All right, welcome to the AdaptX podcast where
we have conversations with individuals building
accessible businesses, advocating for inclusion
or excelling in adaptive sports. And joined by
Shay Cohen, the co -founder and CEO of Verbali,
an AI powered augmentative and alternative communication
platform that helps children communicate more
independently in everyday life. A veteran product
leader with more than 15 years in tech, Shay
has led high impact teams at Fortune 500s and
startups building payment systems, real time
communication platforms and consumer apps. Shay,
thanks for joining me this morning. Thank you,
Brendan, for letting me join your process. I'm
excited. Yeah. So I came across Verbali on LinkedIn.
I was really excited to see it because for a
long time, I've wondered how these AAC tools,
selfishly, can play more of a role in fitness
environments where I typically operate out of.
And so I'm sure we'll get to that at some point,
but maybe let's start with the origin story.
I know it's personal to you. So what inspired
you to start Verbali? Yeah, absolutely. So I
guess the easiest way to say it's because my
kids So I have three kids and my oldest her name
is Leah middle one. His name is Matan It means
the reason we'll talk about in a second and my
youngest. She's my latest boss Her name is Miley
and so Matan He's he's seven who just turned
seven And he's not verbally as a developmental
delays and one goes to an amazing school regular
public school is special class but one of the
first thing that you'll notice with him is that
he's he's not verbal and luckily for us and I
always say this kid is a rock star is super charismatic
and isn't. Amazing communicator, despite not
being to verbalize himself is is super is super
communicative. He'll take your hand. He'll he'll
point. He'll try to say the beginning of a word.
And so he's never frustrated. So that's why me
and my wife, Anna, we always consider ourselves
very lucky because the kid has a lot of to say
and is able to communicate. Right. But. So me
as the dad, I always was able to understand what
he wants. But I think this is how it became clear
to me that we need something better, because
as a dad, I know what he wants, but I want him
to be able to express himself, not just to the
people around him that didn't know him and they
know how he communicates. He goes to school,
I want him to be successful at school. He, I
wanted to have meaningful connections. And to
all of this, you need to have meaningful conversations,
right? You need to have real, genuine conversations.
And for that, you need those conversations to
be natural. And the same way that you and I have,
right? Like we just before we started, we talked
about a little bit of our background. I told
I explained to you how to pronounce my name,
how to pronounce Verbali, right? We had a little
bit of jokes and but it because this fluency,
the ability to switch between topic quickly.
This, I would say this luxury for us is something
that he doesn't have. And I want him to have
it. So that's why, that's how it started. I can,
we'll probably dive more about it, but this is
just, you know, like the, the origin story of
what, what was the motivation for me to start
thinking about the better way. Yeah. So the latency
between you making a comment, asking a question
and the response to the traditional AAC software
provided is kind of what makes it. not fluent.
So how does verbally, verbally, we'll probably
go back and forth on the pronunciation, how does
it address those maybe time lapses in the conversation?
Absolutely. Yeah. So one of the thing I noticed
that today when it's I don't know how many folks
from out from the podcast know what AAC is. I'll
give a quick sentence of what it is. The best
way to describe it is a tool. So it stands for
augmentative and alternative communication system.
And the best way to think about is a tablet that
acts as a keyboard. But instead of letters, you'll
have images for words. So if you want to say
I want to eat the banana. So they have an image
for I image for one. banana and so on, and you
build a sentence out of it. Now, everything is
great and everything when you have a simple sentence
like, I want a banana. But once you try to have
more complex conversations, you need to have
a bigger size of vocabulary bank, right? Meaning
you need more images. And where the problem is,
the problem is that you have limited real estate
on your screen. Right? The more images, the more
words you want, you need more images. So it becomes
busy on the screen. And then you go into drill
down system. So you need to like, you go to verbs,
you have any page for verbs or page for fruits
and stuff like that. So you become like chasing
the word that you're looking for. And that chasing,
it's time consuming. It's energy consuming. So
That's where the problem is that if you want
to have a fluency conversation, you want those
words to come really, really fast to you, right?
Again, going back to how you and I are speaking,
we don't think about ours, we just speak. And
today with AAC technology, before Verbali, you
really needed to plan your sentence. And planning
takes time. Planning takes away from the natural.
experience. So what happens that kids or adults
who use AAC, the conversation flow breaks because
now they're building the sentence. So the downside
of it is that, and it can take 45 seconds on
average. So unfortunately, the downside of it
is that, yeah, you might get a good sentence,
maybe, eventually. but the other side, the partner
for the conversation, will either, if they're
a kid, they might walk away because they get
bored, or they'll change topics. In both cases,
the outcome is that the kid wasn't able to express
themselves, right? So with Verbali, what we're
doing, instead of the kid chasing for the word,
instead of the kid... Looking what is the planning
for for the sentence. We are using AI to predict
help predict what the kid might want to speak
of right and responding much faster and for it
for the for the conversation itself. So we were
put the app which is called Ma-Talk AI and there's
a nice story about the rhythm name behind it
and. basically understand the conversations.
