Former PayPal and Providian Financial Executive Brings Two Decades of Experience Driving Growth Strategies for Leading Financial Services Companies LendingClub Corporation, America's largest online lending marketplace connecting borrowers and investors, announced that it has selected seasoned marketer Alexandra Shapiro to serve as the company's Chief Marketing Officer. Shapiro is responsible for executing LendingClub's marketing strategy that supports the company's growth objectives, builds a strong consumer brand,…

60 Well Known Phrases in English Were Translated by the Three Leading Assistants into French, Spanish, Chinese and German Google Assistant Scored the Best in Three out of Four Language Pairs and Amazon Alexa in Chinese Take the most famous phrase from the Godfather - “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” - or “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” from the inaugural address of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and see just how the virtual assistants do in translating them using their newly…

From a marketing standpoint, what were the important takeaways from The 2019 Alexa Conference? The emergence of the car as the next frontier for Voice-first technology is arguably the most important takeaway from the event. Around 77 million people in America use Voice Assistants or other Voice Tech in the car versus 45 million in the home. Automakers are moving quickly to incorporate Alexa, Google Assistant, or even technology like SoundHound's Houndify Voice Assistant (used in Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, and other…

Cigna and Express Scripts Introduce Amazon Alexa Voice Skills to Make Health Care More Personalized and Convenient for Customers Cigna and Express Scripts have collaborated with Amazon Alexa to launch two voice skills to make health care more engaging, personalized and convenient for customers. The Cigna and Express Scripts Alexa skills will enable eligible customers to use voice technology to manage pharmacy prescriptions, engage in health improvement programs and track wellness incentives. “In particular, we believe…

Voices.com and Jargon to Help Brands Go Global in a Voice-First World Voices.com, the online marketplace where brand managers and marketers discover, audition and hire professional voice actors has partnered with Jargon.com, the leading conversation platform for voice assistant applications. Bringing Jargon’s ability to localize voice applications together with Voices.com’s offering of the deepest and most diverse marketplace for voice actors, this partnership will enable the two companies to assist brands in solving…

Roku, Inc. announced that Roku devices are now compatible with Amazon Alexa-enabled devices through the new Roku skill for Alexa. Roku streaming player and Roku TV owners in the US can now control their Roku devices using Alexa. The new voice control compatibility further expands the flexibility and choice for how consumers control their Roku devices and get to their entertainment quickly. “Consumers often have multiple voice ecosystems in their homes. By allowing our customers to choose Alexa, in addition to Roku voice…

Which was the most impactful Marketing Tech moment of the year for you as a marketing leader? Adobe’s acquisition of Marketo is significant and it will be interesting to see how they approach the market together and also how other Marketing Technologies are consolidated over the coming year. The past few years, we’ve seen an expansion — all of the vendor marketers are tasked with managing. While we’ll continue to see growth and innovation in the technologies that marketers employ, I suspect we’ll see marketers attempt to…

Uberall Study Finds That SMBs Prefer Alexa over Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana Uberall, Inc., the location marketing solution for businesses competing to attract and win local brick-and-mortar customers, released a new study about how SMB (small- and medium-sized business) marketers feel about interactive voice technology. Interactive voice is the 2-way engagement that a consumer has with a voice assistant like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Apple’s Siri. People can use these assistants in many different places like…

Tell us about your role at Oracle and the team/technology you handle. I lead the Oracle Customer Experience Product Management team responsible for SaaS-based sales applications, including Oracle’s Engagement Cloud, Sales Performance Management, Customer Data Management, and Partner Relationship Management. How do you see sales roles evolving with the maturity of Automation and Intelligence tools? First, let’s talk about how buyers have changed. Today’s buyers do most of their research online before reaching out to a…

Privakey, the leader in secure customer engagement, is pleased to announce the latest version of its Privakey CX solution. Privakey CX is a licensable technology that delivers a new channel to securely interact with customers within the mobile apps they already enjoy on their phones. Built on the foundations of multi-factor authentication, Privakey extends the security principles of MFA to any user interaction that requires strong identity confirmation, approval or consent. An example of Privakey's value is demonstrated…

