Adobe gets more serious about voice interaction with purchase of Sayspring

That background hum you may soon hear is all those voice-controlled devices responding to their human masters, as voice interaction becomes an even more commonplace way of managing devices.

And Adobe, which has added support in its Marketing Cloud for such new tech as VR and Over-the-Top TV, has now boosted its bet on voice by announcing this week the acquisition of Sayspring, Inc. Deal terms were not made public.

The year-old startup, based in New York City, offers a free-of-charge and coding-free tool for creating voice interfaces and applications for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Sayspring’s tech will be integrated into Adobe’s product lineup. The first integration will undoubtedly be inside the Creative Cloud, but it’s not hard to imagine that voice control of its tools could become an option across all of Adobe’s clouds. Additionally, expect Adobe to eventually release a broader support for voice-based marketing and advertising.

The Sayspring tool, which is currently only available via a request for an invite, allows non-technical users to work collaboratively via a public webpage on building a voice-controlled app. If the Chrome browser is employed, the collaborators can actually interact by voice with the voice-building project.

Sayspring’s separate Voicegram project has been shut down and will be integrated into the new Sayspring platform. It allows a user to record a conversation with Alexa and then share it.

A report last year from Juniper Research predicted that a 55 percent majority of US households will own a voice-controlled smart speaker within four years. Last year, Adobe released a brief video showing how voice controls might work for photo editing:

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.

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