We're using AI to understand the conversation,
using AI to take context signals from the environment,
like the weather, the time of day, are we in
a holiday, right? If it's Christmas, do you have
different topics that you might talk about in
Christmas that you won't talk about Thanksgiving
or something like that, right? Or regularly.
And we're using all of that in order to hand
over the statistically possible answers for the
kid to respond to. So instead of they are chasing
the words or chasing the answers, we're handing
them options that are relevant, right, in order
for them to speed up the conversation in a more
natural way. I would pause here and just say
that the kid or the adult who's using, the individual
who's using the Ma-Talk AI is always the driver.
So we're not replacing them. They are saying
what they want to say. The only thing we're doing
is just hand them over the right options. Yeah.
Yeah. That was going to be my question. Kinda
like you said earlier, like I want a banana and
what if the AI kinda determines that most mornings
your son wakes up and says, I want cereal for
breakfast. So that's the thing that it gives
you. But then what if that preference changes
and it's using these reinforcement? Learning
strategies and does it ever does it ever kind
of hallucinate and give you things that it doesn't
want? And I guess you kind of answered my question
with that last disclaimer at the end where the
the individual is still making that final say
and what they want. So is is Ma-Talk just giving
you maybe 5 or 6 different options on the screen
as opposed to you having to type in every word?
Absolutely, yes. So we're going more than one
option. Again, going back to the fact that the
app, Ma-Talk, is not the kid. The kid is the driver.
The kid is the pilot. Ma-Talk's job is to learn
the kid, know his or hers preferences. Going
back to food is a great example. The kid might
like banana. My son likes oatmeal. But they might
don't like eggs. Eggs is not relevant in the context
of breakfast for that specific individual. So
instead of that being an option, we took it away
or lowered it in the statistical options, right?
And then hand over only five. We are starting
with five, but it is customizable, right? So
eventually you'll be able to choose five or 10,
depends on the... what you want, but the point
is that you can always refresh and get more,
right? So it's not just five. If we missed the
first try, we missed and the first five options
are not what you want, totally fine. You still
can refresh it three more times. And so you get
a total of 20 options, right? So hopefully eventually
you'll get it. And the point is that we also,
the app learns the kit. So it learns from different
situations. So the more you use it, the better
it becomes. At the beginning, we're not gonna
be right about what the kid wants, because we
don't know the kid. We do give the option for
the parents to insert a few, I would say, who
the kid is, right? Who Matan is. Matan likes
oatmeal. This is information that we can, that
parents can enter. at the beginning on the onboarding.
And then we have like a baseline of how to start.
But as we go, the more interactions you have,
schools, with friends, after school programs,
all of those, at the pool, right? All of those
interactions, we learn and then we know how the
kid's routines, what the kid likes, what the
kid dislikes, who the kid likes to talk to and
so on, what they like to talk about. Right. And
all for the key to have meaningful conversation,
meaningful interactions for them to be able to
express themselves. I saw on the demo that there's
kind of like an avatar or a caricature that is
involved. Is that a customizable feature that
is intended to resemble the individual? Yeah.
So we started with, we start with the, yeah.
So I love this question. Well, I just, I just
think that would be just a really cool feature.
Uh, that just brings a whole nother level of
personalization versus the traditional lower
tech AAC communications. Absolutely. So yes,
absolutely. Cause, uh, AAC needs to be not just
a tool needs to be a cool tool. Right. Exactly.
Yeah. All right. So part of that it's, we need
to give it a character. Right. So first we started
with, uh, with Verbi. So Verbi is, is Verbali's
mascot and it's basically a robot dog. That's
because what it is, it's, Ma-Talk acts as your
companion and we want to, and you give, you have
the option to call to, for the partner to remotely
trigger the listening mode. Right. You don't
have to click on the button. You can just say,
Hey, Verbi. And and it starts. So this is this
is how we start with. We give the Ma-Talk a character,
right? So we give it a mascot that's Verbi. You
can see in our logo or on the website. And then
we're like, OK, we have images and the images
have kids playing around, running around on those
images. We need to be basically those are our
kids heroes, right? How our parents like. our
heroes, right? So how can we make this more look
alike to the kid? So at first, this is where
we are now. We have six options, boy, girl, and
so on, and that you can customize it based on
who you are, who your kid is, right? We are looking
to extend that using And this is where I go always.
