Podcasts about voiceflow

What if the most exciting AI agent innovation isn't happening in the enterprise, but in the mid-market?In this episode, we unpack Voiceflow's explosive growth, the shift from flowcharts to frameworks, and why success today isn't about having the smartest model, but about how you deploy it.We explore how to build reliable, production-grade agents, the rise of self-improving systems, and the emergence of agent-to-agent orchestration.And while mid-market companies are moving fast, Braden explains why enterprise adoption is inevitable, and what it'll take to reach that tipping point.Congratulations to Braden on making his fourth appearance on the VUX World podcast!This episode is brought to you by NLX.NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX's patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand's digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.Shownotes: Discover Voiceflow: https://www.voiceflow.com/Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeWSubscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimmsGet in touch with Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Willkommen im Podcast rund um die heißeste Technologie-Chance für Agenturinhaber: AI Agents.Egal ob du interne Prozesse automatisieren, dein Team entlasten oder neue, skalierbare Services anbieten willst – hier erfährst du, wie Agenturen mit AI Agents echte Durchbrüche schaffen.Ich zeige dir:Was AI Agents wirklich sind (und was nicht)Wie Top-Agenturen damit ganze Teams ersetzenWelche Tools du brauchst, um Agents ohne Code oder als Profi zu bauen (Lindy, Voiceflow, N8N, Make u.a.)Konkrete Use Cases, die du sofort intern oder als Service für Kunden nutzen kannst:Voice Agents für lokale UnternehmenSupport Agents für E-CommerceContent Agents für LinkedIn, E-Mail & AdsRecruiting Agents für skalierbare BewerberfunnelsAd-Creator Agents für PPC & Meta AdsIch arbeite mit Marktführern – und in diesem Podcast bekommst du die Strategien, Tools und Strukturen, mit denen sie ihre Agenturen zukunftssicher machen.Du willst weniger Mitarbeiter, mehr Automatisierung und skalierbare Services?Dann hör rein.// Alex

Live from the QCon San Francisco Conference, we are talking with Denys Linkov, Head of Machine Learning at Voiceflow. Linkov shares insights on using micro metrics to refine large language models (LLMs), highlighting the importance of granular evaluation, continuous iteration, and rigorous prompt engineering to create reliable and user-focused AI systems. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/49tOvt8 Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies: https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter Upcoming Events: QCon London (April 7-9, 2025) Discover new ideas and insights from senior practitioners driving change and innovation in software development. https://qconlondon.com/ InfoQ Dev Summit Boston (June 9-10, 2025) Actionable insights on today's critical dev priorities. devsummit.infoq.com/conference/boston2025 InfoQ Dev Summit Munich (Save the date - October 2025) QCon San Francisco 2025 (17-21, 2025) Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies. https://qconsf.com/ InfoQ Dev Summit New York (Save the date - December 2025) The InfoQ Podcasts: Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts: - The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/ - Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture - Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/ Follow InfoQ: - Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq - Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq - Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 - Instagram: @infoqdotcom - Youtube: www.youtube.com/infoq Write for InfoQ:Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development. - Join a community of ex perts. - Increase your visibility. - Grow your career. https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

In this episode of Agony Agent, Ben McCulloch welcomes conversation design experts Ilana Meir and Peter Isaacs to tackle pressing issues faced by conversation AI designers. Ilana, a freelance conversation designer with extensive experience in AR, VR, and healthcare, and Peter, a senior conversation design advocate at Voiceflow, share insights on improving bot interactions, overcoming organisational challenges, and leveraging large language models (LLMs).Key topics include how to navigate archaic systems when designing seamless user experiences, managing sentiment analysis in conversation design, and balancing the demands of impulsive sales teams with technical developers. They also discuss the impact of context switching for designers managing multiple brands and the challenges of fine-tuning LLMs for scalable AI solutions.This episode is a must-listen for anyone in the conversational AI industry, offering practical advice on how to combine technical and creative expertise to build better, more human-like interactions. Whether you're refining chatbots or introducing generative AI, you'll find valuable strategies to implement right away.00:00.0 Intro04:58.5 Creating beautiful interactions with archaic solutions11:05.2 Learn sentiment analysis and do emotionally sensitive conversation design17:19.6 Educating user to speak so the NLU understands21:17.1 Using LLMs for intent recognition22:54.1 Meaningful success metrics27:49.1 Advocating for a holistic view between competing stakeholders32:38.2 Balancing Gen AI obsession with its abilities37:30.0 How to build a chatbot that matches ChatGPT39:19.6 Preparation before building40:47.1 Think about frameworks where conversations will happen41:56.6 Finetuning LLMs44:33.6 Making people see value of CAI and experts46:17.6 Is chatgpt a good way to show what CAI can do?47:47.1 CXD for SaaS services with LLM solutions51:52.1 How to advocate for your role54:19.6 Context switching multiple brands in a services organisation as a manager58:24.6 How to go beyond information provided by client when training an assistant Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join Allen and Mark as they delve into Voiceflow's groundbreaking new feature: intent classification using a hybrid of LLMs and classic NLU models. Discover how this innovative approach leverages the strengths of both technologies to achieve greater accuracy and flexibility in understanding user intent. How they're doing it just may blow your mind!

