I think the really interesting trend moving forward though is
the proliferation of AI agents and and we think that we can act
as a critical gateway to AI agents moving forward.
Hello and welcome to the Retail Podcast.
Now today we're going to go into an area that I love and have had
lots of experience with. And I'm really curious to to
dive directly into Andrew Doyle, who's VP of frontline of Jabra
to talk about empowering, which I'm pretty sure frontline
workers as he's the VP for frontline workers at Jabra.
And so some of you may or may not know Jabra.
So Andrew, why don't you set the scene for us?
You know who is Jabra and then bring it down to frontline
workers? What are you guys doing in this
space? Thanks, Alex.
Well, firstly, thanks for giving us the opportunity, Sir, to join
you on the podcast. A little bit of background to
Jabra. So actually Jabra's part of a
Danish group called GNGN, still Noor actually 156 years old.
That's what that matters. And a little anecdote.
GN was the first company to create telegraphic communication
between China and the rest of the world.
So a little anecdote for you. And we like to think that we're
still in the world of communicating and connecting
people. Even now.
We have 3 divisions. We have our hearing division.
So one of the world leaders in, in, in hearing aids.
We have the cool part of our company, which is the gaming
division. So for the gamers out there, we
we have a brand called Steel Series, which again one of the
world leaders in in gaming gear. So everything from headsets to
keyboards to mice. And then we have the enterprise
division, which is the business that frontline resides.
And I think probably a lot of your listeners will be aware of
Jabra through products, speaker phones, headsets, even video
collaboration products that were particularly targeted with, with
the desk based or the knowledge worker.
So that's kind of our our pedigree.
And you can probably sort of perceive the synergies that
exist across the group in terms of our technology capabilities,
particularly around audio and IT.
You know, we've, we're particularly intrigued in this
sort of frontline worker space. We, we made the strategic
decision to, to invest in what we think is a great market
opportunity of frontline workers and particularly retail because
we think we can add some value in that space.
And it's, it's really around the provision of, you know, superior
audio technology towards the front line and towards retail
workers. And that is sort of to improve
collaboration through what we think of as human to human
communication, but also human to machine communication,
particularly the proliferation of AI.
So kind of what brings us into the space.
Yeah. And we we look forward to trying
to build sort of our business and build improved solutions in
the forthcoming years. I sort of get the play that
you're making in terms of your, everyone who works in enterprise
is aware of the brand, they've seen the headsets, they've had
some working relationship with you.
If if you've worked, as you said, you're a knowledge worker
or, or been in the enterprise environment, what, what, what
makes you feel or what was the research or what was the element
that made you guys feel that there was, this is a great time
to go into a market that has existed for a long time.
So it's a, it's a tough move, I think, but I'm curious about
those elements. You will already know, but what
well, we're really good in this area.
We're really good in this and that's what we see is needed.
I'm curious what what those areas?
Well, I think we're seeing this sort of, I mean, you know,
retail in particular is constantly looking to drive
productivity, customer service engagement of of associates.
And we're starting to see I think the recognition that, you
know, improving communication through.
So what we hear this phrase digitalisation at the front line
and sort of phrase, I think that's been been used for a
while. What we're seeing is sort of the
sort of what we regard as key partners of ours like sort of
Microsoft Zebra Technologies and now building really strong
digital capabilities in their software platforms for two way
communication push to talk applications such as work cloud
sync teams, walkie-talkie. We're seeing those that
proliferation of those devices of those sort of software
application. And what we think is that
actually there is a real value add that we can bring from
superior audio and pods essentially.
And yeah, we think that's a sort of a missing component today,
the quality of audio as we think ultimately you know those if you
can enhance communication, you can increase productivity,
accurate two way communication, customer service, giving better
information directly to your associate enables them to be
more engaging with customers. And of course that in itself
provides better engagement for the for the worker.
I think the really interesting trend moving forward though is a
proliferation of AI agents and and we think that we can act as
a critical gateway to AI agents moving forward.
In what way? What?
Unpack that for me What? What you mean by that?
Yeah, I mean, so if we think about the fact that voice is the
most natural way for us to communicate and it seems to be
now a general building consensus, the voice will be the
interface to AI agents as there was a clear productivity game.
So I was in preparation today. I was, I was looking at sort of
some data points and they consider that that was really
interesting. The human brain, we can process
around 500 to 600 words per minute in thought.
And we when we speak, we can essentially speak at a speed
around 200 to 300 words per minute.