I say AI is so cool. It's so fun. There's so
much, so many options that you can, you can explore,
especially now with the latest Google nano banana.
It's fantastic. So you can, you can, we can take
those images and really create an avatar for
the kid. And our plan, it's not now, but our
plan is for that. avatar to be part of the image
itself eventually, right? So it will be really,
really customized. So when the kid sees the scene,
the image of the scene, they basically will see
themselves. Yeah. Yeah. It would be really cool
if you could upload a family photo and then like
those, those people are the ones that populate
the app. What is the, what's the foundational
model that it's all kind of built on? So we're
using different models. We're not using the specific
one because, uh, each model is good in different
ways. So, for example, for images, we're using
Flux and Google for different types of images.
For our system, we're currently using OpenAI.
Google helps with the translations. OpenAI also
helps with the transcription. So yeah, so each
model uses different things because AI works
on the front end, which what you and I will encounter,
we're using the app, but it also works in the
back end when we're creating the images, constantly
and making sure those images are the best image
that we can provide. So everything, it's an ecosystem
of assistants and agents that help us. bring
the best experience possible to the AC space.
Yeah. What were your main concerns, I guess,
with the technology or how the technology was
built? I know there's techno pessimists that
don't love all the AI tools. Obviously, they
create a whole suite of opportunities that didn't
exist even two or three years ago. But have you
identified any aspects of the AC device that
are Yeah, maybe concerning to you or that you
guys are focusing on specifically. I guess just
the either the AI tool that builds your program
or your software itself. Like, are there any,
I guess, deviations that you're kind of focusing
on? Yeah, yes. So I would say I think the answer
for this is twofold. I'll start by a short answer
is that from the perspective of a person and
advocate for the assistive tech space, I would
say that I have no concern. Actually, I think
AI is a blessing for this space. AI is the technology
that we needed. to help us push this space to
the moon. I mean, it gives us, the caregivers,
so much flexibility, and it gives the people
who need that assistive technology so much independency.
Because the AI, basically, it's a small brain,
and sometimes even smarter than us. So I would
say from the corner of assistive technology space,
I would say, I think it's a blessing. Going aside
to the bigger picture, I would say, I don't think
it concerns the right word. I think challenges
is, I think for me, it's a better word. And I'll
explain why. I think the best way that I at least
look at... AI is that you have like this talented,
smart, super talented, super intelligent, smart
and fast assistant, but it's also young and unexperienced,
right? So what gives, so you can give it a task
and it will do it. It will do it fast and it
will do it in scale. But like every young assistant,
you need supervisor. If you're not supervising
correctly, uh uh our mistakes will happen right
it's it's very normal it's expected right and
so i think what the opportunities on this is
with ai are are humongous like it's it's we're
we're not i don't think we're even scraping the
surface on this and i would say that ai now it's
the worst that it will ever be it's only going
to go up right whatever we see now it's the worst
that it will have ever be. So tomorrow's will
be better and moving so fast. And the reason
I'm saying that is because I'll give an example,
right? So we're creating images and we have image
bang for all the words that are possible. And
we're constantly adding and constantly fixing
it and making it better and better. But at first,
in our first batch, this is something that you
need automation and AI. I cannot create this
menu, right? We're talking about dozens of pictures,
thousands of pictures. So when we first created
the first batch, I was so happy with the images.
And I'm like, wow, this is amazing that it's
so clear, the scene. I don't need to read what
it says, and I know what it is. And then my co
-founder, Told me that his daughter Look at the
pictures. She noticed something. She knows like
all the pictures are boys and and and I mean,
this is interesting because I didn't I didn't
notice that he didn't notice that her his daughter
is obviously female noticed that and and it's
to show that The mistakes are different. It the
image is still good but because of the scale,
you might miss something. And so you need an
AI. So this is where we're using AI now to help
us QA the outcome of a different set of AI agents,
right? To make sure that, for example, we have
equal representation of boys and girls, right?
That's for example. Yeah. So this is how I see
it. Yeah. Yeah. The biases. I know when some
of the initial foundational models came out,
there were some errors in how it recalled certain
aspects of history or how it biased different
populations or genders or races. But like you
said, it's only getting better every day and
every week. So how do your son's educators and
how do you as parents use the app, like I know
obviously he's responding, but are you inputting
any information into the software as well? Yeah,
absolutely. We added. So, uh, maybe it's a good
time to, uh, to mention my co -founder Lori,
Lori Azerati. He's amazing. He did an amazing
job on, on making the app so easy to, to, uh,
to use. One of the things we just introduced
was the ability to add niche images. I say niche
because I think that's the terminology, but for
us, for everyone, niche could be just a picture
of you and I as a parent. It's just not a regular
vocabulary. So we introduced the ability to add
images and give the aliases for those images.
