy because it gets to a point now where if my wife and I are traveling, if I'm traveling, sometimes I'll catch myself in a hotel and be like, okay, Google, turn the lights off.
And it's like, oh crap, now my thing's going to hear me. I find that interesting.I'm like now looking for the switch and it's just, you know, it's, it's crazy to think this, this is the kind of world we live in and what we get used to.
Um, but I also think it's, it's, it's the, the applications for it. Not just in, I mean, for sure in restaurant and hospitality, cause they need it a lot, but just in our general day to day in our life is becoming crazy.
Cause I mean, even look at cars now, it's almost like a standard in cards now, like, Hey, call this, call that back in the day.That was never a thing.And if it was, it was terrible.
And then we used to work, but just to see that application so much more now, I think is super exciting.And I think the next few years is going to be really cool.
Yeah, there's bright futures ahead for voice AI for sure.And like you said, you can't imagine a day where you're not speaking to a device or speaking to an assistant.And what we're doing right now is
trying to make it so that when people are calling in and they're speaking to an assistant, that it feels like they're talking to a person.
And like we were talking about before, incorporating things like their loyalty and the rewards so that they're getting a better experience or it feels better than if they were talking to a person.
Now they're always going to be, they're going to be some times where they need to speak to a person and we allow that.
But, you know, for the most part, let people have a great experience with an assistant that sounds good, feels natural, and they can get what they need.
Yeah.Yeah.I think, uh, I've been to a few hotels now that I have that, and it's been pretty seamless, right?Like, Hey, I need, I'm missing this.Okay.Can you get this?And it's done pretty quickly.
And to the hotel's benefit, they don't necessarily have to have someone. sitting at the phone, trying to answer those things.It can be escalated if it needs to that way.It's way less of a use case.So, uh, Nate, I want to thank you again.
You, you shared a lot of really, really cool stuff here.What we typically wrap up the show with is a lightning round.So I'm just going to rip off a few questions for you.
And, uh, and the first thing that comes to mind, and I'm trying to keep going to try and keep this relevant as I can.So, uh, what do you prefer?Um, Google or Alexa from an assistant perspective, like what's your setup?
I have Alexa throughout my house, just not in this room.So that way it didn't light up, but yeah.
Why'd you choose the Alexa route versus the Google route?
Yeah, because it was first and I was an early adopter and they got me into the ecosystem.
Yeah, that's the thing, right?Once they get you in, it's, it's, it's tough to have one that's like outside of it, but, but now we're seeing a lot of them kind of will be compatible with both.Like a lot of devices are compatible with both.
Yeah.And I have Google Home devices in the house as well.So there are times where I'll use the Google devices, but for the most part, I'm using my Alexa devices for a lot in the house.
So I'm probably one of those rare guys that has both in the house, but I've got more Alexa devices just because it started sooner.
Interesting.Very interesting.What CD are you based out of? based out of Boston.You're Boston.That's right.So what's your favorite restaurant in Boston and your favorite dish of that restaurant?
Um, okay.So I I'm kind of old school and there's a restaurant called the barking crab.It's not the greatest food.It's a seafood, but you're right on the water.It's basically under a big tent outside and I've had some great times there.
And, uh, probably I think that place is where my wife fell in love with me.So I have to say that one.
So there you go.Yeah.I can't go wrong with that. Are you a drinker?Do you drink?
Yeah.What's your favorite beer, your current favorite beer right now?
I'm boring, so I'm a Corona drinker.Oh, there you go.I drink Corona until it starts getting cold, and then I switch over to Sam Adams.
Awesome.Um, well, Nick, I want to thank you again, uh, so much, uh, for joining.I mean, you shared a lot of really cool stuff.
I'm sure we could have, you know, dove a lot deeper and, and, and had, you know, a lot more time chatting with a lot of this stuff.
Um, are there any last parting words you have to just, and before we jumped on the call, you talk about, you know, there needs to be a little bit of a demystification of voice AI, right?There's sometimes.
maybe a two surface of understanding what it is.And if you had to share with the audience kind of like your general sentiment on what it is and what it's going to be, what would that be?
