Siri co-founder details ‘a huge revolution’ in workplace assistants like Otter.ai

Adam Cheyer, the Siri co-founder and Otter.ai strategic technology advisor, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss how voice and meeting assistants will be integral to hybrid working situations.

Video transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: The folks behind Apple's Siri is back with a new start up making a voice service called Otter.ai. The idea is to make meetings more efficient with automatic transcribing, calendaring, and even summaries. But can it integrate with enough systems to break through the crowded voice assistant space?

Let's bring in Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri and Strategic Technology Advisor for Otter.ai. Adam, good to see you here this morning. Full disclosure, I have used Otter.ai for some time now. How will software like this be used as I go back to the office?

ADAM CHEYER: Well, as you know, Brian, there are probably half a billion professional workers who are in hybrid work situations right now with online, and virtual, and physical meetings. Otter is transitioning from becoming just a transcription tool to being a full fledged collaborative meeting assistant-- being able to summarize information, allowing you to participate and take notes, identify action items, and to really bring together the most productive meetings you can have.

JULIE HYMAN: Adam, it's Julie here. When I think about Siri, your other baby, if you will, the reason that it works well is because it works with other stuff. In other words, you can ask Siri to tell you the weather-- there's sort of an interactivity with other apps and other information. Is something like that in the works or already in place for Otter as well where you have that sort of integration?

ADAM CHEYER: Well, today, with the new Otter experience, Otter's becoming at the center of your meeting life. So you can keep track of all the different meetings that you have, no matter which system you're using-- from Zoom, to Microsoft Teams, to Google Meet. You have integration with the calendar.

So you can send and schedule who's attending which meetings. And you can start to take all of your notes and your action items right there in the meeting center for Otter.

BRIAN SOZZI: Adam, there's so many voices out there right now. How do you see this technology evolving over the next decade? How will it be used that in a way that we're not using now?

ADAM CHEYER: Well, I've been in the voice assistant space for some 30 years. I worked on a project called Kalo, which was the largest AI project in US government history. I found it Siri. And you can watch the evolution.

Assistants are becoming more able to understand and help what people do. If you think about how Siri launched a voice assistant revolution with other products like Alexa, Cortana coming in-- Siri was really the first widely-distributed voice assistant that could interact. But it was really one to one-- one Siri talking to one user.

The next evolution for assistants is things like Otter where it's multiplayer and collaborative. There are many people working together with the AI and augmenting the AI with notes and additions to it. And I think that's going to be a huge revolution coming forward.

JULIE HYMAN: And how do you sort of see that sort of pie in the sky, Adam, if you will, being used beyond the office? Or what are the other applications eventually in this next evolution?

ADAM CHEYER: Sure. So I think already, assistants are starting to pervade everywhere. They're in our watches, they're in our smart speakers, and now they're right with us on our desktops as we participate in meetings. Soon, they'll be with us in physical meetings as well.

And the goal is to really augment human capacity to achieve tasks, to get things done more efficiently in every aspect-- whether you're in the car, whether you're watching TV. So assistants will be there who know you, who know your preferences, who can help you achieve the goals that you have in life throughout your day.

BRIAN SOZZI: Adam, real quick before I let you go-- how do you use Siri in your own personal life?

ADAM CHEYER: Well, I use it every day. I joke that one of the reasons I created Siri was because my wife used to say, oh, honey, remind me tomorrow at 9 o'clock to do this-- or remind me when I leave the house-- so now Siri does that and I don't have to be the memory for my wife. I use it for sports. I use it for maps. I use it for notes. I use it pretty much in and around my day as I work with it.

BRIAN SOZZI: Duly noted. Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri and Strategic Technology Advisor for Otter.ai-- good to see you.