So for example, my name is Shay, I'm Matan's
dad, I'm also his father. And I say in Hebrew,
that's how he calls me Abba instead of dad. So
all of those are my aliases that the app needs
to know when they show my picture, right? Because
at the end of the day, the app understands the
conversation and I don't know the answer it will
bring, right? It will bring something that I
know it's relevant, but I don't know what for.
So we provided options for parents to cover this
aspect of it, to help the app learn more about
people in the kid's life about their toys, food,
locations. The GPS location is huge in contact
signals because the type of conversations that
we'll have at school are totally different than
the type of conversation that we'll have at home.
The type of conversation we'll have in therapy,
physical therapy, speech therapy, are different
than the one we'll have at home. So if we want
to have relevant conversational answers, responses,
we need to take GPS into consideration. And those
are also part of the things that you can add
to the app and customize. So are you pulling,
because earlier you mentioned weather, holidays,
are you integrating with other aspects of like
an iOS, like an Apple operating system to pull
that information? Where is that coming from?
Yeah. So some of them are from public APIs. that
you can use, whether it's the public API. Some
of them are just, you know, time, date, those
are coming from your phone. It's not something
that you need to... Your phone has GPS, obviously,
as well. But the fact, GPS is different from
the place that you are. GPS is just a coordinate,
right, but you need to... Your corners can be
Starbucks, right? So you need to know that this
coordinate is Starbucks. This comes from another
API that we're using. What else? We're talking
about weather, speed, for example, velocity,
right? We're planning on integrating a velocity
sensor that's built in your phone. We just need
to take the data from it because when you're
When you're driving, at least my kids, they constantly
ask me to DJ for them. I want to give Matan the
capability to ask his songs. In order for that,
the app needs to know that they're in a car.
One of the ways to do it is to understand that
we're driving, the velocity. Yeah, so that's
one of the sensors that we're using and more
we constantly looking for better ways to collect
context contextual signals that will help us
Just make the experience Better and not better
just for the kid. I think this is where where
it's important for to mention is When we started
building my token, I we looked on three user
personas that can benefit from the app. The first
was obviously the kid who's using it. The second
is the caregiver or the conversational partner.
Because the caregiver would want to give them
a return on investment to be as high as possible.
The investment necessarily needs to be a capital
investment. It could be an energy. Today, you
need constantly to customize a different app.
Different AAC devices used to add pictures, remove
pictures, organize it. So, but at the end of
the day, the AAC becomes an I want machine and
that's not what we wanted, right? So the return
on investment is very low. What we wanted is
for the parent to have as much of flexibility
or freedom as possible. You don't need to customize
the app because the app... customize itself,
right? Your job is just to enjoy the conversation,
right? So that's the second user persona. It
goes also to the conversational partner. We don't
want it to be boring for the conversational partner,
right? So that's part of it. And they want the
conversation to be engaging. And third, the third
user persona is the speech therapist. We want
to give them the tools to create the best therapy,
speech therapy they can for that specific kid,
right? Today, from my experience and talking
to other speech therapists, usually they have
once a week, they have a speech session with
the kid. And it's amazing. They're doing an amazing
job, right? When i started i was like is one
data point of that meeting a week is that enough
can we create more right what if we have 24 7
of those data right can we make a better speech
term and that's how we approach with them okay
we are the data that we're collecting is always
going back to the kid. In different ways so if
we're collecting data to help customizing it
that's one way and then we're collecting data
to help them. Analyze it this is speech capabilities
for the speech there. So now they will be able
to have like a dashboard that will tell them.
This is where this is the baseline is when we
started two weeks from now look is like now clicking
really fast on the. on the images, two weeks
afterwards, his switching is more engaging. Now
we'll be able to see a benchmark, you'll be able
to see graphs or charts of the progress, something
that they, unfortunately they don't have it today.
Yeah, no, that's a really interesting use case.
I guess I hadn't thought of it from the SLP standpoint.
So is there, if there's different user personas,
is there different pricing models or is it the
individual has a subscription and then They would
just bring it to their their speech therapy and
use it as a tool Yeah, so that's that's that's
what I love this question. You know, I'll tell
a story about when I went to school University
my professor told me there are three types of
questions. There are good questions. There are
great questions. There are interesting questions
So good questions are the ones that have obvious
answers. Great questions are the ones that are
not obvious questions, but the professor has
the answer. An interesting question is that a
question that the professor don't have. So this
is a great question. So yeah, what we looked
at it that our vision for Ma-Talk AI is for it
to be a companion. You don't need to think. In
order to talk, in order to speak, that's going
back to natural. That's what we want. In order
for that to happen, we didn't create different
payment plans for speech therapists or for families.
