Smart Speakers Podcast
Smart Speakers Podcast

Smart Speakers Podcast

Dave Zohrob & Harish Agarwal

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Episodes

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A podcast about Voice AI hosted by Dave Zohrob and Harish Agarwal, the cofounders of Chartable (acquired by Spotify in 2022). We interview founders, technologists, and investors at the frontier of voice AI applications, and share our startup journey along the way. More at https://smartspeakers.fm

www.smartspeakers.fm

Recent Episodes

The pipeline for voice—Kwindla Hultman Kramer, CEO of Daily
MAR 24, 2025
The pipeline for voice—Kwindla Hultman Kramer, CEO of Daily
<p>Much of my childhood was spent in my basement, dialing up other people’s computers to trade messages and play games.</p><p>Kwin Kramer from Daily remembers that time, too—and says today's voice AI moment feels just like those early internet days. That sense of endless possibilities is back.</p><p>His open-source project PipeCat has become the standard toolkit for voice agents. What began as an experiment now powers voice AI for OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and countless startups, making conversations feel natural and responsive.</p><p>Some highlights:</p><p>* That early internet feeling is back: "1995 to 1999 felt a certain way. It never felt that way again until 2023 to 2025."</p><p>* GPT-4 transformed Daily's business by removing a key bottleneck: "Previously you needed two humans for a conversation. Now you only need one, maybe not even that."</p><p>* Voice AI's killer feature? Latency matters: "If response times are long, you're in that uncanny valley where people get uncomfortable."</p><p>* Kwin's bold prediction: "We're all going to have friends in our group chats that aren't human because LLMs are actually really entertaining."</p><p>Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.</p><p><strong>Links</strong></p><p>Daily: https://daily.co/PipeCat: https://pipecat.ai/Kwin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kwindla</p><p><strong>Chapters</strong></p><p>0:00 Intro</p><p>2:02 First AI aha moment</p><p>5:43 MIT Media Lab beginnings</p><p>9:05 BBS and door games</p><p>15:26 The AllAfrica journey</p><p>18:54 Starting Daily</p><p>21:13 COVID's impact on WebRTC</p><p>22:36 GPT-4 transformation</p><p>31:26 Building voice for LLMs</p><p>35:17 PipeCat's key challenges</p><p>44:10 The future of speech-to-speech</p><p>47:10 Voice AI adoption trends</p><p>52:34 Vibe coding revolution</p><p>56:11 What's next for PipeCat</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.smartspeakers.fm?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">www.smartspeakers.fm</a>
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57 MIN
The craft behind voice AI magic with Tom Shapland
MAR 17, 2025
The craft behind voice AI magic with Tom Shapland
<p>This week, Tom Shapland shares his journey from agriculture tech to founding Canonical, a tool that helps voice AI developers understand and improve conversations by mapping call stages.</p><p>Tom has deep experience in the voice world—we loved this conversation and we’re sure you will too!</p><p><strong>Links</strong></p><p>https://canonical.chathttps://x.com/Tom_Shaplandhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-shapland-b4494212/</p><p></p><p><strong>Chapters</strong></p><p>0:00 - Intro</p><p>1:05 - Welcome and first AI moment</p><p>3:03 - Computer vision for thirsty plants</p><p>5:50 - Explaining AI to farmers</p><p>7:52 - Hardware is hard</p><p>8:31 - Non-VC shaped business struggles</p><p>16:51 - Starting a new company</p><p>19:41 - From metrics to conversation stages</p><p>22:42 - Voice AI evolution</p><p>26:40 - Balancing determinism and freedom</p><p>29:53 - Who uses Canonical and when</p><p>32:39 - Don't make your agent spell anything</p><p>35:52 - Zero to 80% is easy, production is hard</p><p>39:28 - Future of voice AI adoption</p><p>42:21 - Book recommendations and closing</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.smartspeakers.fm?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">www.smartspeakers.fm</a>
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45 MIN
Olivia Moore, a16z: Voice as a wedge
MAR 10, 2025
Olivia Moore, a16z: Voice as a wedge
