in 2018 I gave this talk on how I thought conversational assistants would evolve.
It’s great to see that 7 years on the direction of travel is largely validated. Say It Now has always been ahead of the market and we’re excited to see our vision coming into sharp focus.
Lets dive into the fundamentals that remain as true today as they ever have been:
Slide 3 – Talking technology has always been cool. This was in the dashboard of my mum’s Austin Maestro
Slides 4,5&6 – It has been obvious for a very long time that when the technology catches up the most natural interface between human and computer is voice.
Slide 7 – Nope, Say It Now just focuses on Voice/AI Assistants now
Slide 9 – Big Tech is the driver for consumer adoption. I did think this would have been driven faster but in retrospect the technology to gain human/machine parity for voice only really arrived last year. This arms race is really hotting up with Amazon‘s #Alexa+ launch and Google‘s #gemini front and centre.
Slide 10 – This is the path for 3rd party apps / services on Voice/AI Assistants
Slide 11-13 – This is the 3 step process brands need to go on to make the most of conversational engagement
Slide 14 – How the ecosystem develops. Amazon’s recent Alexa+ upgrade and the announcement of AI Native SDK’s for Alexa+ talks exactly to this layer and the need for technology providers like Say It Now to integrate this
Slide 15 – A running theme but this is all about TRUST
Slide 16 – We’re seeing this happen now with Gartner predicting search volume dropping by 25% by 2026 as trust in Assistants rises they become the ‘goto’ information source.
Slide 19-21 – We decided to focus just on voice after winning ‘The Alexa Cup’
Slide 23 – We were a little out here. I do believe that the Alexa+ announcement is as important for AI/Voice Assistants as the iPhone & App store launch was for smartphones (I wrote up thoughts on this here)
Slide 25&26 – There are very few AI/Voice Assistant experts today but this will be an increasingly important channel there will be way more in the future. Those who get in now will quickly become the most experienced in the field. The best path to rapid progress is to work together. The future is bright.
I hope you can agree with me our core vision has stayed firm, this is a very exciting moment for Say It Now.
I’m half way through an article on Agentic Advertising which I’ll post on Thursday.
Stay tuned!
Charles Cadbury 