The Future of Sound is Loud!
by: Josh Dorsey & Greg Castle
The Future of Sound is loud! And we are bringing together luminaries in this space to talk about it. Anorak Ventures and SVB presents The Future of Sound, part one in a three-part, invite only, event series focused on emerging technologies.
Dinner Thesis Part One:
Today hardware devices use touchscreens as the preferred interface; before that it was the keyboard and then the mouse. Now a new form of technology interaction is taking hold. Voice feels like the next natural progression in computing and has a big opportunity to become a more natural and effective interface.
Certain trends are starting to take shape in voice interfaces:
· Tech Platform companies are building, investing, and acquiring companies in this space with major initiatives from Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Samsung.
· Generation Z (or the “Digital Generation”) is growing up with voice first preferences; a recent Google study noted that over half of U.S. teens and 41% of U.S. adults use voice search on a daily basis.
· The technologies have arrived to significantly improve voice recognition and natural language processing, accuracy now hovers around 95%.
Use cases well suited for voice and natural languages are starting to emerge:
· Home / IoT: Voice is emerging as the frontrunner for the home UI. Thanks largely to efforts by Amazon and Google the capabilities of voice around the home are becoming more and more useful.
· Virtual Reality: Just as the ability to use your hands to interact naturally was a major leap forward, voice provides greater promise. From communication with others to integrations with AI, voice offers unique advantages for VR.
· Wearables (including Augmented Reality): Access the power of your mobile device without the need to pull it out of your pocket. Allow Virtual Assistants to handle requests, dictations, phone calls, and messaging. The natural progression may be for voice as an interface to AR hardware via glasses or contact lens.
· Autonomous Vehicles: Given language is universal and there will likely be multiple ride sharing AV companies, voice provides an omnipresent solution to interaction with an autonomous vehicle.
We are fortunate enough to be partnering with Dolby Labs for this dinner. They have a state of the art facility with an audio experience that is cutting edge and embodies the future of sound.
Whether it’s an Anorak portfolio company or a SVB client, we are bearing witness to companies building these next computing platform. The opportunity to integrate voice and NLP into these platforms is real and now. We can’t wait to support the entrepreneurs that are building voice application.
Come break bread with us and participate, connect, and listen as we discuss the future of sound.
Greg and Josh