Join us on Two Voice Devs as we chat with Xavi, Head of Cloud Infrastructure at Voiceflow, about the exciting new Voiceflow Functions feature and the future of conversational AI development. Xavi shares his journey into the world of bots and assistants, dives into the technology behind Voiceflow's infrastructure, and explains how functions empower developers to create custom, reusable components for their conversational experiences. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:49 Xavi's journey into conversational AI 00:06:08 Voiceflow's infrastructure and technology 00:09:29 Voiceflow's evolution and direction 00:13:28 Introducing Voiceflow Functions 00:16:05 Capabilities and limitations of functions 00:20:35 Future of Voiceflow Functions 00:21:02 Sharing and contributing functions 00:24:02 Technical limitations of functions 00:25:35 Closing remarks and call to action Whether you're a seasoned developer or just getting started with conversational AI, this episode offers valuable insights into the evolving landscape of bot development and the powerful capabilities of Voiceflow.

Join Allen and Mark on Two Voice Devs as they dive into the world of Large Action Models (LAMs) and explore their potential to revolutionize how we build chatbots and voice assistants. Inspired by Braden Ream's article "How Large Action Models Work and Change the Way We Build Chatbots and Agents," the discussion dissects the core functions of conversational AI - understand, decide, and respond - and examines how LAMs might fit into this framework. Allen and Mark also compare and contrast LAMs with Large Language Models (LLMs) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU), highlighting the strengths and limitations of each approach. Tune in to hear their insights on: The evolution of Voiceflow and its shift towards LLMs (03:20) Understanding the core functions of conversational AI (05:40) Clippy as an example of a deterministic agent (06:15) The differences between deterministic and probabilistic models (07:50) NLU vs. LLMs for understanding user input (09:20) How LAMs might fit into the "decide" stage of conversational AI (18:50) The challenges of training LAMs and avoiding hallucinations (20:00) The potential of LAMs to improve response generation (29:30) Cost considerations of using LLMs vs. NLUs (37:00) Whether you're a seasoned developer or just curious about the future of conversational AI, this episode offers a thought-provoking discussion on the potential of LAMs and the challenges that lie ahead. Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments below! Additional Info: https://www.voiceflow.com/blog/large-action-models-change-the-way-we-build-chatbots-again

In this episode, host John Walter talks with Braden Ream, the co-founder and CEO of Voiceflow. They delve into the evolution of conversation design with the advent of large language models. Braden shares insights into the shift from traditional methods to AI-driven approaches and discusses how Voiceflow is pioneering in this space. The discussion also touches upon the emerging trends in outsourcing and BPOs, highlighting the integration of AI in these sectors.Additional Resources:Connect with Braden Ream on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/braden-ream/Learn more about Voiceflow: https://www.voiceflow.com/Connect with John Walter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jowalter/

Join the spotlight of innovation as Voiceflow's $15M boost shines light on the creativity in crafting conversational AI experiences. In this episode, explore the unique aspects of Voiceflow, gain insights into the strategic considerations behind the funding, and discuss the potential advancements in AI-powered conversations.

Venture into the tech frontier as Voiceflow's $15M funding ushers in a new era of conversational AI. Join this episode to explore the frontiers of technology, gain insights into challenges faced, and discuss the potential advancements in AI-powered conversations that Voiceflow's substantial funding brings.

Envision the future of conversations as Voiceflow's $15M funding signals a transformative shift in AI experiences. Join this episode for insights into the strategic considerations, challenges overcome, and the reshaping of the conversational AI landscape in the era of Voiceflow's substantial financial backing.

Witness a revolution in tech as Voiceflow secures a significant $15M raise, signaling a breakthrough in conversational AI creation. Join this episode to explore the technological advancements, understand the motivations behind the funding, and discuss the potential impact on the future of AI-powered conversations.

In this episode, we chart the financial ascendance of Voiceflow as it secures $15 million, exploring how this funding propels the platform to chart new courses in the landscape of conversational AI. Invest in AI Box: ⁠https://Republic.com/ai-box⁠ Get on the AI Box Waitlist: ⁠https://AIBox.ai/⁠ ⁠AI Facebook Community Learn About ChatGPT Learn About AI at Tesla

In this episode, we explore the ascent of Voiceflow, marked by a significant $15 million funding milestone. Join me as we analyze the implications of this financial backing on the evolution of AI-powered conversations. Invest in AI Box: ⁠https://Republic.com/ai-box⁠ Get on the AI Box Waitlist: ⁠https://AIBox.ai/⁠ ⁠AI Facebook Community Learn About ChatGPT Learn About AI at Tesla

In this episode, we dive into the recent funding milestone of Voiceflow AI, dissecting how this investment fuels the creation of conversational AI experiences and its potential impacts. Invest in AI Box: https://Republic.com/ai-box Get on the AI Box Waitlist: https://AIBox.ai/ AI Facebook Community

Explore with me the significance of Voiceflow AI's $15 million funding boost and how it's shaping the landscape of crafting conversational AI experiences. Invest in AI Box: https://Republic.com/ai-box Get on the AI Box Waitlist: https://AIBox.ai/ AI Facebook Community

In this episode, we delve into the implications of Voiceflow's recent $15 million investment for their conversational AI platform. We discuss the advancements and challenges in creating seamless AI-driven interactions. Invest in AI Box: https://Republic.com/ai-box Get on the AI Box Waitlist: ⁠⁠https://AIBox.ai/⁠⁠ AI Facebook Community Learn more about AI in Video Learn more about Open AI

