LG Using AI-driven Voice Assistants In Mobile Service Provider Stores In Korea

August 6, 2021 by Dave Haynes

Hat Tip Craig Keefner at kioskindustry.org for flagging this …

LG’s mobile retail wing is starting to use voice recognition technology from an Israeli startup to act as digital assistant at its mobile phone service provider stores in South Korea.

Kardome announced it will install its voice activation technology in 2,000 LG Uplus store kiosks throughout the country by the end of this year. LG Uplus is one of South Korea’s largest mobile service providers.

“Our voice user interface software will give the company’s customers private, secure voice interactions in any environment,” says Dani Cherkassky, Kardome’s CEO and co-founder.

The company’s voice user interface (VUI) technology enables secure, private voice interactions, capturing only the customer’s speech, regardless of background noise or the voices of other people who may be nearby.

Parametric or directional loudspeakers transmit the digital voice assistant’s responses only to the customer standing at the kiosk screen.

I’m a voice interaction skeptic in public spaces, but maybe in a defined space like a wireless service provider store it can work well. These kinds of stores have an interesting dynamic, because customers often come in with a hell of a lot of questions, and when they get answered, then it can take many, many minutes to sign up and activate a phone.

If you own a mobile phone, and who doesn’t, you’ve been there.

If there are five people in a store and two staffers, customers three, four and five may either be waiting a long time to get served, or they leave. If you can use a kiosk to offer guidance and answer questions, that keeps those waiting customers busy and in the store … and they may have fewer questions when the staffers do come free.

I still wonder how voice will work in busier environments like airports and mass transport hubs. It’s still going to be easier, faster and more accurate to just use a touch screen. Just sanitize after.

One very curious aspect of this is that while voice is touted as a contactless solution for these health safety times, if you want the demo video, the touchscreen is also used.

One other curious thing – LG announced back in April that it was getting out of the mobile business. LG Uplus is an LG-owned carrier, and not a smartphone maker.