The family is the core user. And they have it's
not now. This is a feature that will introduce
in the future But this is where we're going with
it is that you have a profile the family will
have a profile and under that profile You can
call it the the kids team right you have the
parents and then the parents will invite the
speech therapist Right to because they need to
share the data, right? They need to share the
data and they need to benefit from from that
data. So the speech therapist won't But in short
answer, the speech therapist will not need to
pay for it because their user will be invited
by the parents. Yeah. I would imagine some of
this vision for the product as a whole has evolved
over time. So maybe you found a problem in your
son not having clear fluid communication. You
built it with him in mind. Did you have this
like speech therapy angle in mind when you first
started? How has, I guess how has it kind of
evolved from idea conception into a product?
Yeah. Yeah. So, so I told you how I started thinking
about it, but I think, I think the bad, the what.
Changed the way for me thinking about it to action
to taking action on it happened about a year
ago and so like we went to his IP at school IP
who further Someone doesn't know it's basically
it's a thing about as a meeting did you have
between you and the schools? professionals about
the sons your son's Special activity at school
You agree together what you want to achieve in
the coming period. And we were in that IEP and
I'll start by saying I love his school and I
love his team. We got really lucky and they love
him. So then we got even luckier. But that specific
meeting was evolving around AAC. his AACs, his
tool. And I was like, and it was an hour and
a half. And me and my wife came back and I was
frustrated. I was like, why are we talking so
much about something that needs to be obvious?
We're not thinking about us talking. It should
be effortless. Why are we putting so much effort
on it? So that was, that changed the way I approach.
I was like, okay, let's try. I'll try doing it
myself, right? Like I had some time and I was
like, okay, so. I started, I talked to a few
speech therapists, I described my vision, and
I noticed that there is a, they love the idea,
but some of my ideas are, it's harder for them
to imagine. So I was like, okay, I'm going to
build a prototype. So I had a Kindle at home,
a Kindle Fire at home was, we didn't use it for
a while. So I was like, okay, I'm going to. Use
AI. It was before vibe coding. It was before
that. So I took ChatGPT and me and ChatGPT became
really, really good friends. And back and forth.
And eventually I was able to build a canap. And
my background is, is an engineering, but I'm
a product manager. So it's, it's been a, and
I'm an electrical engineer. So I'm not a programmer.
So I, everything I was able to go back and forth
with ChatGPT and I created this, this app. The
only thing the only thing it could do was to
answer questions listen and and And it listened
understood the question and then came up with
those Answers and took it to to my the speech
therapist that I know and I was like, okay, what
do you think about that? And they're like, wow,
this is this amazing my blog blowing like you
have to do it. You have to do it I was like,
okay great And then I met my co -founder Lori,
which I am so lucky to meet him. And together
we started designing. So we created like, cause
we approached the entire conversation a little
bit different. We break it into events. We, you
have the event of you responding to a question,
which I talked a lot about, and then you have
the event of you initiated the conversation.
And then you have event of you talking about
your feelings and then you have the event of
you of shortcuts Of from like you need to go
to the restroom for example, right? So we broke
those events and we're like, okay each event
will have a different user experience because
it requires different flows different context
and different AI's so So for example, for initiating
conversation, I was like, okay, go back to the
real estate on the screen. You want it to be
easy to be used for kids with special needs.
And the interesting thing about special needs
is that they're special. You cannot predict.
There's no standard here, right? So you need
unique solutions. Right. So what is the best
way to create those things? You need to start
thinking creatively. And I noticed that with
my son, one of the things is that when he goes
to use all the AC, he tries to click on buttons
and he has a happy finger. It's like he finger
dances. And so he clicks on the wrong button.
And I was like, okay, how can I, what can I create
that will, I would say fight that. Or protect
from that behavior because it's like, if you're,
let's say talk about feelings. If you're, if
you have a button says mad and the button say
happy, and you want to say click on happy, but
click on mad, it changes entire conversation.
Right. So I was okay. Initial conversation. I
noticed about him that when he gets my phone,
he loves my phone. He's like a hacker. He uses
Netflix, he uses Spotify, and it's like he swipes
and he scrolls and it's like, oh my God, you
can do all of this, but you struggle with AAC.