Explore the significance of Voiceflow's $15M funding round, propelling the evolution of conversational AI design. Delve into the insights, potential innovations, and transformative possibilities of this investment for creating interactive AI experiences. Invest in AI Box: https://Republic.com/ai-box Get on the AI Box Waitlist: ⁠⁠https://AIBox.ai/⁠⁠ AI Facebook Community Learn more about AI in Video Learn more about Open AI

Allen Firstenberg and Mark Tucker, hosts of Two Voice Devs, reflect on the year 2023, discussing significant changes and trends in the #VoiceFirst and #GenerativeAI industry and where their predictions from last year were accurate... or fell short. They discuss the transformation and challenges Amazon faced, gleaning predictions from hints at large language models (LLMs) from Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple. They also mention the shift of Voiceflow towards LLMs and recall the notion of retrieval augmented generation. 00:04 Introduction and Welcome 00:12 Reflecting on the Past Year 01:13 Amazon's Progress and Challenges 01:59 Exploring Amazon's Monetization and Widgets 08:45 Google's Journey and the End of Conversational Actions 11:53 The Rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) 17:04 The Impact of Voiceflow and Dialogflow 20:48 Closing Remarks and New Year Wishes

Season 6 Episode 136 Voiceflow CEO Braden Ream joins host Jason Stoughton to talk about the current state of AI Agents and how Voiceflow is challenging the status quo and upending the industry. Recently off a Series A Voiceflow is doing some really work in the space. Follow Jason Stoughton as he talks to leaders in the AI industry, start-up founders, executives in the enterprise and leading AI scientists. Newsletter sign up at www.thepulseofai.com and X handle @thepulseofai 

Mark Tucker and Allen Firstenberg delve into the recent changes made by VoiceFlow. We explore how VoiceFlow, originally a design resource for Alexa Skills and Google Assistant Actions, has evolved and shifted to include chatbot roles and generative AI responses. Highlighted too are the implications of VoiceFlow's decoupling and transition to 'bot logic as a service'. We look at the necessary technical adjustments and solutions required in the aftermath of these changes, and Mark shares how he created a Jovo plugin as a hassle-free 'integration layer' for handling multiple platforms, taking advantage of Jovo's generic input output. More info: https://github.com/jovo-community/jovo4-voiceflowdialog-app 00:04 Introduction 00:54 Introducing VoiceFlow 01:44 Exploring VoiceFlow's Evolution 03:13 Understanding VoiceFlow's Changes 05:39 Explaining the VoiceFlow Integration 14:39 Discussing the VoiceFlow Dialog API 25:42 Conclusion

Join us for an exciting episode where we delve into the world of Voiceflow AI, a rising star in the conversational AI landscape. Discover how they've raised an impressive $15 million to advance the creation of immersive conversational experiences. Learn about the innovation that's driving Voiceflow's growth and shaping the future of AI-powered interactions. Get on the AI Box Waitlist: https://AIBox.ai/Join our ChatGPT Community: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/739308654562189/⁠Follow me on Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/jaeden_ai⁠

What started as a casual conversation between Mark and Allen turned into a brief exploration of what Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) means in the #GenerativeAI and #ConversationalAI world. Toss in some discussion about VoiceFlow and Google's Vertex AI Search and Conversation and we have another dive into the current hot method to bridge the Fuzzy Human / Digital Computer divide.

Discover how Voiceflow AI is transforming the conversational AI landscape as they raise a substantial $15M in funding. Join us in this episode as we delve into the details of their innovative platform and the impact it's making on building conversational AI experiences. Tune in to learn how Voiceflow AI is revolutionizing the way we interact with AI-driven systems. Get on the AI Box Waitlist: https://AIBox.ai/Join our ChatGPT Community: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/739308654562189/⁠Follow me on Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/jaeden_ai⁠

It's time for the Generative AI News (GAIN) Rundown for August 17, 2023. Special segments this week include: Using GPT-4 to moderate LLM inputs The groups pressuring CEOs to adopt generative AI Generative AI winners and losers of the week. Voicebot.ai's head writer, Eric Schwartz, joined Bret Kinsella this week to break down all of the top industry stories. Generative AI News Links related to the stories are included below if you want to go deeper into any topics. Top Stories of the Week OpenAI wants you to use GPT-4 to moderate your GPT-4 based applications Two charts reveal why so many enterprises are rushing to adopt generative AI Generative AI Funding Fountain The $100M Anthropic deal with SK Telecom provides insight into where LLMs are headed Voiceflow added $15M in new funding on the back of rapid user growth and generative AI DynamoFL raises $15.1M to scale privacy-focused generative AI for enterprises OpenAI acquires digital studio Global Illumination Generative AI Product Garden IBM Embeds Meta's Llama 2 LLM in New Watsonx generative AI platform Amazon deploys generative AI for summarizing product reviews Google rolls out new generative AI search features U.S. DoD forms generative AI task force Roblox is deploying its own generative AI models and infrastructure at lower cost Detecting Deepfakes - Pindrop demos its anti-fraud voice clone detection More About GAIN   GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week's discussion on Voicebot's YouTube channel. Please join us live next week on YouTube or LinkedIn. Also, please participate in the live show by commenting, and we are likely to give you a shoutout and may even show your comment on screen.

