Without proper time and testing on a custom wake word, you might have to start from the beginning. Facebook recently received attention for announcing that it would abandon its wake word, “Hey Facebook,” because of the confusion it caused users. Further user testing and education may have benefited the company.

Know your voice assistant’s target audience 

It’s essential that your voice assistant understands your target audience, whether it’s their language or their accent. When developing your voice AI strategy, you’ll want to look at where your target audience is, which languages they speak, and which accents they have. If you’re evaluating voice assistant technology platforms, you’ll want to make sure the voice AI provider has multilingual and accented language capabilities that match your users. 

Multilingual voice assistants are vital for reaching a larger target audience and creating an exceptional user experience. Customers feel more comfortable speaking in their native language, and being able to give voice commands in their native language will create a deeper bond and more meaningful interactions. 

In addition, broaden your customer base by implementing a voice assistant that can understand accents. According to Translate Day, there are an estimated 160 dialects of the English language in the world. Teaching your voice assistant to understand accents is essential to reaching your target market with a voice assistant that understands them. It’s also something that should be started from the very beginning of the process. Waiting to add languages and accents requires starting over with the right training data—costing considerable time, money, and wasted resources developing the first version. 

It should also be noted that although creating multilingual voice assistants that also understand accents is a process, it is also an investment in your greater voice AI goals.

Choose connectivity options

As voice AI technology matures, brands are faced with more choices about how much cloud connectivity they want or need for their unique use cases. Whether they choose full-cloud connection, no cloud connection (with embedded solutions), or a hybrid model that offers both embedded and cloud connectivity, will depend on individual product needs. Brands now have the freedom to choose the level of connectivity that will best meet their users’ needs and expectations. 

Cloud connectivity allows for users to have access to a wealth of information on the internet. Users can stream music, ask for the weather, book a flight, order take-out, play a movie, and more. Cloud-only connectivity works best for devices that don’t require any embedded features, such as a mobile device, app, or smart speaker. 

Embedded voice assistants open a world of possibilities with their enhanced security, lower processing power, and reduced costs. Everything is stored locally on the embedded voice assistant with no access to the cloud, so privacy is increased, and voice control can still be used in areas without an internet connection. Embedded voice assistants work well for devices in healthcare, manufacturing, QSRs, hospitality, and the hearables and wearables markets. 

Hybrid voice solutions offer the best of both worlds—cloud connectivity and embedded functionalities. Users will have access to the internet to search and stream with the convenience of hands-free embedded operability, such as rolling up and down windows, preheating the oven, or closing the blinds. Voice-enabled cars and IoT devices are among those most suited for hybrid voice assistants. 

When starting on your voice-first strategy, it’s essential to evaluate your target audience, their needs, and their expectations to choose the voice AI connectivity option that will work best for them and for your voice assistant. 

Infuse personality into your voice AI 

In an increasingly growing voice AI market, it’s not enough to have high accuracy and speed to gain brand loyalty and user satisfaction. Brands need to differentiate their voice assistant from their competitors. One way to stand out from the crowd is to make your voice assistant likable and relatable.

Users can have more natural interactions with voice assistants by adding human-like qualities, such as conversational speech, good grammar, and appropriate intelligence. Nothing throws a conversation off more than hearing a voice assistant respond with inaccurate grammar, which leads the user to think there is something seriously wrong with it or that it’s too robotic. 

Another tactic is to add personality through voice, tone, word choice, and humor. A voice assistant’s personality can form a deep bond with users who have been known to form a type of friendship with their voice assistant—further nurturing brand loyalty. When creating a voice assistant, brands will want to consider their voice assistant’s gender, tone, pitch, vocabulary, and level of humor through user testing to understand what will resonate most with their audience. 

Improve your voice assistant with data and testing.

A voice assistant isn’t a single, one-and-done program but an ever-evolving project that should be improved upon through data and user testing. At every important stage of building your custom voice assistant, user testing should be done to ensure that your voice assistant meets your audience’s needs and expectations. 

Once the voice AI is complete, user data will inform what is working and what needs to be improved upon, so future iterations can be completed. Voice user interfaces are a program that needs a long-term strategy. Technology will continue to evolve, and data will show what parts of your voice assistant need updating. Elements, such as a custom wake word, multiple languages, accented languages, and personality, are also challenges that may take many attempts before truly delighting the user.

Select the right voice AI partner

Choosing the right voice AI partner is another important step when building a custom voice assistant. You’ll want to carefully evaluate what the voice AI platform can offer and make sure it aligns with your and your users’ goals for the voice assistant. Brands will especially want to make sure the platform offers the capabilities we’ve discussed—a custom wake word, multilingual and accented language, connectivity options, personality, and control over data.