Smart Speakers Podcast
Dave Zohrob & Harish Agarwal
A podcast about Voice AI hosted by Dave Zohrob and Harish Agarwal, the cofounders of Chartable (acquired by Spotify in 2022). We interview founders, technologists, and investors at the frontier of voice AI applications, and share our startup journey along the way. More at https://smartspeakers.fm www.smartspeakers.fm
The pipeline for voice—Kwindla Hultman Kramer, CEO of Daily
Much of my childhood was spent in my basement, dialing up other people’s computers to trade messages and play games.Kwin Kramer from Daily remembers that time, too—and says today's voice AI moment feels just like those early internet days. That sense of endless possibilities is back.His open-source project PipeCat has become the standard toolkit for voice agents. What began as an experiment now powers voice AI for OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and countless startups, making conversations feel natural
Mar 24, • 57:17
The craft behind voice AI magic with Tom Shapland
This week, Tom Shapland shares his journey from agriculture tech to founding Canonical, a tool that helps voice AI developers understand and improve conversations by mapping call stages.Tom has deep experience in the voice world—we loved this conversation and we’re sure you will too!Linkshttps://canonical.chathttps://x.com/Tom_Shaplandhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-shapland-b4494212/Chapters0:00 - Intro1:05 - Welcome and first AI moment3:03 - Computer vision for thirsty plants5:50 - Explaining
Mar 17, • 45:36
Olivia Moore, a16z: Voice as a wedge
Voice AI is having its moment, but pretty soon every company will be a voice company.Olivia Moore is the author of a16z’s market report on voice AI agents, which is a must-read if you’re interested in the space. She’s an amazing thinker and we cover a lot in this conversation, including:* Olivia's thesis that Voice AI is in it’s “internet in 1999” moment* The "wedge" strategy: using Voice AI to get in the door before transforming broader business operations* How recruiting became a surprising ea
Mar 10, • 55:08
Voice AI for Healthcare: Phil Markunas, Standard Practice
We chat with Phil Markunas about his wild journey from Army staff sergeant to voice AI founder.Phil shares how Standard Practice evolved from a healthcare payment startup to building an AI assistant that handles complex insurance calls. Along the way, we learn about Phil's life in Japan, his Oreo obsession, and why he believes natural conversation is as hard as self-driving cars. I loved Phil’s concept of “success, but doof” — it neatly encapsulates just how hard it is to measure the success of
Mar 3, • 42:49
Episode 1: ChatGPT lies to us
Smart Speakers is a podcast about voice AI. Our first guest is, of course, an AI: ChatGPT in advanced voice mode.We talk about:* Our journey since selling Chartable to Spotify in 2022: life inside Spotify, and Harish’s explorations outside corporate life in construction and factory tech* Starting to work together again last July* Exploring projects: a Chartable-like analytics platform for audiobooks, a text-to-speech bookmarking tool called Earmark, and finally experiments with voice AI* We inte
Feb 24, • 47:54
