The Voice Data Gold Rush Is On, but Don’t Fall for Fools Gold

For as long as we’ve imagined “the future”, we’ve imagined computers that talk with humans. From the calm, ever-listening “Computer” in Star Trek to JARVIS in Iron Man, voice-enabled AI has been the centerpiece of sci-fi and a symbol of technological advancement.

Well, that future is now. And Voice AI is in the middle of a gold rush.

Voice AI interactions have evolved from clunky text-to-speech tools with voices that sound like robots to new conversational voice AI technology that resembles human speech so closely it’s eerie. We can talk to ChatGPT and get voice responses that feel thoughtful, funny, and authentic. Google’s AI Search can now talk to you while searching the web and answer questions like a well-briefed assistant. These voicebots don’t just talk, they converse; demonstrating that they actually understand what we’re saying while closely mimicking real spoken communication with pauses, inflection, emotion, context, and tone.