But once we tie, that drops to between 40 and 70.
So essentially we speak four times faster than we tie.
It's even higher actually if you compare it to typing with sort
of a small handheld device. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm fairly certain that we're fairly certain the voice is
going to be the interface to AI, to voice driven applications and
particularly AI agents. So we think voice is going to be
critical. Why do, let's say headsets
matter? You think about sort of really
fundamentally what the headsets do.
They do two things. They allow you to operate heads
up and hands free. That's a term we use a lot and
typically people working on the front line are multitasking by
nature. They're having to communicate
while undertaking another task. So the ability to operate, if
you have to pull out a handheld device to interact, to update
information, actually quite cumbersome.
It slows down productivity. So that's one big advantage.
Headset then increasingly important is, is audio
intelligence, so the importance of obviously being able to hear
information accurately. So I use the example of an AI
agent understanding what the AI agent's telling you, but really
critically able to update the AI agent accurately.
So the audio intelligibility headsets improve that
significantly then using sort of, yeah, let's say a detached
speaker. So that's where we think we play
a role. And you know, as organisations
are considering the deployment of AII, think the consideration
of hardware, specifically the audio device, is actually going
to become quite important. I got you.
So again, please correct me if I'm wrong.
So you're ultimately complementing the device the
whoever the the retailer is using, whatever device they're
using that has some form of audio capability.
That's that's where where you guys are playing, right?
Exactly so we. The handheld device as well or
or anything like like Zebra? No, I mean it's anything.
No, exactly. So we connect to the Zebra
device and if that was running an application that could be a
voice based, a voice enabled application or game.
Yeah, they all, they all. Have right, all of them have a
some form of push the. Tool for.
Voice capability now. Exactly.
So you're enhancing that that capability basically through the
parameters of being heads up and hands free.
Then increasingly important this this principle of audio
intelligibility. I mean we have sort of a data
point around transcription. So of course how you do this
transcript audio through to text.
If you take a an enterprise grade products such as Jabras,
we will achieve the sort of transcription accuracy of around
96%, something like really, yeah, which is compared to let's
say a standard consumer grade headset that will be as low as
64% in the world where you, you know, you are actually updating
key data for maybe to drive workflows actually that that
level of inaccuracy becomes comes, you know, quite
significantly problematic. So thinkers, organisations are
thinking forward towards sort of again using voice LED
applications. Everybody needs to think about
the hardware components. So yes, the clarity and the
accuracy is what I'm hearing, right.
That's really down to the, the quality of that mic picking up
is, is the difference between with you having to repeat lost
productivity in lost communication, How how sorry, go
on. No.
I was going to say these as we think about the microphone
technology, you know, typically that microphone technology needs
to work in noisy environments. Yeah.
So you think some sort of noise
cancelling or? Yeah.
Exactly. But is that what we're talking?
I mean, like, are your devices noise cancel?
I'm giving them a bit of a geek and nerd.
I'm I'm curious, like, are you cancelling noise?
Are you doing that sort of stuff?
What's? What's going on?
So that's where sort of the secret sauce is, if you like, is
a, is a business. We, we, I think it's consumers,
we tend to think of noise cancelling from the point of
receive. So typically a lot of us will
have, you know, will listen to music using noise cancelling on
a plane and you know, you hit that button and it's quite
transformational, that experience.
Yeah, yeah. But essentially we, we, we do
that so we, we can reduce the noise for you as a listener.
But I think really importantly, we through noise cancelling
microphone technology and digital algorithms and we're
able to essentially create the same effect.
But when you are transmitting, so essentially we are able to
cancel that, that, that bubble of noise around the microphone.
So the, everything that's transmitted is your voice.
Again, that's where the you know, that's where the the smart
technology comes in. You don't do one for podcasters
any amount of conferences I go to and then we have to spend so
much time digitally deleting all the background noise.
And I've, and it's interesting because a lot of the consumables
for, for consumers microphones are now coming with sort of some
form of noise cancelling. And, and I think what that's
really good because if you're getting that consumer grade,
then your business is still using archaic whatever methods
for, for, for it's, you know, it's I, I can imagine because
I've had those things in my ear on a shift and they are really
problematic and they do 'cause headaches and they have all of
these other things as they it. Opens up a whole world really I
think I mean this is sort of what makes again has come back
to why we think we have an interesting the original
question. Why do you think we have a a
sort of a business opportunity here?
