Voice Technology Trends in Customer Service

 Is This the Future of Human-AI Interaction? Sesame's "Voice Presence" is Astonishing. Have you ever truly felt like you were having a conversation with an AI? Sesame, founded by Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, is pushing the boundaries of AI voice technology with its Conversational Speech Model (CSM). The results are striking. As The Verge's Sean Hollister noted, it's "the first voice assistant I've ever wanted to talk to more than once." Why? Because Sesame focuses on "voice presence," creating spoken interactions that feel genuinely real and understood. What's the potential impact for businesses? Enhanced Customer Service: Imagine AI assistants that can handle complex inquiries with empathy and natural conversation flow. Improved Accessibility: More natural voice interfaces can make technology accessible to more users. Revolutionized Content Creation: Voice models like Maya and Miles could open up new audio and video content possibilities. Training and Education: Interactive AI tutors could provide personalized and engaging learning experiences. The most impressive part? In blind listening tests, humans often couldn't distinguish Sesame's AI from real human recordings. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #VoiceTechnology #Innovation #FutureofWork #CustomerExperience #MachineLearning #SesameAI

While everyone's talking about the ‘death of voice channels’, something more interesting is happening: they're transforming in ways many aren't noticing. Voice isn't dying – it's evolving. Yes, customer expectations are evolving across all demographics. And yes, younger consumers often prefer non-human interaction. But here's what the ‘experts’ get wrong: human interaction isn't disappearing – it's becoming more strategic. Traditional IVRs (press 1 for this, press 2 for that) are being replaced by intelligent voice bots powered by conversational AI. But here's what's interesting: When given clear options, customers are increasingly willing to engage with these AI voice solutions rather than wait an hour for a live agent. Instead of forcing customers down one path, what if we said: "We can have an agent available in about an hour, or you can engage with our AI assistant now who can help with most issues. What works better for you?" The reality is that voice will always have its place in customer service because: • Many customers still prefer speaking to typing • Complex issues often require real-time dialogue • Some matters are too sensitive for text-based channels It’s not about replacing voice – it's about enhancing it. Making it smarter. More efficient. More accessible. The phone channel isn't going anywhere. But the way we use it? That's what’s evolving.

A new generation of customer-service voice bots is here, spurred by advances in artificial intelligence and a flood of cash, Belle L. reports. Insurance marketplace eHealth, Inc. uses AI voice agents to handle its initial screening for potential customers when its human staff can’t keep up with call volume, as well as after hours. The company slowly became more comfortable with using AI voice agents as the underlying technology improved, said Ketan Babaria, chief digital officer at eHealth. “Suddenly, we noticed these agents become very humanlike,” Babaria said. “It’s getting to a point where our customers are not able to differentiate between the two.” The transition is happening faster than many expected. “You have AI voice agents that you can interrupt, that proactively make logical suggestions, and there’s very little or no latency in the conversation. That’s a change that I thought was going to happen a year and a half or two years from now,” said Tom Coshow, an analyst at market research and information-technology consulting firm Gartner. Venture capital investment in voice AI startups increased from $315 million in 2022 to $2.1 billion in 2024, according to data from CB Insights. Some leading AI models for voice applications come from AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, startup founders and venture capitalists say, as well as smaller players like Deepgram and Assembly AI, which have improved their speech-to-text or text-to-speech models over the past few years. For instance, OpenAI’s Whisper model is a dedicated speech-to-text model, and its GPT-4o model can interact with people by voice in real-time.

New research from MarktechPost reveals voice AI's significance in business strategy despite persistent challenges with current tech. While a remarkable 67% of businesses consider voice AI core to their product and business strategy, only 21% report being "very satisfied" with their current voice agent technology. This satisfaction gap is driving the next wave of development, with 84% of organisations planning to increase their voice tech budgets in the coming year. The research shows early adopters are moving quickly—15% of organisations are already actively developing advanced voice agents, with nearly all planning deployment within 12 months. As these more sophisticated systems reach the market, they promise to transform the customer experience beyond today's basic command-response implementations. Article: https://lnkd.in/d2jTwe4f #VoiceAI #AI #SpeechTechnology

Exciting times ahead for Gen AI/Agentic AI in Voice based Customer Support. While conversational bots/agents have made significant strides in handling non-voice interactions, a large part of customer support still relies on voice channels. Voice channels are harder to automate due to two reasons – 1) voice conversations are quite different from text conversations, with multi-turns and interruptions 2) Tech stack for handling voice has been multi-layered, creating latency and accuracy issues. Two significant developments are set to transform this space: 1.     Enhanced Voice Interaction: Traditional voice agents often struggled with latency and interruptions, leading to stilted conversations. New advancements like Realtime API are enabling voice AI agents to engage in more natural, fluid dialogues. (We are building Voice Agents into Wizr platform, so please reach out if there is interest to try out some of these capabilities) 2.     Machine Use by Anthropic (and hopefully from others soon): While the AI layer has the capability to answer, in a typical enterprise, information is sitting in multiple systems that need to be integrated, which is a herculean task in itself for any large enterprise. Recent launch by Anthropic of "machine use" opens up the possibility of combining the intelligence layer for customer interaction with the machine use capabilities. This can now automate a lot of customer support scenarios without painful process of system integrations. While these advancements are still maturing, we’re at the forefront of an exciting transformation in voice-driven customer support. Sirish Kosaraju Srinivas K Nitin Gupta

