Listen: Google’s Wally Brill On How Voice Can Realise A Higher Social Purpose

By Dan Brain, Co-founder + Content Director, MAD//Fest 08 Jul 2019

Wally Brill has had a fascinating career, from creating interactive opera through to his current role leading voice design for Google - a job he describes as “creating personalities for the computers people talk to”.

Like most emerging technologies, distinguishing between hype and genuine opportunity is challenging. 

Nevertheless, there is every indication that we have barely scratched the surface of the voice opportunity, a channel that will be worth $40bn by 2022, according to OC&C.

In this podcast, Wally speaks to Shiny New Object presenter Tom Ollerton about how voice can move beyond the convenience of ordering a takeaway to a higher social purpose such as opening up the internet to the illiterate and the design challenge created by ‘micro expressions’ - non-verbal conversational cues that can indicate our underlying emotions (but are invisible/inaudible to voice assistants).

You can catch Wally live on-stage at MAD//Fest London on 13-14 Nov. Click here for the latest speaker list.