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Doug Stevenson

CEO & Co-Founder at Vibrant Media

Doug Stevenson is a seasoned entrepreneur with extensive experience in publishing, media, and the Internet industry. As the CEO and co-founder of Vibrant Media, a frontrunner in contextual targeting technologies, Doug has led the company to great success. He holds a B.Sc. in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Edinburgh University and has been honored with the prestigious 'Entrepreneur of the Year' award from Ernst and Young LLP. Under Doug's leadership, Vibrant Media has received multiple accolades, including being recognized as the Highest Rated Media Brand in Customer Service by Advertiser Perceptions and winning awards such as the Inc. Hire Power Award, Crain’s New York Business Best Place to Work, and Advertising Age Best Places to Work. With a background that includes roles at esteemed organizations like AOL Europe, CompuServe, and BBC Magazines/Redwood Publishing, Doug brings over twenty-five years of experience to the table. He has also been involved in the startup ecosystem as an investor and advisor, focusing on areas such as Digital Health, Leadership & Culture, Behavior Design, and FinTech. Doug's educational pursuits include studies at Singularity University in addition to his engineering degree from the University of Edinburgh.

Highlights

Apr 19 · linkedin

What are the compelling voice AI agent use-cases, applications, companies and technologies you are seeing?

I had an interesting conversation about voice being the new digital interface with Madhu Konety thanks to Speech-To-Text APIs from Deepgram, OpenAI Whisper API and AssemblyAI. We chatted about how voice is a richer, higher resolution way to connect with and perhaps more quickly relate to a person.

This is really an elaborate ruse to post a great movie clip, but bear with me, whilst silent movies are remarkable, Jack Nicholson's performance as Col. Jessup, in 'A few Good Men' remains with me 30 plus years later:

Judge Randolph: [to Kaffee from the judge's bench] Consider yourself in contempt! Kaffee: Colonel Jessup, did you order the Code Red? Judge Randolph: You don't have to answer that question! Col. Jessup: I'll answer the question! [to Kaffee] Col. Jessup: You want answers? Kaffee: I think I'm entitled to. Col. Jessep: You want answers? Kaffee: I WANT THE TRUTH! Col. Jessup: YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! [pauses] https://lnkd.in/gyETx2K8

Aaron Sorkin uses ALL CAPS and adds [pauses] but the high resolution data is delivered with the intensity, rhythm, power and pitch from Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson's voices. Voice delivers more data per minute. My typing speed if I'm lucky is 50 words per minute (this took forever) versus spoken voice at 200 words per minute.

Most importantly, each person's voice is unique like a fingerprint which carries emotion, rhythm, urgency and warmth to help with engagement and understanding. Hume AI have built an emotional semantic map they call empathic AI with over 25 patterns of tune, rhythm, and timbre for voice recognition including: Amusement, Anger, Awkwardness, Boredom, Calmness, Confusion, Contempt, Desire, Determination, Distress, Fear, Guilt, Horror, Pain, Pride, Sadness, Surprise, and Tiredness https://lnkd.in/gkqbVsUQ

Then there is the [pause] or the silence between the words and an opportunity to stop and checkin to see if we're making sense! This is why I believe we're on the brink of being able to communicate with digital apps, corporations and devices with our voices, even Scottish ones.

Voice can quickly deliver higher resolution data with #SpeechToTextAI. This then allows #conversationalAI like SIERRA AI to allow the agent, app, device or corporation to speak directly with us. #Cheerio #holdmusic

Doug Stevenson
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Location

San Francisco, California, United States