"Voice AI still feels too robotic for our customers." "That's exactly why we built Alltius differently." I heard this objection from three different financial services leaders last week. They're not wrong about most voice AI solutions. Traditional voice AI treats every interaction like keyword matching: Customer says "My card isn't working" → Play pre-recorded troubleshooting. That's not intelligence. That's expensive phone trees. At Alltius, we built something different. Our Voice AI doesn't just recognize words—it understands context, emotion, and intent. When a customer says "I'm traveling next week and worried about my card getting blocked," our AI: ✅ Understands they're proactively planning ✅Updates the profile immediately ✅Explains what to expect ✅Updates their preferences All in one natural conversation. This is empathic automation. Making AI think more human, not just sound more human. The result? → 89% customer satisfaction on voice interactions → 67% reduction in call times → Customers saying: "I forgot I was talking to AI." That's when you know you've solved the right problem. What other "robotic" experiences in financial services need this rethink? #AI #agent #voice #workflows #agentic

Hotels and other businesses are betting you can't tell the difference between a friendly human and an AI. Or, that you won't care. According to an article in the WSJ by Belle L., eHealth, an insurance marketplace, just revealed something fascinating: their customers can't distinguish between human agents and AI voice bots anymore! Beyond the technology, there's clever psychology, too: Here's what's happening in your brain: When you call a hotel or other business, your mind creates an instant mental model of who you're talking to. Voice tone, response patterns, conversational flow—your brain assembles these into a "person." But here's the surprise: Your brain doesn't care if that person is real. The "uncanny valley" we feared? It's disappearing faster than anyone predicted. Voice AI has leaped over the cognitive barrier where our brains reject artificial interaction. The business psychology is fascinating: Expectation anchoring: Once customers expect AI, satisfaction actually increases. Cognitive load reduction: AI agents never get tired, frustrated, or have bad days. They answer immediately and are never hard to understand. This eases communication and reduces cognitive load for the customer. Consistency preference: Perfect adherence to brand voice eliminates human variability and inconsistent experiences. Fertitta Entertainment (Golden Nugget, Landry's) learned something crucial: they don't let their AI stray from its predetermined knowledge. (No hallucinations!) They're leveraging our brain's preference for confident, consistent responses over creative improvisation. But here's the counterintuitive part: The companies succeeding AREN'T HIDING the AI, they're being transparent about it upfront. eHealth tells customers they're speaking with a "virtual agent" immediately. Why does this work? Cognitive consistency. When we know what we're dealing with, our brains stop looking for deception cues and start evaluating performance instead. The bigger question for leaders: In your industry, what customer interactions are you keeping human simply because "that's how it's always been done"? Or because you fear customers will react poorly? Voice AI investment jumped from $315M to $2.1B in just two years. The companies figuring out the psychology first will own the advantage. What's your experience with AI customer service? (The latest generation, not last year's useless chatbots!) Can you tell the difference anymore? #AI #CustomerExperience #BusinessPsychology #Leadership

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥: 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 📞 The phone is still your most important customer channel, and expectations are only getting higher. 🚨 As consumer patience wears thin, response times have never mattered more. Twilio’s Consumer Preferences Report reveals that while 𝟗𝟏% of customers expect brands to engage on their preferred channels, only about half of companies meet this expectation. A staggering 𝟖𝟔% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands offering real-time communication. And with 𝟔𝟓% of global customers frustrated by delays—and over half expecting a response within the hour—meeting these demands can feel like an uphill battle. This demand highlights a pivotal role for Voice-AI, particularly in phone support. Flip’s voice AI lets businesses capture every call seamlessly, ensuring each interaction is fast, responsive, and personal. Imagine scaling this level of service around the clock to ensure that every customer gets immediate assistance without long wait times, even during peak hours. Voice AI doesn’t just fill the gap; it elevates the customer experience to meet today’s real-time standards. The brands that succeed will be those embracing innovations like Voice-AI to create frictionless and responsive support on their most important channels. Is your brand prepared to meet customers on their terms? #CX #VoiceAI #customerservice Brian Schiff Shawn Li Kristina Keene Jake Mandelkorn Emma Sossamon