Emerson Sklar is the Chief Evangelist at Bespoken, a company with a popular toolkit for testing and monitoring voice apps. We start by unpacking the fundamentals of testing and the various types, from unit and end-to-end testing to continuous and usability performance testing. Emerson talks us through the product features of Bespoken and how it works. We discover the surprising fact that their system uses text-to-speech to generate audio, which is then fed to a virtual Alexa on the servers to generate a response. They are thus able to modify the input in order to measure what effect that has on the output.

Bespoken.io has developed a Test Robot that performs analog tests on voice-based hardware and software, mimicking human testing. The new robot extends Bespoken's voice testing beyond voice apps in a way that's necessary as voice technology companies and their ideas proliferate. Bespoken is best known for its virtual diagnostic tool, which is used by thousands of developers on most voice platforms to test, troubleshoot, and monitor voice apps for problems. The Test Robot goes beyond that function and into the realm of hardware by essentially recreating the way humans talk to voice apps, as can be seen in the test video at the top. The device can handle voice apps built on custom voice platforms as well as existing ones like those created by Amazon, Google, Apple, and Samsung.