Global Study Highlights Huge Disconnect Between Retailers and Consumers and the Role of New Technologies in the Shopping Experience People do not want to speak with robots while shopping in-store or online according to a new study conducted by Oracle NetSuite in partnership with Wakefield Research and The Retail Doctor, a retail consulting firm created by expert consultant and business mentor Bob Phibbs. The global study of 1,200 consumers and 400 retail executives across the US, UK and Australia found a huge disconnect…

Tellables, a publisher of voice apps, is set to launch virtual human storytellers at The Alexa Conference. The digital characters, which tell original stories and understand spoken language, will be on display at the Alexa World's Fair in Chattanooga, TN from January 15–19, 2019. Virtual human storytellers are an addition to the current Tellables lineup of conversational, voice first story apps. Amy Stapleton, CEO and founder of Tellables, explained consumers with Alexa-enabled devices can access audio stories by…

Voicify, a voice experience platform provider, announced that they will be attending as a Silver Sponsor of The 2019 Alexa Conference, Jan. 15-17, 2019 in Chattanooga, TN. Jason Fields, Chief Strategy Officer of Voicify said, "We are honored to be a part of this year's Alexa Conference. The event brings together a vast group of great minds, all who share a similar passion for the future of voice technology. We're looking forward to gaining the value of interacting with some of the other market-leading companies, as well…

Winners to Be Revealed at The Alexa Conference, Jan. 15-17, at the Chattanooga Convention Center The Alexa Conference, presented by podcast network VoiceFirst.FM, announced the finalists of the 2019 Alexa Awards. The winners will be announced during the upcoming conference, Jan. 15-17, in Chattanooga, Tenn. "Congratulations to this year's Alexa Award finalists, all of whom demonstrate creativity and innovation, while showcasing how far voice technology has come in terms of impacting every business across every…

MicroStrategy-Alexa Integration Designed to Deliver Faster Path to Insights with AI for Line-of-Business Users MicroStrategy Incorporated, a leading worldwide provider of enterprise analytics and mobility software, announced that Corporación Hijos de Rivera S.L., producer of Estrella Galicia beer and other leading beverage brands, is piloting a new voice-powered business analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) application with Amazon’s customizable virtual assistant, Alexa, to simplify decision-making for its…

Alexandre Schont VP Strategic Partnerships, TabMo More than 80% of the mobile ads that TabMo receives on its DSP come from mobile applications, rather than (mobile) browsers. In this context, we spoke to Alexandre Schont, VP Strategic Partnerships, TabMo, to understand precision advertising in mobile and the technologies that come together in delivering these campaigns. Tell us about your role at TabMo and the team/technology you handle. TabMo is a mobile-first demand-side platform (DSP) that is available as a…

" Every business that wants to grow and scale needs to build better relationships with customers from the first time they visit their website."Tell us about your role and journey into technology. What made you join Intercom? I am the CMO at Intercom and oversee all of Intercom’s marketing efforts including brand, external comms, demand generation, and product marketing. Prior to Intercom, I was CMO at BigCommerce, where I grew top of funnel demand and revenue by 45% YoY and optimized marketing across major digital and…

A Year After Finalizing Their Collaboration Amazon and Microsoft Have Integrated Alexa with Cortana. The Integration Intends to Give Tough Competition to Apple’s Siri and Alphabet Inc’s Google Assistant There has been some interesting news developing for users of Alexa and Cortana in the United States. Owners of Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft's Cortana will now be able to access features of both, Alexa and Cortana. Hence, Alexa owners can latch onto Cortana features and vice-versa. The integration adds tremendous…

Businesses Can Now Feed Their Digital Knowledge Directly to Amazon Alexa Via the Yext Knowledge Engine Yext, a leader in Digital Knowledge Management (DKM), announced a global integration with Amazon to give businesses control over the answers Alexa provides about them. With this new relationship, consumers using Amazon Alexa for voice search can receive the most up-to-date facts about businesses—locations, contact information, hours of operation, and more—straight from the source: the business itself. Recommended Read: …

New Skill for Alexa Helps Make Users Smart on the Economy, Pop Culture, Tech and Current Events with Exclusive On-Demand Voice Content Marketplace has launched its first Amazon Alexa skill, Make Me Smart from Marketplace, to deliver unique, on-demand voice content exclusively for Alexa users with new content every weekday. “We wanted to take advantage of the unique benefits of this platform rather than simply repurpose content we’re already airing elsewhere” With an Amazon Echo nearby, once the skill is enabled,…