Conversation as an interface is the best way for machines to interact with us using the universally accepted human tool that is language. Chatbots and voice user interfaces are two flavors of conversational UIs. Chatbots are real-time, data-driven answer engines that talk in natural language and are context-aware. Voice user interfaces are driven by voice and can understand and respond to users using speech. This book covers both types of conversational UIs by leveraging APIs from multiple platforms.

A voice user interface, or VUI (pronounced VOO-hee), is described as a technology that allows people to interact with a computer or device using spoken commands. VUI technology is evolving much faster than its predecessors (think keyboards, mice and touchscreens). It's estimated that 94 million people own a smart speaker in the U.S. alone, and anyone who has used a mobile phone or TV remote in the last five years knows stand alone smart speakers aren't the only place where voice user interfaces are prevalent. A lot of this growth can be attributed to the technology itself. The artificial intelligence that powers the natural language understanding (NLU) behind the voice-powered experiences of giants like Apple, Amazon and Google is nothing short of amazing, but it's not just the remarkable technology that is driving the growth. Consider that we as human beings have been using spoken language for no less than 200,000 years (by most accounts).

It starts with voice to text. Speech recognition is historically hard for machines but easy for people and is an important goal of AI. As a person speaks into a microphone, sound vibrations are converted to an audio signal. This signal can be sampled at some rate and those samples converted into vectors of component frequencies. These vectors represent features of sound in a data set, so this step can be thought of as feature extraction.

Machine Learning concept such as Train Test Split, Machine Learning Models, Model Evaluation are also covered.

Aimesoft, a global leader in Multimodal AI products and solutions, has released AimeReception, an artificial intelligence receptionist software capable of touch screen and voice user interfaces. AimeReception defines a new reception style for offices, buildings, and facilities. Installed at the front desks or entrance lobbies, the virtual AI receptionist appears as a photorealistic avatar, which can understand what visitors say and reply verbally as if the visitor is talking to an actual human receptionist. It is available for customers 24/7. The AI creates the avatar from any photo with rich facial expressions.

While voice-based digital assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri and Google Assistant are becoming increasingly common at home – and smartphones and wearables can be used handsfree via speech – the use of voice in the workplace is just getting started. That's likely to change in 2020 and beyond. More efficient employees, "smarter" voice-based assistants, easier ways of completing routine tasks and a digital experience in the office that matches what's used at home. A survey by 451 Research in 2019 indicated that voice UIs and digital assistants are among the most disruptive technologies for enterprises (IoT and AI are the top two), with four in 10 respondents planning to adopt voice technology within 24 months. "I expect 2020 will be the year when voice user interfaces will become prevalent in the workplace," said Raúl Castañón-Martínez, a senior analyst at 451 Research.

Our voices are diverse, complex, and variable. Voice commands are even more daunting to process -- even between people, let alone computers. The way we frame our thoughts, the way we culturally communicate, the way we use slang and infer meaning… all of these nuances influence the interpretation and comprehensibility of our words. So, how are designers and engineers tackling this challenge? This is where VUIs come into play.

Wikipedia says Alexa is an intelligent personal assistant developed by Amazon, initially utilized in the Amazon Echo and later the Amazon Echo Dot devices developed by Amazon Lab126.

Deep inside the Googleplex, a small group of writers is huddling around a whiteboard that is plastered with ideas. These read like notes-to-self that Jack Skellington might've made: "Halloween survival kit," "How to defeat monsters." "People did not like'smell my feet' last year," he says, laughing. "It was trick or treat, and one response was'smell my feet.' Germick has spent the afternoon bouncing between brainstorming meetings like this one, in which Googlers debate life's big questions, like whether the sound of a bubbling cauldron or distant howling is spookier. All of which is part of his job as principal personality designer for Google Assistant, the company's voice-activated helper found on a wide range of smartphones and its Home smart speaker, which first went on sale last fall. It's August, but Germick's team is grappling with what users might ask Google on Halloween and why. Or will they want to hear a seasonally appropriate joke?

An IPO legitimize TPaaS (Telco Platform as a Service.) Huge firms seek to corner "Big Data in the Cloud." Start-ups take command of "The Internet of Things." These highly-ambiguous terms have replaced "Mobile", "Social" and "Collaboration" in the word clouds of the Digital Age. They are shiny objects with great growth potential and transformative power.