Braden Ream is back on VUX World for the third time after some pretty big changes at Voiceflow. Raising another round of funding and repositioning the platform in light of significant adoption in the wake of the large language model attention, has Voiceflow making moves to become the leading conversational AI platform.I chat to Braden about the new direction of the company, the recent additions to the product and how designers and developers are using Voiceflow to design and build LLM-powered applications.Presented by TidioGrow your online store with the #1 customer success tool for eCommerce. Engage with your customers and website visitors in real-time. Provide personalized product recommendations. Use AI-powered chatbot workflows to move prospects through your sales funnel. And so much more.Save 20% on your subscription with the promo code VUX.Find out more about Tidio (use the link https://www.tidio.com/partners/vux/) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The demand for conversational AI — mostly chatbots — has arguably never been higher, riding the publicity wave of systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT.

In this episode, we dive into Voiceflow's recent $15M fundraising success and its vision to revolutionize the conversational AI landscape. Discover how their platform empowers developers and businesses to craft more intuitive and dynamic voice-enabled experiences for users. Get on the AI Box Waitlist: ⁠https://AIBox.ai/⁠ Investor Contact Email: jaeden@aibox.ai Facebook Community: ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/739308654562189/⁠⁠ Discord Community: ⁠https://aibox.ai/discord⁠ Download Selfpause: ⁠https://selfpause.com/Podcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter... er... X.com: ⁠https://twitter.com/jaeden_ai⁠

On episode #16, Jimmy speaks with Kristin Hillery from Voiceflow. They discuss:- Where content and brand overlap- Building a content strategy around a product- Why small teams and good vendors thrive together

Peter has written and shared a lot about Large Language Models in recent posts and blogs. We wanted to get his perspective on various things, especially now that Voiceflow have incorporated LLMs into their tool. How can conversation designers use LLMs now? How does Peter use the LLM as a sounding board to help him craft prompts? Where might we be using them next? How can we document dynamic conversational designs (when LLMs can allow conversations to go off-rails)?Ben asked him these questions and more…0:00:00Start0:02:44About Peter0:05:44What's your favourite bot?0:06:57What Aussie lingo should bots know?0:09:36Pick 3 words to describe your career so far?0:12:03Do you draw on your former jobs for inspiration?0:14:06What's it like being the first Conversation Design Advocate at VoiceFlow?0:18:12What's the best way to incorporate VoiceFlow into a workflow?0:21:24Are you seeing more interest in conversation design now?0:23:18Where do you see LLMs being used now?0:28:52Could conversation designers become an organisation's knowledge experts?0:31:15We're all making our first steps with LLMs0:33:43It's easy to fall under the spell of an LLM and think it knows everything0:35:36Has conversation design changed forever now?0:37:08Are we over-excited or being too timid?0:40:08Now we can design conversations that are far more dynamic0:41:54Are there best practices for documenting designs with LLMs?0:44:10How does Peter use an LLM to help write the prompt?0:46:42Have you found ways to avoid 'hallucinations'?0:49:56How would a conversational system work without an NLU?0:53:32Are we about to see a new use case for LLMs?0:57:55How will this affect the work of conversation designers in the next 15 years?1:03:12Why's there not been more shocking news about misuse of LLMs?1:05:39We need to constantly monitor where this tech is going1:06:52Outro Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How are ChatGPT and the rise of large language models impacting conversation designs and designers? Today, in Part 1 of our series on conversation design, we have four experts in the field weighing in on how the profession is changing and what designers should be thinking about. Joining me today in a series of one-on-one interviews are: Maaike Groenewege is an independent conversation designer and the creator of Convocat. She is currently the conversation design lead, prompt engineer, and NLU trainer at a U.S.-base stealth-stage startup. Groenewege has worked for 25 years as a designer, linguist, and technical writer. Tom Hewitson is the founder and CEO of Labworks.io, a webby-award winning conversation design studio and one of the leading voice-first game studios. Hewitson is a former journalist, content strategist at Facebook, and digital editor for Lonely Planet. He is also a lecturer at City University London and the organizer of the Unparsed Conference on conversation design. Peter Isaacs is the senior conversation design advocate at Voiceflow. He was previously a conversation designer at WooliesX, a division of Woolworths Group in Australia. Karen Kaushansky has been a conversation designer for 27 years. She is currently a Staff Conversation Designer at Google, and led the design for Google Watch. Also, the Unparsed Conference on conversation design is coming up later in July 2023 in London. If you use the code VOICEBOT, you get two tickets for the price of one. That applies to be the in-person and online conference tickets. Definitely try to join online if you can't make it to London. It is a great speaker lineup. You can sign-up at https://bit.ly/unparsed2023. 

It's always fun to reconnect with past guests and early success stories from our Ripple Community, and today's guest is both, Emily Lonetto was a Tank Talks guest back when it was a small in-person event at our co-working space, The Tank. Back then she was the first leadership hire at our portfolio-company Voiceflow, now she's the Director of Community at Webflow as well as a Venture Partner with us at Ripple Ventures. Emily has amazing perspectives on growth and community, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.About Emily Lonetto:Emily Lonetto is the Director of Community at Webflow. She is an expert marketer and growth expert that started her career at Carnivore Club, a subscription food box, and moved onto to Tilt, which was acquired by AirBnB, and then to Voiceflow. She did her undergrad at Western University.In this episode we discuss:(01:34) Emily's journey to becoming a growth hacker and community expert(04:15) Common challenges to growth for early-stage startups(05:25) Differences between standard marketing and growth(07:04) Her experience helping grow Voiceflow(10:12) The importance of community feedback(10:56) What growth means in a startup context(14:00) How startups should think about growth marketing(15:41) Growth Marketing tactics(18:10) Emily's Growth Marketing tech stack(21:27) Analytics and testing that you should use to track growth(23:06) Using negative feedback to help hone your offering(24:12) How Emily has evolved as a community builder across her career(27:10) Factors that can hamper a community(30:11) How the Webflow community guided her even before working there(31:55) Positives of having a strong community(34:14) Misconceptions around community for early stage founders(37:27) How growth in community is defined at Webflow(39:51) Emily's strong contribution to the Ripple ecosystemFast Favorites*