And I was like, oh, maybe that's because we don't
have scrolls or swipes gestures in our devices
today. So I introduced that with our initiated
conversation flow. And there, instead of us The
kid basically has three columns of them, of us
predicting, but the kid helps us by pointing
us to the right direction, right? So instead
of us trying to predict the next word, what we're
trying to predict is the topic. Meaning that
if you're in the morning and you're at the kitchen
and it's middle of the week, there is a good
chance you're going to talk about breakfast,
right? Or maybe the bus comes. or something like
that. That's a topic that we can talk about.
The kid will scroll to find the right topic to
talk about. And then you choose the right...
he chooses the action that he wants to take.
And then he chooses the objects that he wants
to take the action on. And then it clicks play.
And what happens is that the AI takes those building
blocks and creates a natural sentence. for you,
for you and I to understand easily, more naturally.
So that's one of the approaches that I did. And
it was new. So I took it to my, again, my speech
therapist friends and I showed them and I went
to the JCC. They have a JCC here in this area
has an amazing inclusive program since the seventh
year. Amazing. Heads off on that. And so I went
there and I talked to the director and I was
like, OK, what do you think about this? This
is what I did. I showed them the design for because
it's a new UX design that I did and I needed
them to give me feedback. So they look at it
and I was like, well, I like it. We love it.
I would do this. I would do that. So it was a
lot of back and forth talking to speech therapists
and people from from the industry to get the
right to get the right would say directions,
tweaks in order to, so you have a good idea,
but it's a good idea is not enough because good
idea is good for you. You need to be good for
everyone else. So you need feedback. So I, and
so you need, in order to get the right feedback,
you need to help them imagine where you want
to go. So that's where the prototype came to
place, kept to be. You're able to solicit feedback
from speech and language pathologists and parents,
have you been able to assess how the user enjoys
using the app? Yes. So we just launched. So before
the launch, speech therapists are using it in
their clinics and they're loving it. I mean,
it's a little bit different for something, but
it's different by definition. So it's supposed
to be different. So, uh, it's like switching
between windows to Mac, right? Like it's, it's
not, it's different, but it's by definition,
right? Uh, so, uh, so that's how we're approaching
it. We got really good feedback. Uh, people say,
I mean, one of the feedback I really like is
that people love the images. And that's something
I took, it's a different approach. Today, if
you use the AC before, you notice that there
is a very specific style for the images on the
current AC in the market. And one of the feedback,
one of the projects I took was, okay, I want
this image to be universally understood. I don't
want to create another language of images for
the kid to learn. I want an image that doesn't
matter if you're in the US, you're in South America,
Australia, Asia, whatever. A kid playing soccer
is a kid playing soccer, right? A kid eating
a salad is a kid eating a salad, right? Or something
like that. So I created an image that describes
a scene. Instead of a static, it is static, but
when you look at it, you see an action, a kid
taking an action, right? And it was designed
in a very friendly, easy to understand way. And
again, I took a, you know, I took a little fade
there, creating this. And I got a lot of amazing
feedback about that people loves the images.
The and you know this is this is great because
now we're we're creating more images and now
i know this is what they want and one of the
feedback that we got was like that images are
great but some kids my not like background to
be a would like to see the background white.
Because it's sensory wise it's too it's too busy.
And so it gives us the food for thought for me
and Lori, my co -founder. Like, how can we make
our Ma-Talk AI even more customizable? So we are
working on ways to increase the setting page.
So parents, and this is again, going back to
AI, AI gives you so much flexibility. So parents
who knows, they know their kid the best. So they'll
be able to know, okay, my kid understand the
image of a kid playing soccer, for example, right?
But the background of that image of an other
kid in the background playing, it's too busy
for it. So I would like to remove it. We'll eventually
give the option for that parent to just remove
it in a swipe of a button. And not just for a
specific image. It will be obviously for the
entire database. So the image will be even better
for their kids, right? Because it's unique. Yeah,
absolutely. Yeah, there's so much diversity,
obviously, within the diagnoses that use AAC
that it has to be individualized and user -centric.
So AI is really the only way to do that in a
prompt and scalable manner. Yeah. I work predominantly
in fitness and physical activity and I kind of
gave you a heads up beforehand to maybe see if
we could talk about how verbally could be used
in something like a gym setting. So your son
comes to my gym, how can he and I communicate
in a way that makes that experience more enjoyable
for him? Yeah, so I Yeah, some things that I,
so one other thing I noticed with the ASC today
is that they're bulky. They are usually come
in the form of a tablet. And it's great if you're
in a school environment, but what happens if
you walk in your hallway? What if it happened
if you're in the playground or at the gym in
this case, right? You cannot use a tablet. And
if you're using a phone, it's maybe good for
the hallway, but it's not good for the gym or
the playground because it's not safe because
of the string around your neck, right? So this
is where Verbali comes to play because our vision
is to make it, again, I'm going back, I know
I mentioned it a lot, is going back to natural.
