Our Work - Get Involved
Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) – a realm which stretches from natural language processing and generation to today’s latest generative AI innovation – is now redefining how humans will interact with the digital world (and with each other.) At the core of conversational AI is natural language, expressed acoustically or through the written word, in tongues and dialects that span the globe. This is the first interface, given to us as children; when connected to the digital world – in an open, equitable, standards-based, and ethical manner – it offers significant social, economic, and political opportunities.
However, this much-hyped technology may fall well short of its potential for consumer acceptance and enterprise value. Research has consistently pointed to a “trust gap” that raises critical questions privacy, data security, ease of use, brand protection, interoperability, and equal and unbiased access for individual and organizational users alike.
A proven way to close the trust gap – one pursued in the early days of other technologies – is through the communal development and adoption of standards and usage guidelines.
To those who want to work on resolving those gaps, we welcome you to participate in our projects at the Open Voice Network.
Standards
The Open Voice Network's Technical Standards Initiatives
To make voice assistance worthy of user trust, the Open Voice Network (OVON) is pursuing technical standards development in four areas: 1) interoperability between voice agents, 2) voice-based findability and discoverability, 3) user privacy specific to voice, and 4) data security specific to voice. We are also researching the need for technical standards in synthetic voice development and identification and voice-based authentication.
Building an open source future
Voice Technology Innovations
Interoperability Project
How might voice agents of different platforms or technical parentage share dialogues, data, context, and controls?
Discovery & Findability Services
How might voice users confidently find and discover preferred voice agent/application destinations in a worldwide voice web?
How might organizations protect their brand names and brand experiences in a worldwide voice web?
User Privacy Initiative
How might current and envisioned voice technologies threaten individual privacy and create personal and institutional harm?
How might practitioners of voice technology (from developers to organizations) be guided to respect established privacy rights and earn constituent trust?
How might commercial users of voice protect their data and that of their constituents?
Voice Data Security
What threats to organizational data security currently exist (and will emerge) with the emergent adoption of voice technology?
What steps must organizational security officers now take?
Is there research now in development that will guide and inform security officers for the future world of voice?
Synthetic Voice Study
What is the operative definition of synthetic voice? How is it created?
What are the benefits and risks of synthetic voice? Who are the primary constituents and stakeholders of Synthetic Voice?
What technical standards should be created for the benefit of synthetic voice creators, participants, and consumers?
Voice Authentication Study
What is the current state of password-free biometric authentication? What might voice learn from other biometric authentication processes?
For consumers and developers of voice experiences and services, what is a best-case (UX and security) authentication process?
What technical standards should be created for the benefit of voice-centric authentication creators, participants, and consumers?