SO MUCH packed into this episode! Recently, Allen participated in a hackathon sponsored by VoiceFlow, and he used the opportunity to explore ways that LLMs could be used to build on his work talking with spreadsheets in Vodo Drive (see episode 116). He and Mark explore how he did it - from the prompts that were required to integration with VoiceFlow and Google App Script, to how tools like LangChain will help build similar things. We also explore what lessons are learned, how our experience in #VoiceFirst design helps us build good #ConversationalAI tools, how other APIs can (and should!) work alongside AI, and what "fuzzy" roles AI can fill in the modern app experience. Resources: * Vodo Drive: https://vodo-drive.com/ * PromptHacks Hackathon: https://prompthacks.devpost.com/ * Vodo AI submission for PromptHacks: https://devpost.com/software/vodo-ai * VoiceFlow: https://www.voiceflow.com/ * Google Apps Script: https://www.google.com/script/start/ * LangChain: https://github.com/hwchase17/langchain and https://github.com/hwchase17/langchainjs

We're still exploring what LangChain can do, and this week we dive into a tutorial put out by the Voiceflow team that discusses some ways that it can be integrated with ChatGPT using LangChain, bringing the #VoiceFirst and #ConversationalAI worlds closer together. Also a great example of how we go about learning and understanding code that is new to us. Resources: * The tutorial we were following: https://www.voiceflow.com/blog/voiceflow-assistant-openai-gpt

According to an MIT study, a toxic work culture is the number one reason why people say they've left their jobs.Whether it's a micro-managing boss or an uncooperative team, a toxic work environment can make it dreadful to go to work on Mondays and prevent you from doing your best work.Marketers have it worst.Everyone has an opinion on what the marketing team should be doing, which means people could become over-critical and (sometimes) abusive to marketers.So how do you avoid working in a toxic environment?One way is to nip it early by asking smart interview questions. Remember—you're interviewing the company as much as they're interviewing you.Enter Sara Pion, Head of Web Experience at Dandy. She has worked as a marketing leader at some of the fastest-growing tech startups, including Dandy, Voiceflow, Alyce, and Drift. Sara has seen way too many marketers get burned by a toxic environment.Here's why:There are a lot of leaders out there who think that they have a concept and a grasp of what marketing is. And then, if a leader comes in and their ideas do not align with their ideas, there's going to be a lot of friction. Ultimately the CEO in that situation usually believes that they are correct. And that's why the average tenure for marketing leaders is under two years.Today, Sara shares 5 interview questions every marketer should ask to avoid working in a toxic environment.In this Marketing Powerups episode, you'll learn:Red flags to watch out for during the interview process.Questions to ask interviewers about work culture.How to get out of a toxic work environment.One power-up that's helped accelerate Sara's career.The SponsorI want to thank the sponsor of this episode, 42/Agency.When you're in scale-up mode, and you have KPIs to hit, the pressure is on to deliver demos and signups. And it's a lot to handle: demand gen, email sequences, revenue ops, and more! That's where 42/Agency, founded by my friend Kamil Rextin, can help you. They're a strategic partner that's helped B2B SaaS companies like ProfitWell, Teamwork, Sprout Social and Hubdoc build a predictable revenue engine.If you're looking for performance experts and creatives to solve your marketing problems at a fraction of the cost of in-house, look no further.Go to https://www.42agency.com/ to talk to a strategist to learn how you can build a high-efficiency revenue engine now.

Enterprise voice AI has been overshadowed for years by the tech giants' activities. That meant the consumer applications often drowned out what was happening in the enterprise. At the same time, most enterprises were moving slowly. That has changed over the past two years. Enterprise adoption of voice and conversational AI solutions is growing steadily and expanding into new use cases. Today we will talk about the contact center, restaurants, automotive, and media sectors. We also go into some detail about large language models and how enterprises are thinking about ChatGPT, Omnichannel, and more.   Susan Westwater is the founder of Pragmatic Digital and Strategy Director at Vixen Labs. She is also the author of the book, "Voice Strategy: Creating Useful and Usable Voice Experiences."   Jason Fields is the chief strategy officer at Voicify, a leading platform for voice experience creation. He was formerly a senior vice president at Rightpoint and an adjunct professor at Emerson College.   Braden Ream is the CEO and co-founder of Voiceflow; the leading conversation AI design collaboration platform. Braden also was recently named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list.   Susan, Braden, and Jason are each working on the front lines with enterprises, so you will get some fresh and practical perspectives. Enjoy!