The same way that you and I speak, I want it
to be the same way for them, for everyone who
needs AAC. And the way to do it is not just to
introduce a tablet, an app for the tablet, or
an app for your phone, but it's also introduced
an app for your watch, right? Because the conversations
still happen, but they might be a little bit
different. It might be not as rich as your school
environment, right? Because you're in the playground,
you're going to write on this, I'm going to write
there, I'm going to write there. You still want
to have a conversation. You'll need a different
UI and UX for it. And the hardware for this,
the same way Verbal is envisioning it, is an
AAC on your watch. Today we have amazing technology
that Apple, Samsung, Google all provide with
their, in German, provide with their watches,
smartwatches. And the sensors are there. The
connection to Wi -Fi or 5G is there. And so it
means that the only gap is for verbally to create
the right UX for the kids to be able to utilize
this watch to communicate in situations, in scenarios
that they're on a kayak or at the gym, or the
playground, or place it, right? So yeah, that's
where we're looking at it. We're actively looking
at it and designing the best UX for it. Yeah,
yeah, that's a really interesting use case. Is
there any way that it could be used to build
a social story? So if your son's coming to my
gym for the first time, can you lay any groundwork
for what that experience might look like to him
to make him more comfortable? Or is that not
really the technology? I can you I'm not sure.
Yeah, I guess. Are you familiar with what a social
story is? No. So like for some kids maybe with
autism like before they enter a new environment,
it's a series of descriptions of what they might
encounter. So you're going to walk through the
door, you're going to meet Brendan, you're going
to put your water bottle on the shelf, you're
going to grab your program, and it's to alleviate
some of the concerns or the anxiety that might
come with new environments. So I guess I was
just curious whether maybe it's just a conversation
that you and he have beforehand as opposed to
a laid out sequential pictorial schedule type
of thing. So you were talking, I was thinking
about something specifically that might be really
helpful. So I'll be honest, I haven't thought
about it. Obviously, I wasn't aware of what the
social story is. But you were talking and I was
like, oh, again, AI can be a very good tool in
this. Because Google, for example, really just
introduced stories, bedtime stories feature.
with them. So basically you give them a, an idea
for a story and the output is like, as you would
think bed time story is like, it looks like a
book, just a digital, but it looks like a book
has like 10 or 15 pages and with images and everything.
And so you can do the same thing with going to
your gym. Like you pretty much going to say,
okay, you're going to tell the AI, this is something
we can adopt and incorporate. In verbally animal
and I'm gonna say you're gonna this you got quickly
described to on the fly I'm gonna quickly disrupt
to my talk What you're gonna encounter go to
a we're going to Brenda's gym. We're gonna need
to put the water bottle on the countertop and
We're gonna do One two three Exercises, whatever
right you can tell that quickly today. I have
will immediately will come up with a story like
images book that You can see Matan as the kid
in that image. And you can do that and you can
do it. Yeah. Yeah. So you can do it. Yeah. Yeah.
That's another. effective use case I guess of
something like this that can be individual centric.
Are you able to integrate to like eye gaze technology?
I guess I'm thinking of someone who's non -speaking
maybe because they have a spinal cord injury
or a TBI. Is there a way for them to use a device
through eye gaze as opposed to like the dexterity
of a finger? Yeah. So not today, but definitely
in the future, because Verbali's mission is to
help anyone who needs to create a meaningful
conversation. And so today we're focusing on
kid who can master their hands capabilities.
But eye gazing is definitely on the roadmap.
