Headspace, Meditation app, bets voice & AI with Alpine.AI acquisition


As per the latest technology news, A meditation app, Headspace with 31 million users which is valued at $320 million, has doubled down on voice and A.I. technology helping to differentiate itself from the rest of the wellness pack. Today, the company has announced that they required Alpine.AI which was previously called VoiceLabs, one of the early competitor in the digital assistant market, to bring more voice interaction into its main app.
Via: britcdn.com
Paddy Hannon, the new CTO of the Headspace, says, “right now, there are some meditation apps out there…. But the ability to respond to where you’re in your journey with detailed advice through voice applications will be far ahead of where our challenges are.” Paddy Hannon will lead the Alpine team of four members who will be joining Headspace’s offices in San Francisco.

Headspace said that the terms of the deal were not revealed, but the acquisition included both the team and the technology. Joining the team will include Alpine.AI co-founder and CTO Alexandre Linares and three engineers. Alpine A.A.I. CEO Adam Marchick will continue with advisory role leading the way.
Via: arstechnica.net
VoiceLabs had experimented with plenty of voice-based products in the last few years. They included a voice ad product which Amazon suppressed; an analytics service for voice app developers; And talking more recently, a solution that could make the voice shopping apps by importing retailers’ catalogs and using AI. To answer and resolve the query of customer questions about those products.
The latest called the Alpine.AI is what Headspace found most interesting.

Alpine.AI was in process of finding solutions for retailers, naturally which would allow customers to talk to their voice assistants. For example, if you ask for a mascara, the voice assistant would respond with questions like, “What color?” “Do you want it waterproof?”

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Headspace is not starting any selling line of make-up, but it’s alpine, but it surely see potential in implementing Alpine.AI’s machine technologies in their own domains.
Today, the primary interface of the Headspace is audio. Users are given guidance through meditation sessions the soothing, calm and distinguishing voice of the co-founder, Andi Puddicombe, who is a former Tibetan monk.

Following that groundwork, the plan will implement technology of Alpine.AI to give people an interactive voice-based way to find the different meditation sessions available on Headspace, and to use those interactions to make a better platform for suggestions to individual users.
Via: iphoneappsfinder.com
A purchaser can tell Headspace that they are “stressed”, and accordingly the app would make an appropriate recommendation or suggestion based on customer’s history in the app.
In addition to the technique of Alpine, there may be a competitive advantage in the field of jam-packed and increasing self-care apps for the ‘Headspace’. According to PitchBook figures, in the case of valuation, Headspace is just ahead of leading rival Calm.com, with the latter at around 277 million dollars.

Further in the initial advantage phase of improving voice apps of Headspace, Hannon reflects on the Alpine’s technology that can be used in different ways, as well, including within its iOS and Android apps where a user uses his actions, not his voice and that could be the trigger point that kicks off a personalized suggestion.

According to Hannon, as per the latest technology updates, Alpine.AI was successful and appealing because of how it was built.

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In continuation, Hannon explains, “They built everything on Amazon. They use Docker. This was another reason it was a very attractive acquisition.” “They built software using the same patterns that we build our software with internally. They’re leveraging much of the same database technologies that we’re using. They use REST services as we do…so from an infrastructure perspective, it was very straightforward.

“I think where it’s going to be interesting is attaching our audio content to their text-based system. But when you look at what Amazon’s providing with things like Lex right now, there’s a lot of text-to-speech or speech-to-text systems, that I think will enable us to do that implementation,” Hannan added further.

The deal is about gambling on the coming advancement in invoice computing. The voice-enabled digital assistant devices has increased the number to over 1 billion worldwide over the past two-and-a-half years. In the present time, 20 percent of U.S. households have a dedicated smart speaker, and that number is expected to grow in future.

As one of the superior applications in the market of profitable self-care app, today, Headspace has reached 31 million users, including customers paying over 1 million in 190 countries. It also runs the B2B (business-to-business) businesses which focus on bringing its meditation exercises to larger organizations and their employees, where the number has surpassed 250 businesses on board.

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But as long as voice-enabled smart speakers have acquired some fame, we don’t yet see many startups working in the voice-based interfaces scale and develop the likes of Nuance or preferring other giant platform opponents like Apple, Google and Amazon.
This might add to the reason of why Alpine.AI was having much attractive acquisition target (and was also open to the exit).

The start-up is turning down the small number of retailers, including Petco, who were using the product and is offering every individual, one-on-one transition plan.
Via: recogmedia.net
According to the latest technology news, in regards to the acquisition, as per the CEO of Alpine.AI, Adam Marchick, “We are thrilled to be dedicating our efforts to coaching and guiding users to build healthy routines.” Alpine’s machine learning capabilities are the stepping stone for the efforts of the Headspace to bring new conversation experiences to the market. “

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