Hello again listeners! Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Leader Interview Series.This time, we're joined by Tara Panu, VP of Marketing at VoiceFlow, the collaborative platform used to build chat and voice assistants, to talk about leveraging customer research like a product marketer. Every marketer knows the customer needs to be at the center of all their efforts, but how do you ensure that? Tara spent her first 30 days in her role interviewing customers and prospects, jumping into sales calls, and practicing social listening on LinkedIn. Her efforts revealed new opportunities that she took in to craft her strategy and, finally, her messaging and value proposition started to resonate with them. But that was not her ultimate goal.As she's a customer-centric marketer, she made sure that not only Sales and Marketing but the entire company was leveraging from her findings and keeping their ICP close to better execute their jobs. Tune in to see how she made that happen! In this episode we talk about:Customer researchCustomer-centric marketingMarketing strategyTimestamps:00:00 - 00:54: Introductions00:54 - 03:42: How Tara's background as a product marketer influences her role as VP of marketing03:43 - 06:36: First challenges when joining VoiceFlow06:37 - 10:22: The first 30 days knowing the customers10:23 - 13:32: Why you should go to sales calls instead of listening to recordings13:33 - 16:14: The emergence of the Conversation Designer role16:15 - 19:48: Sourcing customer research interviews19:49 - 24:00: Making sure that customer research findings are used effectively company-wide24:01 - 28:22: Making the most out of customer research interviews28:23 - 29:04: Connect with TaraAbout Tara PanuTara has a passion and obsession for understanding customers deeply. She started her career in customer marketing, then turned to product marketing, and is now leading the marketing department at VoiceFlow. Connect with Tara on LinkedInConnect with Maeva on LinkedInJoin the Flying CatsStill feeling your stomach drop whenever you have to report organic growth to leadership? Things are about to change

It's always fun to reconnect with past guests and early success stories from our Ripple Community, and today's guest is both, Emily Lonetto was a Tank Talks guest back when it was a small in-person event at our co-working space, The Tank. Back then she was the first leadership hire at our portfolio-company Voiceflow, now she's the Director of Community at Webflow as well as a Venture Partner with us at Ripple Ventures. Emily has amazing perspectives on growth and community, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.About Emily Lonetto:Emily Lonetto is the Director of Community at Webflow. She is an expert marketer and growth expert that started her career at Carnivore Club, a subscription food box, and moved onto to Tilt, which was acquired by AirBnB, and then to Voiceflow. She did her undergrad at Western University.A word from our sponsor:At Ripple, we manage all of our fund expenses and employee credit cards using Jeeves. The team at Jeeves helped get me and my team setup with physical and virtual credit cards in days. I was able to allow my teammates to expense items in multiple currencies allowing them to pay for anything, anywhere at anytime. We weren't asked for any personal guarantees or to pay any setup or monthly SaaS fees.Not only does Jeeves save us time, but they also give us cash back on our purchases including expenses like Google, Facebook, or AWS every month. New users can earn up to 3% cashback for their first 90 days.The best part is Jeeves puts up the cash, and you settle up once every 30 days in any currency you want, unlike some other corporate card companies that make you pre-pay every month. Jeeves also recently launched its Jeeves Growth and Working Capital initiative for startups and fast-growing companies to enable more financial freedom for companies. The best thing of all is that Jeeves is live in  24 countries including Canada, US and many other countries around the world.Jeeves truly offers the best all-in-one expense management corporate card program for all startups especially the ones at Ripple and we at Tank Talks could not be more excited to officially partner with them. Listeners of Tank Talks can get set up with a demo of Jeeves today and take advantage of our Tank Talks special with a‍ $250 statement credit after the first $2,500 in spend or a $500 statement credit after the first $5000 in spend. Lastly, all Jeeves cardholders receive access to their Lounge Pass program and access to over 1300 airports globally.Visit tryjeeves.com/tanktalks to learn more.In this episode we discuss:03:11 Emily's journey to becoming a growth hacker and community expert05:40 Common challenges to growth for early-stage startups06:50 Differences between standard marketing and growth08:21 Her experience helping grow Voiceflow11:27 The importance of community feedback12:11 What growth means in a startup context15:14 How startups should think about growth marketing16:54 Growth Marketing tactics19:24 Emily's Growth Marketing tech stack22:41 Analytics and testing that you should use to track growth24:20 Using negative feedback to help hone your offering25:26 How Emily has evolved as a community builder across her career28:24 Factors that can hamper a community31:35 How the Webflow community guided her even before working there33:11 Positives of having a strong community35:32 Misconceptions around community for early stage founders38:41 How growth in community is defined at Webflow41:05 Emily's strong contribution to the Ripple ecosystemFast Favorites*

