Working Together for Better Voice Technology: Voicify's approach combines human-designed rules with AI capabilities to manage restaurant menus effectively. Instead of letting AI work autonomously, Voicify uses generative AI selectively to resolve unclear situations, while keeping the rest tightly controlled. This balance ensures both accuracy and a better customer experience.
Restaurants Lead the Way in Voice AI Adoption: Restaurants are at the forefront of adopting voice AI to solve urgent challenges, unlike slower-moving sectors like healthcare. Nick explains how restaurants’ willingness to innovate has allowed them to push the boundaries of voice AI, turning the industry into a testing ground for these technologies.
Keeping Voice AI Focused and Reliable: Voicify keeps its AI models tightly focused on restaurant-specific scenarios, ensuring they remain helpful and accurate. By setting clear boundaries, the AI avoids trying to answer unrelated questions, reducing mistakes and maintaining trust with customers. This controlled approach keeps interactions on track and reliable.
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In this insightful episode of Data Delicacies, host Arun Kumar welcomes Nick Laidlaw, Chief Technology Officer of Voicify, for a deep dive into the evolving world of voice AI technology. With the restaurant industry at the forefront of voice AI adoption, Nick reveals how Voicify is blending AI innovation with structured controls to enhance customer interactions while maintaining precision and reliability. Join Arun and Nick as they discuss how voice AI is transforming industries, the unique challenges in deploying AI responsibly, and the future of conversational technologies. Tune in to hear how Voicify is leading the way in making voice AI smarter, safer, and more effective.
At Voicify, they aim to create a partnership between structured rules and the adaptability of AI, rather than relying solely on AI to learn and manage restaurant menus autonomously. Chief Technology Officer Nick Laidlaw further explains…
“We try not to just let generative AI control the conversation and learn the menu on its own and tune (and tune and tune),” Nick said. “We take a different approach where we can create rules around the menu and let generative AI help us in those situations where we’re trying to figure out who is speaking.”
This approach allows Voicify’s AI to be precise and controlled, especially in cases where there might be ambiguity.
While many industries are exploring voice AI, the restaurant industry is ahead of the curve in adopting and implementing these innovations. Nick highlighted the unique willingness of restaurants to experiment and embrace new technology, unlike other sectors like healthcare, which tend to be more conservative and slow-moving in adopting these tools.
“The restaurant industry is somewhat on the forefront,” Nick noted. “They’re trying things that some of the other verticals are just starting to do. We’re working within healthcare (which is) one of the slowest moving verticals in the world... The restaurant space is pushing innovation.”
Restaurants have a pressing need to solve business challenges affecting their bottom line, such as streamlining customer service and improving efficiency. As a result, they are more inclined to innovate, making the industry an effective testing ground for voice AI capabilities.
Keeping Voice AI Focused and Reliable:
Another key to Voicify’s success lies in how they keep their AI models focused and reliable. Nick emphasized the importance of “fencing” their AI models—that is, putting robust safeguards in place to ensure the AI stays within its intended conversational context. This approach minimizes the risk of misinformation and errors, which are common when AI systems operate without boundaries.
“Our models are trained on restaurant scenarios and certain types of questions that people might ask,” Nick explained. “We try to put some fences around it so that if someone is asking something that is completely out of bounds, we can allow our assistant to give a friendly response, but we’re going to try to get you back on track.”
This kind of controlled flexibility is crucial in maintaining user trust. It prevents AI from attempting to generate incorrect answers, which can lead to frustration and undermine customer confidence.
Episode Links
Voicify Online: https://www.Voicify.com
Connect with Nick Laidlaw on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-laidlaw-1720331/
Follow Nick Laidlaw on Twitter: https://twitter.com/acenick8
ABOUT NICK LAIDLAW—
Nick Laidlaw is co-founder and CTO for Voicify. He is part of a rare breed of technical executives who still knows how to work in the trenches while inspiring team members around him. He brings over twenty years of hands-on development and leadership experience in the marketing and advertising industry. Prior to Voicify, Nick was co-founder and CTO of Agency Oasis, a national digital advertising agency focused on web solutions. He helped to grow the agency over 16 years until it was acquired in 2016.
Nick has particular expertise in Content Management Systems (CMS) architecture and implementations. His affinity for intuitive CMS solutions began in 1997 while developing custom implementations for the tourism and financial industries. Over the years, Nick has worked with a number of off-the-shelf platforms with a focus within the Microsoft .NET stack. He excelled within the Sitecore CMS community; leading development efforts on the Sitecore platform since 2006 and a multiple time Sitecore MVP.
Nick’s expertise in the CMS space propelled him to provide intuitive solutions within the voice assistant space. His experience helping hundreds of companies within the marketing and advertising space fuels his passion to bring voice assistant capabilities to brands across industry verticals.
Nick has his BA in Computer Science from Hamilton College.
ABOUT DATA DELICACIES—
Data Delicacies is a weekly podcast that dives deep into the world of technology and data as it pertains to restaurants. Host Arun Kumar interviews some of the best and brightest in the industry about all things hospitality tech, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
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