Workshop proposal for Interoperable Voice Agents on the Web

Kaz, Dave, and Jeff,

Interoperable Voice Agents on the web is a hot topic these days. I 
encourage the W3C to host a workshop to determine how W3C can 
participate in this world- wide effort. Below is a draft description of 
a proposed workshop.

Regards

Jim Larson
Open Voice Forum
(and former chair of W3C Voice Browser Working Group)

*Interoperable Voice Agents on the Web *

**

*General background*

  * Thanks to the advancement of HTML5 and related Web technologies, Web
    applications with speech capability are getting more popular for
    ease of user-interaction and richer user experience such as Apple's
    SIRI, Google's Voice Assistant, Amazon's Alexa, and others.
    Plug-ins, such as Speechly, https://www.speechly.com/, enable users
    to speak directly into any web application.
  * Users interact with voice agents by exchanging information via
    spoken (or textual) dialogs. Users speak and listen by using speech
    recognition, speech synthesis and natural language processing
    technologies.
  * Voice agents are one of the essential applications available through
    various devices including smart speakers, mobile phones, tablet
    devices, eBook readers, and gaming platforms, automobiles, and IOT
    devices such as TV’s, household appliances, security systems and
    garage door openers.
  * During the breakout session, [NextDirections for Voice and the Web
    Breakout – 18 October 2021 (w3.org)
    <https://www.w3.org/2021/10/18-voice-minutes.html>, there was
    discussion about potential needs for improved interaction among
    voice agents for web services.
  * W3D recently published “Natural Language Interface Accessibility
    User Requirements [Natural Language Interface Accessibility User
    Requirements (w3.org) <https://www.w3.org/TR/naur/>] identifies
    several requirements for interoperable voice agents

*Focus*

  * The current status of integration of the voice-enabled agents from
    multiple vendors.
  * What is needed for the voice interaction technology to be deployed
    globally for all the languages throughout the world.
  * How voice agents interact with each other—how they can share data
    and processes.
  * Discovery, location, and connectivity to voice agents throughout the
    world, including DNS, well-formed meta data, schema.org meta data,
    and meta data aggregation

  * Privacy and security
  * Accessibility and usability
  * Internationalization and compatibility with region-specific technology

*Applicable areas of application*

  * Voice agent
  * Connected car
  * Smart homes/Smart factories/Smart cities
  * Smart speakers/Smartphones as a portal/user device
  * IoT

*Workshop deliverables*

·Barriers to voice agent interoperability.

·Summary of current efforts on voice agent interoperability.

·Mission statement for W3C's future efforts on voice and the Web.

*Who should attend?*

  * Many possible stakeholders including:
      o Service providers/System implementers
      o Govt (like Singapore)
      o Users from various countries/communities
  * Liaisons
      o Open Voice Network
      o MPIA Community
      o Stanford University Open Assistant Lab
      o Technology providers (e.g., Amazon, Apple, Google)
      o oneM2M
      o Singapore Govtech