Braden Ream is the CEO of the rapidly growing conversation design platform, Voiceflow. Braden and his team spend their days working to understand how conversation designers work, and what they need. Needless to say, he's worked with countless conversation design teams and is perfectly placed to highlight some observations on what the best conversation design teams in the world do well. You'll learn the signs of conversation design maturity as well as pointers on how to improve your practice. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sara Pion has spent the last 4.5 years growing her career in B2B Saas, starting in technical support and moving into Growth and Demand Generation marketing across high-growth companies like Drift, Alyce, Voiceflow, and now Dandy. She has a proven track record of fostering community within a customer base, scaling teams, and acquiring and activating users. Outside of work, she has an amazing podcast on personal and professional growth with her co-host Bridget called “Self Control & Cheese”. When she isn't working, Sara likes exploring Denver and boxing. Questions and topics we covered include: When is the right time to leave a job you used to love? Sara's take on the age-old debate of starting off as a specialist or generalist. Why should candidates applying to startups ask companies questions about their financial security? The pros and cons of joining a startup at seed, series A, B, and so on. And, how can marketers determine if startups in general are the right type of company for them to join? How to say “no” to too many ideas. What does a toxic job offer look like? The skills any marketer should learn as they try to become an expert in their industry, channel, etc. Why does internal marketing become more important as a marketer gets more senior roles? Check out her podcast Self Control & Cheese here - https://selfcontrolandcheese.com Say hi to Sara on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pion/ Find Sara on Twitter - https://twitter.com/sara_pion Sara also has a job board you can check out here - https://jobs.selfcontrolandcheese.com/candidates/sign_up Here's my favorite episode of Self Control & Cheese if anyone wanted to get a good episode to start with - https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Uh9CV4VFQtL5k4cP16oNx?si=VhnGHEe5StWuTU2h3AJW-g --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Our latest guest, Sara Pion, is currently head of marketing strategy at Dandy. Business major turned bot builder turned marketer, Sara's many hats have earned her a wealth of rich and unique experiences. After learning from growth marketing legends at Drift, Sara has since built a career around her “nerd-level” love of marketing — don't even get her started on A/B testing! In this episode, Sara shares her expert insight into how to build communities that actually build community. She also teaches us about customer retention and finding your people in a practical yet authentic way. Get ready to take notes! Guest Bio:Before recently joining Dandy as head of marketing strategy, Sara Pion led marketing teams at brands like VoiceFlow, Drift, Alice and more. She was even part of an experimental marketing team at Drift. She's spent her career fine-tuning the way companies serve their customer base through innovative strategies and a customer-forward mindset. When she's not leading the industry in community growth and support, she's either admiring the oxford comma, boxing or co-hosting her professional growth and development podcast “Self Control & Cheese.” Key Takeaways:We learn why it's best to cater to your top 10% of customers rather than the other 90%. Sara shares her insightful definition of communities and how we can best serve them. We discuss best practices for fostering conversations among your top fans. Want to integrate your in-person events with your digital communities? Sara tells us exactly how. We explore why not every company needs to have a community and whether or not creating one is right for yours. 

Braden Ream is CEO of Voiceflow, a leading conversational AI design collaboration solution combined with a no-code platform for deploying voice apps. Voiceflow was founded in 2019 and has tens of thousands of users and more than 400 companies.  Today we discuss Voiceflow's evolution into enterprise solutions, its expanding feature base, and the top customer use cases. We also delve into how the conversational AI industry has changed including the shift to custom branded voice assistants as well as the impact of the recent Google Assistant news that it is shutting down Conversational Action developer support.  

In this episode, Benji talks to Sara Pion, Senior Growth Manager at Voiceflow. B2B businesses hope to create a strong spirit of community with their clients and customers. However, this is far easier said than done. Voiceflow both built and migrated a large community of users and today Sara shares what she's learned through this process.

Tara Panu, the VP of Marketing at VoiceFlow joins the podcast. She breaks down how her company recently honed in their GTM motion, identified a clear ICP, and built a strong positioning strategy. Learn from Tara as she walks though this process and much more on today's episode. Tara's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarapanu/ VoiceFlow's Website: http://www.voiceflow.com/

In this live show, CEO and Co-founder of Directive, Garrett Mehrguth, and a SaaS marketing leader work together to build a strategy for a recognizable SaaS brand - as quickly as possible.The company will be randomly selected by spinning a wheel at the beginning of the show, and together, the two will craft a strategy for SaaS marketing leaders everywhere.Our guest... Sara Pion, Sr. Marketing Manager at Voiceflow

Voice has long been the final frontier of computing interfaces, and now with the technology of smart speakers and other voice-enabled technologies we are finally able to access what science fiction has been writing about for decades. Our guest today, Braden Ream, founder and CEO of Voiceflow, is helping create that future. Voiceflow, then known as Storyflow, was one of the first portfolio companies backed by Ripple Ventures. Back then it was a platform that helped build skills on Alexa, but has since grown to become the go-to platform for voice and chat-based interfaces and is being used by global Fortune 500 companies like USAA, McDonalds & BMW.About Braden Ream:Braden Ream is the Co-Founder and CEO of Voiceflow, a platform that helps teams design, prototype and launch voice & chat assistants. Founded in 2018, Voiceflow currently powers 300M monthly messages and is deployed across 75,000 teams. Prior to Voiceflow, Braden worked at RBC and founded a social media app.A word from our sponsor:Ripple Ventures is always focused on helping our founders and CEOs find the best partners to work with. But before we introduce any provider to our companies, we always make sure we try the product first. And when it comes to managing business expenses at Ripple, we were super excited when the team at Jeeves came knocking on our door.Jeeves helped get me and my team setup with physical and virtual credit cards in days. I was able to allow my teammates to expense items in multiple currencies allowing them to pay for anything, anywhere at any time. We weren’t asked for any personal guarantees or pay any setup or annual fees either.Not only does Jeeves save us time, but they also give us up to 3% cashback on our purchases including expenses like Google, Facebook, or AWS every month. The best part, Jeeves puts up the cash, and you settle up once every 30 days, unlike some other corporate card companies that make you pre-pay every month.Jeeves offers a truly all-in-one expense management corporate card program for international startups and we at Tank Talks could not be more excited to partner with them. Listeners of Tank Talks can get set up with a demo of Jeeves today and take advantage of a $700 discount and skip the waitlist by visiting tryjeeves.com/tanktalks to learn more.In this episode we discuss:03:12 The history of voice tech leading to Voiceflow09:32 Why Alexa, Siri, and other voice-enabled platforms are succeeding where prior platforms have failed14:02 How the pandemic has helped shape the voice tech industry16:36 The other factors pushing forward voice tech21:42 How the voice apps are the new landing pages and the next internet25:23 Becoming a standard toolset for developing voice interfaces31:32 Addressing privacy concerns around voice tech36:02 How wake words work on Alexa and other platforms38:29 Plans for their recent raise from Felics Ventures, Ripple Ventures, True Ventures, Craft Ventures and othersFast Favorites:PodcastEconomics ExplainedNewsletter/BlogPaul GrahamTech GadgetiPad/Apple PencilNew TrendChessBookCrossing the ChasmBlue Ocean StrategyLife LessonThe world is run by people no smarter than you.Follow Matt Cohen and Tank Talks here!Podcast production support provided by Agentbee.Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

