Hello Square Community! I'm not a fan of AI in general, but I'm trying to warm up to all of the good possibilities in the ways AI can help, especially for small businesses where access to quality tools is sometimes a challenge. I recently discovered this tool that was a great help to me, so I wanted to share...
I stumbled upon this website when I was looking for something very specific...here's my story. I've used a Google voice phone number since I started my business, mostly because I don't receive a large number of phone calls so I need a cheap (FREE!) option. I used to record my own voicemail messages which gave me flexibility to add weather and schedule change announcements. But in full disclosure, I do NOT have a very good "phone voice" so I never felt comfortable, and began to search for a voiceover option.
My first thought was to try Fivrr or something like that, where I could pay a small fee for the service of someone to voice my phone recording, and I could upload it to Google Voice. However I discovered the website above which has some free credits. It was super easy...I wrote a small general message, copied/pasted the script, and then I enjoyed exploring different "voices" to read my announcement. I could even change the pitch and speed a bit, and when I had a result I really liked, I could download a sound file.
Want to hear my message ???
The biggest challenge was that I could not directly upload an mp3 file into my Google Voice account; I thought I would be able to do this. So I tried playing the sound file on my laptop while also hitting the record button in my Google Voice dashboard. That didn't seem to work, so I had to play on my iphone while recording on my computer. But it works, and I'm so pleased with the result. The website has a bunch of other options for using voice overs in various projects, so check it out and see if this might work for your business. You can even make a virtual call agent, although I personally prefer to talk to a real person when I'm calling, especially a small business. Let me know what you think...
It is awesome once you find that niche that works for you AI can be game changing. It has come so far, and has so far to go. I will try it out too as I also hate my voice on the answering machine.
The one that has little use to me in my business but just blows me away is this AI conversation Demo with Maya. it is so fast at responding and you can cut them off while responding and change subjects, add another person on your end, challenge it, etc. I have probably spent over an hour just "talking" to it and the ease of which it can adapt. It is so close now I can see how in 2-5 years it will be extremely close to seamless.
https://www.sesame.com/research/crossing_the_uncanny_valley_of_voice#demo
