Geertina Hamstra, mom of 2 daughters and +100 chatbots, knows first-hand how a chatbot can create a bond with a human. In the 18th episode of Taking Turns with Eran Soroka, she also recalls a chatbot that she created to protect kids online, and talks about the importance of a bot's personality ..read more

How can a human-like chatbot help a country connect better with its citizens during a pandemic? How can a digital person become your business' brand ambassador? And how did Zara Jillings, a national basketball star and NCAA starting PG, pivot to conversational AI? Watch this episode of Taking Turns, and as a bonus, get an unexpected answer to one of the hottest discussions of the last two seasons: Kawhi or LeBron ..read more

The Coronavirus brought the world to a halt - including the physical experience of shopping... and that's where and when chatbots came to save the day.   Maciej Maliszewski is the head of bots in K2bots.ai in Poland, where they help all kinds of businesses and institutes - from Ikea to the Warsaw University and deep into the fashion market. In the latest Taking Turns episodes, Maciej is talking about the gains businesses can get from going conversational, even in areas where the fit - pun intended - feels strange ..read more

Sometimes, a societal change can be seen and measured in... the logs of a chatbot.  Take, for example, Roo. The award-winning chatbot of Planned Parenthood was launched in February 2019 and had millions of conversations since - with teens from all over USA and the world. The insights are fascinating: following the #MeToo movement, for example, those teens are starting to search for ways to behave respectfully towards their partners.  So, how did Roo came to life? How do they know when an adult is posing as a teenager? And what are the plans forward for the world's most popular sexual ..read more

Lauren Golembiewski and her partner, developer and musician Matthew Buck, just loved to play at home with voice interactions and automation devices. When the industry started to evolve, they both quitted their jobs and founded Voxable, which helps companies - and individuals - create voice skills the right way.  So, how can you learn an instrument with a voice bot? How hard was it to create a voice skill for SXSW? And why is a user research so crucial ..read more

How are being a teacher and being a conversation designer similar? How can e-learning benefit from conversational AI? And how can Alexa help you prepare a Thanksgiving turkey? In the 12th episode of Taking Turns, Eran Soroka catches up with one of the biggest and experienced experts in the field - Rebecca Evanhoe. Enjoy the show ..read more

How can the implementation of conversational AI in the gaming industry create a better experience for the gamer - and a new world of opportunities for gaming companies? Why is the inability to have a free-flowing conversation with a character "sticks like a sore thumb"? In Episode 11 of Taking Turns,  especially for the Conversation Quest Meetup, Eran Soroka caught up with game development and design expert Nir Meidan ..read more

How can you convince your stakeholders to explore a new route and change their perception? How a meetup with Japanese audience made him a voice expert? And what's the important thing that companies missing in the Coronavirus era? Emiel Langeberg, voice conversation design lead for Dutch fintech company Kandoor, talks all of it and more in the latest episode of Taking Turns, hosted by Eran Soroka ..read more

Thorben Stemann wasn't supposed to build and oversee a chatbot - but a customer's request turned him into a chatbot developer. On the latest episode of Taking Turns, the former project manager talks about the importance of language and translations, how chatbot became an advantage for his company, and how relationship between users and his bot took a strange turn ..read more

Conversation design was the perfect place from Maaike Coppens; Already being a UX and languague enthusiast, she fould a way to combine her two favourite fields into one. In our latest episode of Taking Turns, Coppens joins us to emphasize the importance of good UX, inclusion, and especially words - sometimes an afterthought, but always a potential for making the user angry or frustrated. How do you do it the right way? That's why Maaike is here. Enjoy the show ..read more