Our metric for business is value generation. The scope of Economics For Business is not determined by business size or type — we don't label firms as small, medium or large, or by the stage of their development, or by industry. We see business through the lens of entrepreneurship, defined as the intentional pursuit of new economic value. A reasonable proxy metric we can use is growth. Business growth is consequence of generating new economic value. That value is determined by customers, and a growing company is creating more customers and/or adding to its share of customer dollars spent in value exchange. The changing dimensions of business growth. The economic route to growth is changing. In today's markets, we often see speed of growth that goes beyond historical expectations. Business models can expand their reach and accelerate their performance over networks faster than ever before. An Austrian perspective on business enables entrepreneurs to perform in a high-growth environment: Austrian entrepreneurs recognize the boundaryless-ness of markets, the flexibility of capital combinations, and re-combinations to respond to the rolling flow of value learning signals from consumers, and the benefits of shedding control in order to accept complexity and emergence. Austrian entrepreneurs are well-placed to enjoy success in today's markets. Professor Mohammad Keyhani sums up the Austrian entrepreneur's advantage in the term Generativity. The generativity of a system is the capacity to produce unprompted, unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from a large, broad, and varied audience. The concept of generativity is closely aligned with the Austrian ideas of spontaneous order and emergence. By way of an example, the concept has been applied to technologies, where the characteristics of generativity can be identified as the increase in participation as an input and the increase of innovation as an output. One of the results of this thinking has been open innovation: anyone can participate (e.g., when corporate research is not limited to a corporate R&D lab, ideas can come from anywhere outside the corporation), and more and better innovation is an outcome. One of the potential effects of generativity is to overcome knowledge constraints. Open innovation is an example: even the biggest corporation with the best minds in its employment can not possibly have a majority of good ideas. They don't even know what answers they should be looking for. With generativity, the part of the agency for the search for knowledge and entrepreneurial action is carried out by the product itself. Importantly, whereas open innovation is an organizational technique, generativity is a product characteristic. It gives the product itself some entrepreneurial agency in the Austrian sense of the word. Detaching the search process from the searcher. When we face knowledge constraints, we search for answers. But a searcher only knows to search in certain places. Generativity can separate the search from the searcher, unleashing the search process to look in places that would be blind spots for the searcher. Similarly, generative design can generate product ideas that the human designer could not. The incentives of the market can take control of the search process. The demand side (via broad, unfiltered participation) defines the problem to be solved and the supply side (via equally broad and equally unfiltered participation) creates solutions. Generative characteristics can be built-in to a product or service. 5 characteristics of generativity in products are: Leverage: the product can be put to many uses, and users can do many things with it, including those that the product designer could never anticipate. Adaptability: the product can be further modified to broaden its range of tasks even further; new code can be contributed by users, accessories can be added, and so on. Ease Of Mastery: there are no or low barriers to broad usage and broad adoption due to unusual or hard-to-acquire skills. Accessibility: the product is accessible to everyone and its usage is not limited to a specific set of users. Transferability: The advances in and changes to the technology made by some users are transferable to all users; new users can build on what previous users have contributed. Generative products are tools for entrepreneurs. Generative products are a little hard to describe or categorize. They're more like toolkits rather than specific use products. Professor Keyhani started a website to curate some of these kinds of tools / toolkits for entrepreneurs: Entrepreneur-Tools.Zeef.com/Keyhanimo Some examples he mentions: Zapier.com and Integromat.com link web apps and digital tools together via API's to assemble automated workflows. Airtable.com — flexible and powerful cloud-based relational database for regular users. No-code software development tools like Adalo.com (build your own app), Voiceflow.com (build your own voice app) and Bubble.io (anyone can be a software developer). There is a broad future growth path in generativity. Let users generate innovations; let them accumulate (new users can build on the innovations of earlier users); focus on capturing as much of the value as is appropriate for the entrepreneur-as-orchestrator. Additional Resources "How Generative Is Your Business?" (PDF): Mises.org/E4B_104_PDF "A Theory of Digital Firm-Designed Markets: Defying Knowledge Constraints with Crowds and Marketplaces" by Mohammad Keyhani, et al (on JSTOR): Mises.org/E4B_104_PDF2 Professor Keyhani's website: MohammadKeyhani.com

This week's Ivey Entrepreneur podcast features Emily Lonetto, HBA'16, founder of GrowthTO, the largest community of growth and product practitioners in Canada. Emily's career ambitions have ranged from Rockstar (she literally sang in an alternative rock band in Toronto), to promoter, to entrepreneur and growth marketer.  Her experiences on the growth team at Tilt (acquired at AirBnB) kick-started her career in growth, and she has since held positions at numerous high profile start-ups and scale-ups such as PartnerStack, Clio, and Voiceflow.  In this episode, Emily helps us understand what growth really is, how to spot talent for your growth team, and uncovers the tactics behind several well-executed growth initiatives that she has participated in.