## Summary so far
- Meeting started with introductions and informal conversation about the office space.
- The office was chosen about six months ago to feel more like a workshop than a showroom, emphasizing proximity to teams and a cozy, slightly chaotic atmosphere.
- Colin Heilbut is staying nearby in an Airbnb.
- Colin introduced himself as the founding account executive at Rhyme, with extensive experience in speech technology including Deepgram and Intelligent Voice, and recent work at a voice AI lab in France.
- Attendees introduced themselves with roles related to customer experience, contact center operations, and partnerships/procurement, highlighting the importance of voice in their work.
- Colin outlined the agenda: overview of Rhyme's approach, discussion of challenges and technology improvement interests, a live demo, and time for questions and next steps.
- Colin has prepared a secure, encrypted custom digital whiteboard tool to track pain points and success criteria during the meeting.
- Rhyme is nearly four years old, founded by Lilly, Brooke, and Ari, with a strong linguistics and technical background.
- Rhyme differentiates itself by using thousands of hours of custom-made, natural recordings from their studio rather than generic datasets.
- Their technology powers tens of millions of calls monthly across industries including restaurants, aviation, healthcare, telecom, and enterprise, showing strong results.
- Recent test with 100,000 calls showed Rhyme had the lowest hang-up rate and fastest survey completion compared to competitors.
- Large telecommunications client saw a 25% increase in containment rate and 20% increase in sales using Rhyme's technology.
- Colin asked about what voice quality means to the client; Sam noted issues with intonation, hesitancy, and robotic pacing.
- Sam emphasized that unnatural intonation causes caller hesitation, especially when callers are upset or in a hurry, triggering a desire to speak to a human.
- Sam rated the importance of improving voice naturalness as about 8 out of 10, linking it to containment, CSAT, and agent workload.
- Sam highlighted concerns about risk, rollout complexity, compatibility with existing tech stack, and compliance exposure.
- Colin asked how success would be measured regarding improving the "uncanny" human intonation.
- Sam said success is measured less by technical specs and more by production metrics: containment, post-call surveys, and sentiment analysis.
- Jordan added that smoother voice with no spikes in handoffs or complaints would be a strong success signal.
- Sam emphasized the need for clarity on data handling, vendor risk, and pilot fencing to avoid new risk surfaces.
- Measurable gain means demonstrated improvement on agreed-upon metrics, not just potential.
- Sam noted current solution is "okay" but fragile, with drop-offs during emotional or messy calls causing extra human intervention, cost, and inconsistency.
- Emotional call drop-offs manifest as callers talking over the system, demanding agents, or hanging up.
- Success criteria include fewer hang-ups and improved reliability.
- Sam expressed desire for more adaptive tone without hand scripting every edge case, with natural flexibility and consistency under stress.
- Sam also wants a cleaner deployment path with shorter evaluation time and measurable success criteria to ease greenlighting.
- Sam described Assurant's software buying process: problem alignment, limited pilot with clear success criteria, then security, legal, and standard review, usually starting small.
- Pilot success and measurable data are critical to internal alignment and faster approval.
- Typical approval involves business sponsor, security, legal, procurement, and operations.
- Successful pilots that solve real problems can shorten approval time to a few months.
- Colin proposed a live demo focused on phone warranties, a significant part of the client's business.
- Live demo conducted simulating a phone warranty claim call, including verification, damage description, claim processing, and transfer to a specialist.
- Demo included bilingual interaction with French language support.
- Demo showcased natural, adaptive voice interactions with smooth handoffs and contextual awareness.
- Post-demo, Colin asked for feedback on voice quality.

## Key points
- Office environment aims to foster closeness to teams and a workshop vibe rather than a formal showroom.
- Voice technology is integral to customer experience, contact center operations, and risk/contract management.
- Meeting agenda includes a live demonstration tailored to the client's problem area.
- Use of a secure digital whiteboard tool to capture discussion points and criteria efficiently.
- Rhyme’s approach uses custom, natural speech recordings for training, improving accuracy and relevance.
- Rhyme’s technology is proven at scale across multiple major industries.
- Recent tests show Rhyme’s technology reduces hang-ups and improves engagement.
- Voice quality concerns include intonation, pacing, and naturalness.
- Unnatural intonation and robotic pacing cause caller hesitation and reduce containment.
- Risk management, rollout complexity, stack compatibility, and compliance are critical factors for adoption.
- Success metrics focus on real production outcomes: containment rates, survey results, sentiment stability or improvement.
- Pilot programs must be carefully designed to manage vendor risk and data compliance.
- Current solutions are fragile under emotional call conditions, leading to increased human intervention and cost.
- Emotional call failures cause callers to talk over the system, demand agents, or hang up.
- Reliability and reduction of hang-ups are key success criteria.
- Desire for adaptive, flexible tone that does not require extensive manual scripting.
- Need for consistent performance under stress.
- Preference for shorter, cleaner deployment and evaluation cycles with measurable success criteria.
- Software procurement process involves problem alignment, pilot, then security and legal review.
- Internal alignment requires clear, data-driven pilot results.
- Approval involves multiple stakeholders: business sponsor, security, legal, procurement, and operations.
- Successful pilots can accelerate decision-making to a few months.
- Phone warranties are a significant business area for the client and focus for the demo.
- Demo showed natural, context-aware voice interaction including bilingual support and smooth specialist handoff.

## Decisions
- Meeting agenda as proposed by Colin was accepted by attendees.
- Proceed with live demonstration focused on phone warranty calls.

## Action items
- Colin to conduct a live demonstration of Rhyme's technology focused on the client's problem area during the meeting.
- Collect client feedback on voice quality post-demo to inform next steps.

## Open questions
- What specific aspects of voice quality (prosody, latency, language use) are most critical to the client?
- How will the client measure success in improving the "uncanny," not-quite-human intonation?
- What feedback do attendees have on the voice quality demonstrated in the live demo?