Building Open Technical Standards and Ethical Guidelines for Voice Assistance
A Community of the Linux Foundation
Voice / Conversational AI that works like the web – open, standards-based, and interoperable across assistants, platforms, and language models. Voice / Conversational AI that is worthy of user trust – privacy protecting, data respecting, accountable, transparent, inclusive, sustainable, well-governed.
A Special Message From Our Executive Director
Welcome to the Open Voice Network
Voice / Conversational AI that works for everyone.
We are a vendor-neutral, non-profit community of The Linux Foundation, dedicated to developing the technical standards and ethical use guidelines for the emerging world of voice / conversational artificial intelligence. We work toward a world in which natural language is the interface to an untold number of information and knowledge sources, and that such access is unfettered, free of platform and language model limitations. We work toward a world in which voice / conversational AI has shown itself worthy of user trust – in its respect of personal privacy, protection of data, transparency, accountability, and inclusivity.
Interoperability
Privacy
Security
Ethical Use
Identification and Authentication
Synthetic Voice
People want voice assistance that is reliable, understands them, helps them get to results faster, and we know your business does not want to anger them.
Our research and development will help your brand to level the playing field while also becoming an innovative leader in customer experience optimization.
Our developer communities are creating open technology standards your business can utilize across your digital and real world points of contact that are capable of being accessed on any device in a secure, intelligent, and accessible manner.
Projects
Where We Are Making An Impact
Live Projects at The Open Voice Network
Interoperability
We are helping to build the foundation for interoperability between voice assistance platforms that will allow business to build once and deploy everywhere.
Ethical Use
The home of the Open Voice Network TrustMark Initiative. Six core principles of ethical AI – privacy, transparency, accountability, inclusivity, sustainability, and governance – operationally defined, and translated into educational courses and organizational assessment tools.
Health, Wellness, and Life Sciences
Voice and Conversational AI as a tool for continuous, ever-more-precise care. With unique value for remote and underserved populations worldwide, and with special attention to privacy and data management requirements.
Our Mission and Vision
The Open Voice Network was formed to enable voice assistance to fulfill its promise.
Mission
The Open Voice Network will achieve its vision through the communal development and adoption of industry standards and usage guidelines, industry education and advocacy initiatives, and the development and documentation of voice-centric value propositions.
Vision
The Open Voice Network (OVON) seeks to make voice technology worthy of user trust—a task of critical importance as voice emerges as a primary, multi-device portal to the digital and IOT worlds, and as independent, specialist voice assistants take their place next to general purpose platforms.
The Network
Meet the Team
Serving a Community of Billions Of Voice Users
Beyond our own staff, we are aligned with hundreds of brands who are friends of our efforts. These companies are committed to following our vision for the future of voice assistance. Ambassadors are the leading influencers with substantial networks working towards driving change in standards for voice assistance. Our sponsors are brands who’ve committed substantial funding to our research and development projects.
The Open Voice Network By The Numbers
They Trust Us, They Build With Us
The Open Voice Network is an open, inclusive, global community of innovators, technologists, industry practitioners, academics, and ethicists.
Founded
Monthly Active Participants
Nations Represented
Time Zones Represented
Shared Vision
Brands Committed To Building Ethical Voice Technology
Open Voice Network Communities
Open Voice Network Communities are open to everyone in the conversational AI community – developers, designers, strategists, linguists, researchers, marketers, and students. There’s no charge or membership fee to participate. All that’s required is a willingness to give of your time, a willingness to share your best thinking in a collaborative, open environment, and a commitment to a conversational AI future that is multi-platform, multi-assistant, multi-modal, multi-use, multi-device, user-centric, and standards-based.
Ethical Use Task Force
For all conversational AI practitioners, researchers, and enthusiasts committed to a better future. Primary responsibility: advising the entirety of the Open Voice Network on issues of privacy, consent, inclusivity, and many more; developing and proposing voice-central ethical use frameworks and guidelines.
Health, Wellness, and Life Sciences
The Open Voice Network Health, Wellness, and Life Sciences Community (HWLS) enables consumers and health, wellness, and life sciences professionals to improve the continuum of health through the adoption of open, standards-based voice technology and privacy-protected analysis of voice-based data. It is pursuing this important objective through its global community of industry and technology leaders, exploration of use cases and industry requirements, and extensive educational outreach.
Commerce Industries Community
For those using and researching the use of conversational AI in the retail and consumer products industries. Primary responsibility: advising the entirety of the Open Voice Network on the value propositions, use cases, and dependencies, and as to the why, the what, the how, and the legal requirements and ethical use of conversational AI in retail and consumer products.
Seeing Change Through Collaboration, Advocacy, & Development of Open Standards for Voice.
Participate
Support and Contributions
Crowdfunding
As one of its directed funds and open source communities, the Open Voice Network is excited to announce the establishment of a crowdfunding platform for our organization on behalf of The Linux Foundation. This development is in direct response to the ongoing growth of the Open Voice Network and our desire to expand the reach of our organization. Crowd-sourced funds will be directly invested in OVON standards research, demo development, and publication.
“Would you prefer to shape the future of voice or passively be shaped by it? If you prefer the former, the Open Voice Network is the place for you. Please join us.”
Jon Stine, Executive Director of the Open Voice Network
By choosing to participate in our crowdfunding efforts, you will have a significant impact on the future of voice through the broadening of our reach as an organization, as well as through the investments of future standards developments. Organizations around the world contribute to Linux Foundation projects like the Open Voice Network due to their desire to take an active role in supporting the growth and development of voice technologies and the standards and guidelines around them—and now, you can too.
Sponsorships
AI-enabled voice assistance is reshaping digital usage for consumers and organizations across the world. However, today’s AI-voice environment is like the early, pre-standards days of the internet—no recognized registry of destination or dispatch names, and no assured way for consumers to find companies or brands. In such an environment, there’s a critical need for leaders (enterprise users and developers alike) to join together and develop the standards that will allow this transformative technology to reach its full, open, potential. Standards that encourage use and growth. Standards that enable competitive differentiation. Standards that will give everyone their voice. This is the reason for the Open Voice Network—a non-profit association of enterprises, tech firms, developers, and researchers who believe that conversational AI will deliver the most to the most when it is standards based, open, accessible to all, data protected, and interoperable.
Research & Documents
Resource Documents
- OVON Identification & Authentication Requirements for Conversational Assistants v1.0
- Interoperable Dialog Event Object Specification Version 1.0
- How Voice Technology Implementations Advance Remote Patient Monitoring and Management (RPM) – Distribution for Review
- Interoperability Architectural Patterns – Initial Thoughts
- Interoperable Dialog Packet Requirements
- Synthetic Voice Messaging Summary