<p>Voice AI is having its moment, but pretty soon every company will be a voice company.</p><p>Olivia Moore is the author of a16z’s<a target="_blank" href="https://a16z.com/ai-voice-agents-2025-update/"> market report on voice AI agents</a>, which is a must-read if you’re interested in the space. </p><p>She’s an amazing thinker and we cover a lot in this conversation, including:</p><p>* Olivia's thesis that Voice AI is in it’s “internet in 1999” moment</p><p>* The "wedge" strategy: using Voice AI to get in the door before transforming broader business operations</p><p>* How recruiting became a surprising early adopter of Voice AI (candidates actually prefer it)</p><p>* Voice AI's unique ability to handle compliance and stay on-script in regulated industries</p><p>* Shifting from per-minute pricing to transaction-based fees or success metrics</p><p>* Why big tech platforms (OpenAI, Google) won't dominate vertical-specific voice applications</p><p><strong>Links</strong></p><p>* Olivia on X: <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/omooretweets">https://x.com/omooretweets</a> (must-follow!)</p><p>* Her <a target="_blank" href="https://a16z.com/ai-voice-agents-2025-update/">market report on voice AI agents</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://classicreload.com/dr-sbaitso.html">Dr Sbaitso emulator</a> - this was packaged with new Sound Blaster sound cards! Strange stuff.</p><p><strong>Chapters</strong>0:00 Intro and welcome1:24 Olivia's first AI "aha" moments 3:42 Coolest non-voice AI tools6:29 How Olivia got into the Voice AI space10:03 From consumer to enterprise13:50 DMV-bot16:22 Voice AI as a wedge20:57 Traction in the voice market24:24 Voice AI for recruiting28:59 Why AI doesn't go off-script31:03 Better experiences for candidates and customers33:24 The future of call centers37:02 Bear cases for Voice AI41:25 Open problems44:29 Pricing47:12 Working with twin sister Justine50:11 Three things Olivia's excited about </p><p><strong>Subscribe</strong> and listen: https://smartspeakers.fm</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.smartspeakers.fm?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">www.smartspeakers.fm</a>
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55 MIN
Voice AI for Healthcare: Phil Markunas, Standard Practice
MAR 3, 2025
Voice AI for Healthcare: Phil Markunas, Standard Practice
<p>We chat with <strong>Phil Markunas</strong> about his wild journey from Army staff sergeant to voice AI founder.</p><p>Phil shares how Standard Practice evolved from a healthcare payment startup to building an AI assistant that handles complex insurance calls. Along the way, we learn about Phil's life in Japan, his Oreo obsession, and why he believes natural conversation is as hard as self-driving cars. </p><p>I loved Phil’s concept of “success, but doof” — it neatly encapsulates just how hard it is to measure the success of AI voice calls.</p><p>Stay tuned next week for our chat with Olivia Moore from a16z. </p><p>See you soon—dave & harish</p><p><strong>Follow Phil:</strong>https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-markunashttps://philm.io/https://x.com/philmarkunas</p><p><strong>Standard Practice:</strong>https://standardpractice.ai</p><p><strong>Chapters</strong>0:00 - Introduction to Phil Markunas, CTO of Standard Practice1:34 - AI icebreaker and Phil's emotional response to voice AI & Oreo obsession5:17 - Military background and how Army service shaped Phil's people-first leadership8:07 - Global citizen with 60+ moves and life in Japan13:04 - The Nibble Health origin story and creating a medical bill payment card17:59 - Facing challenges and developing the SimpleBuill medical analysis tool22:07 - Pivoting to voice AI to solve the healthcare insurance call problem26:25 - Why voice conversation is an AGI-level problem and deceptively complex33:21 - Beyond "just prompt it up" to building sophisticated voice AI architecture40:45 - "Success, but doof" moments and the future of Standard Practice</p><p><strong>Subscribe — and let us know what you think!</strong>https://smartspeakers.fm</p> <br/><br/>This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit <a href="https://www.smartspeakers.fm?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_7">www.smartspeakers.fm</a>
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42 MIN
Episode 1: ChatGPT lies to us
FEB 24, 2025
Episode 1: ChatGPT lies to us
<p>Smart Speakers is a podcast about voice AI. Our first guest is, of course, an AI: ChatGPT in advanced voice mode.</p><p><strong>We talk about:</strong></p><p>* Our journey since selling Chartable to Spotify in 2022: life inside Spotify, and Harish’s explorations outside corporate life in construction and factory tech</p><p>* Starting to work together again last July</p><p>* Exploring projects: a Chartable-like analytics platform for audiobooks, a text-to-speech bookmarking tool called Earmark, and finally experiments with voice AI</p><p>* We interview ChatGPT, which is surprisingly good at podcast ad reads!</p><p>* Harish thinks ChatGPT lied to us at least twice. What do you think?</p><p><strong>Stay tuned next week:</strong> Phil Markunas from <a target="_blank" href="http://standardpractice.ai">Standard Practice</a> discusses voice AI in healthcare billing. </p><p>Thanks for listening, reading, and watching. We’d love to hear your feedback! Subscribe and comment at <a target="_blank" href="https://smartspeakers.fm">https://smartspeakers.fm </a></p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://www.smartspeakers.fm?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">www.smartspeakers.fm</a>
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47 MIN