Yeah.The, the concept of just demystifying the voice AI, it's important because there are There are a lot of demos and solutions that are out there that sound great, but you got to make sure that you understand how it actually works.
Once it's operational, how How does it work when your menu's changing?Or how does it work if it gets something wrong and then needs to be corrected?How do you make changes to the responses?
There's some real work that can be involved to make those things happen if you're just purely relying on generative AI.
So my point about demystifying voice AI is that it's not just this process of feed it a bunch of data and train and tune it and then hope that it gets right.
We've taken a different approach to try to make it so that our customers actually understands how the AI works and that they're able to have control over the AI.It's a concept that
It can be difficult for people to understand, but we try to show them in our interface, like, these are the things that you can control and this is how it works.
And it starts to make things a little bit more clear for our customers as it pertains to voice AI.
Yeah.And, you know, I love what you shared there.And I guess a follow-up question I had from that was, you know, with a lot of the customers that you talked to today, how much of it for them is this, Hey, this is a very exploratory thing.
I'm trying to learn from, you know, my knowledge is scratch.I'm trying to learn it versus other people are like, Hey, I know a lot about this.And it's a much more detailed kind of like walkthrough of what you do compared to others.
Yeah, I could say this even coming out of FS tech, where we were at FS tech, I think we were there last year or maybe the year before.And the conversations are totally different.The people that we're talking to are much more educated about voice AI.
They're not in a situation of Hey, I'm just trying to learn like, how does this stuff work?It is.
I'm, I know that I'm doing this, I'm doing this in this quarter and I need to just make a choice in terms of which, which provider I'm going to work with.
Uh, so it's a completely different place where we were, you know, in this industry, even from a year ago.
Yeah, that's cool.And would you say there are specific brands that have set the gold standard and how they use voice AI today?
It's across the board, to be totally frank with you, that there are brands that are out there that have claims in terms of how many locations are actually using it.I'm not really sure if that is actually the case.
And there are claims of brands that are using voice AI, and it sounds perfect. We've also heard and seen situations where it's not perfect.
I can't say that there's anyone out there right now setting the standard in terms of the best brand that is out there.
It is still early stages and I think that there's opportunity out there to help set that standard and things are definitely getting better, but the standard isn't there yet.
Awesome.So big blue ocean opportunity, which is exciting for you and the team.I'm sure.
Absolutely.Yeah.We're, we're chasing it hard.
Yeah.Love it.Well, uh, Nick, I've been able to see some of this stuff firsthand and you know, we're, we're happy to be partnering with y'all and y'all are doing some really, really cool stuff there.
So, uh, you know, everyone that's tuned in, I mean, this is a space that everyone is super excited about, and I think we're going to see it more and more, um, you know, uh, in practical applications in, in the hospitality side, but also just, I think.
enhancements just in our own personal life.So excited to see Nick.I want to thank you again for jumping on.If folks want to get in touch with you to chat, what's the best way for them to get ahold of you?
Yeah, if you want to speak with me directly, you can just email me at nlaidlaw at voicify.com.You can also look out for me on X and send me a message or on LinkedIn, send me a message.You can find me by my full name, Nick Laidlaw.
And if you're just interested in learning more about Voicify, just reach out to sales at voicify.com and someone's going to get back to you immediately.
Love it.Well, uh, Nick, this was a lot of fun.I learned a lot, which is great.And again, this is like the, the hot topic and you're right in the center of it.So that must be super exciting for y'all.
So, uh, excited to see, you know, kind of all the cool things that you're, you're going to be launching and the way you're going to be changing the industry.And I think the industry needs it.So.
Thank you for everything that you do for those listening.Uh, Nick and I are real people.This is not a, I generated a podcast.Uh, for those of you watching, you'll see it.
Um, but I want to thank everyone for tuning in and hopefully you learned something today.I know I did again, reach out to Nick.If you have any further questions, reach out to me.
If you want to get on the podcast or chat more, um, this was another episode of data delicacies.I'm your host for Rune.Nick, thank you again for joining.Uh, and until next time, peace.Thank you.
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