We are experimenting with what built -in eye
-gazing. So your Mac, your iPhone already has
this capability. We are experimenting with it
to see how powerful it is. But yes, we are going
to create multi -capability to integrate with
Ma-Talk AI. Yes. Because I wonder if even for someone
who does have dexterity and fine motor skills
with their hands, If I gaze in a way could be
faster in any manner, or like, I don't know,
even in like a futuristic standpoint, like, if
there's a way for it to integrate with your thoughts,
like, as soon as you think something, it articulates
it. I don't know what technology bridges that
gap outside of implanted invasive, invasive technology,
but it would be cool for for someone who. has
been unable to communicate due to various barriers
of, if you could kind of tap into what their
thoughts are. Absolutely. Absolutely. And this
is definitely on the roadmap. We are, again,
we, one of Verbali is a pillars or, and I talk
pillars is superb user experience. We're not
going to introduce something that is just good
enough because we need kids and parents to be
able to rely on it and The way to do it is to
have a user experience that is as good as possible
So we are experimenting with and part of it is
going back to the eye gazing, right? We're trying
first to see what the current technology that
you have on your phone has Or your tablet what
it's good for, because then you don't need to
add anything, and then it's as light as possible,
right? And if it's good enough, or sorry, if
it's good as it should, right, then we can incorporate
it this way to Ma-Talk AI. So this is where we are
now. We're experimenting to see what is the current
technology that you're already hardware devices,
so you won't need to buy any other additional
technology. Inclusivity is not just the ability
to be part of something, but it's also financial
inclusivity. And this is where part of our mission
at Verbal is to give the ability for everyone
to... have AAC without the thought about how
much does it cost? It's too expensive. That's
why we're introducing it in Apple. We're introducing
it in iOS. That's why we're introducing a talk
with Android. And we will introduce it with Kindle
Fire very soon. Remember, the prototype started
with Kindle Fire. And that's where we're going
because we know a lot of homes have those Kindles.
and they're cheap and they are very safe for
kids and they're kid -oriented. So it will help
the kids get the AAC that they need faster and
a more accessible way. Do you envision having
a suite of products or like on, on the five year
vision, do you think it's my talk AI with different
features? Do you think it's different apps or
different software within verbally? Yeah. So
I do think there'll be a suite of products. Definitely,
we're constantly adding more features, constantly
adding more features. One of the first features
that we're introducing now today, it's actually
we got the approval from Apple today, was a free
trial, seven -day free trials. When we launched,
we got amazing feedback. We got, this is amazing,
so we got... The International Society of AAC
president reached out to us. She said, this is
amazing. Parents said, and we understood that
the technology is legit. Our technology is legit.
The hunger for death technology is there. We
just need to make it more accessible. So our
first feature that we put on the roadmap was
to introduce the seven day free trial. So more
people will be able to use it easily without
thinking, oh, I don't know, I don't want to pay
first month or something. Just use it, download
it, enjoy it. And so today it's available already
with Apple. Android will probably be this week
or next. We're waiting for Google to give the
thumbs up. And so this is from a feature perspective.
We're constantly adding more. From suite of products,
yes. I look at it more like an ecosystem that
goes back to how much Ma-Talk is customized, how
much it can help the kid. So AAC helps the kid
communicate. But it's not just the only way because
the kid grows. want to do more things so why
not helping them talk for example not just communicate
but actually speak right today you need to do
you say sight words or stuff like that but what
i guess a lot of speech therapists will tell
you you need to find the right motivation for
the kid to to cooperate but what Ma-Talk will know
Ma-Talk will know what the kid likes so if Ma-Talk
knows what the kid likes then why not use this
data in order to customize also the teaching
process of sight words, find the right words
that excite the kid to say it, right? So we can
do that. We can use the data also to customize
learning material specifically for the kid. Again,
it goes back to what the kid is motivated by.
So I mentioned in the beginning about the data
dashboard for the speech therapist. This data,
it's a collective system that you have a lot
of different corners that feed each other. So
you will be able to enjoy it in different scenarios
in your life. Also, smart keyboard that you can
use tone with, voice tones, right? And customize.
Yeah, we, yeah, we have, the sky's the limit.
Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing how
it develops. I know you guys have a wait list
to join the app, but if people want to learn
about the software, if they want to try out the
software, where can they go? We can include the
exact links in the show notes, but what's the
best way to follow or support your work? Yeah,
so obviously download the app now it's there's
no waitlist now not just can go ahead and just
don't the seven -day Free trial just go ahead
use it try to like it amazing If you have and
we also have on our website We will incorporate
also eventually in the app itself but in the
website if you have Goes back to unique solutions
if you have something that you would love to
see on your kids' AAC. Or, my talk AI is amazing,
but it's missing this for it to be perfect for
my kids, right? We have a space on our website
that you can actually write us specific feedback
with feature requests, language requests. And
we are actively reading this and we are actively
exploring ways to incorporate all of those requests
in our future offering. So that's another way
to reach out to us. I'll add my email address
to the podcast afterwards. So if someone wants
to reach out, ask questions, anything, yeah.
Yeah, no, I love the technological innovation.
I love products that solve real -world problems,
especially when the origin story is deeply personal
for the guests. So yeah, I really enjoyed learning
about it, talking about it, and I'd love to see
it widely adopted in schools and gyms and different
environments. So Shi, I appreciate not only your
time this morning, but your mission and the work
that you've done. Thank you very much Brendan.
This was amazing. Thank you very much Thank you
for listening to the adapt X podcast Our effort
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