Five years ago, while everyone else was building chatty bots, Lex Goetz was chasing a different idea: talk to your product, talk to your data. Not voice as a gimmick on top of an app, but voice as the interface for exploring context anywhere. Three years ago the first use cases landed, and he hasn't looked back since.
That conviction became Overmind.
We invited Lex to answer our usual three questions.
How did you end up in voice?
I first learned about voice intelligence some 5 years ago and was intrigued by its potential from minute one. When everybody started building "chatty bots," I thought about concepts like "talk to your product" or "talk to your data". Three years ago we had our first use cases in place, and from then on it was just simply amazing. I firmly believe in voice being "our" best UX/UI to explore context in almost every environment and keep going to be at the forefront of innovation.
What's your struggle or moment of joy with voice?
Mostly I struggle with companies that focus more on anxiety (data residency) than on the huge opportunities provided by voice intelligence. It's easier to recall a real moment of "goosebumps" when we presented the concept of "talk to your data" to a huge logistics company. They provided us with 6-months of data from one of their depots and asked us to create a POC on that basis. The goal was to contextualize data for the C-levels. The moment of truth happened in a live presentation when our voice intelligence connection brought deep yet unknown information to the management board. It showed strengths and weaknesses mercilessly, giving advice on how to improve their reports and processes. Importantly, it dismantled some reports that tried to cover up underlying problems. "Reason with your data" was born. From then on, we had easy access to the sector, simply by word of mouth from our initial client.
Where do you think the voice is going?
In voice intelligence, we aim to support people rather than replace them. I think that this is the way to go, giving humans a better understanding of the data their companies produce. Out of quantity, voice can provide the understanding you need to make better decisions and to let voice intelligence improve as a result. A specific trend I see is voice being a central function of knowledge being transferred from one human to another. Companies lose so much valuable knowledge (tacit knowledge) that stays in the minds of people without any chance of seeing daylight. Well-coded voices could trigger subconsciousness better than any written report, and that's it.