I think it's because once you, if you believe I met my first
couple of weeks in this role, I met UK retailer and they're on a
journey of thinking about how they can provide AI agents for
for employee guidance, how to tools super great.
They're a really brilliant proof of concept that they're running.
You know, the, the, the, the IT lead was of the opinion.
If I don't get the device right, the headset doesn't work.
This falls over. It's all that heavy lifting in
the back end actually almost hinges on how good the quality
endpoint devices and you know they see that from audio
intelligibility. You know the product, you know
the audio transmission needs to be good enough, but also you
think about these are personal devices.
We I think we will be asking a lot of retail associates to wear
comfort becomes important. And is it available in the
market right now or are you how, where are you in your
development? Yeah.
So we've, we've, we've had a product to the market for for a
few years, but we, we which was is a, a more classic Bluetooth
product Perform 45. And now we've just launched a
new product called the Perform 75.
I've got 1 here in front of me. The the, the.
Yes it. Is the one the mic?
OK, got you. So this one is a mic and then if
you for comparison, then you have I'm concerned the Bluetooth
will kick in. But essentially this is them
more classic Bluetooth style device.
And I think you know what we some of the attributes that I
think are important and all our devices with the fall is the
interoperability. So all of our products we build,
we work with Microsoft Zebra seller, all the key brush to
talk vendors. We ensure that our products
integrate seamlessly. So there's this notion that, you
know, this would fall down straight away if yes, I've got a
handset, but I need to take, need to take the handheld out of
my pocket every time I take a call, yes, I take a call needs
to work, needs to be fully in top.
So, so yeah, that's, that's key. So working closely with the
partners around that into interoperability.
So the two products are out. Yeah.
And we're pretty excited about what, you know, the, the, the
early response has been really positive so far.
And again, final technical geek question, but what's the, what's
the battery life? These are the important
questions. This is not normal, but you
know, I'm thinking if I'm going to deploy this, what was the
battery life on these things? I think it's interesting with
this product. So this is the perform 75.
So this is a a larger this, this product's been designed to work
across all the way from sort of the back of store in sort of
warehouse environment or stores environment all the way to the
front of the house. To answer your question
specifically, we'll achieve 30 hours of battery life with this.
So this will easily do multiple shift.
But we've done that. I don't know, sort of yeah, I
don't know how easy this works on the podcast, but so yeah,
yeah, it got you, you know, you essentially once we've done with
this designs a few things that are unique.
So we created the modular product.
So we actually have you can essentially deploy the headband
to all of your social, the mic. That's crazy.
Exactly. And then the the, the smarts of
the product, you would just deploy what was needed to cover
a full shift. And then we essentially have
created what we call a hot swappable battery, which means
you can charge in between shifts and then the associate would
arrive in the morning, grab their personal headband wheels,
have a neck bands and alternative wearing style.
It would simply grab one of these and one of these from the
charging Bay since they connect that and then they're up and
running. And then with the ease of sort
of connectivity, so simple tap to pair functionality on
Bluetooth essentially, then you have them up and running really
quickly. And that's been sort of key for
us. So we've thought about shift
work, we've thought about shared device, we've thought about
power management and we've thought about ease of use from
trying to build this. And you know, you come back to
the microphone, yes, it is a long microphone.
And I think you know, we shy away from that as consumers to
an extent. This comes back to to the audio
intelligibility. Yeah.
You want it. Just me if you want some people
to hear you or not, Yeah. Well, this will, this will
create 99% noise cancellation. So there's a huge specific fit
in terms of being able to be heard.
And again, that's important. If I'm speaking, you and I are
speaking now it's equally important if you're then, you
know, working towards a voice activated application where the
accuracy of what you're saying becomes really important, that
there's a dangerous, you set up a workflow which is wrong.
So that becomes really important.
So yes, that's what that's kind of I, I sort of went a bit
further than your question, but you're sending it.
Yeah. As I said, it's an area that
I've worked in for a long time. So I'm, I personally, I'm
curious about what, what the future of this area looks like.
So, but with that, I'm going to be respectful to your time and
say thank you very much. It's been great.
If people want to find out more information about yourself and
the the stuff that you've been showing us, where, where, where
should they go? If they go to jabra.com and the
perform sub page within jabra.com, you'll see all about
our products and I think we have links to to the team to connect.
Wonderful. Andrew, thank you so much.
Thank you, Alex. Appreciate it.