How voice profiling determines how to exploit your feelings, privacy and your wallet

By Alma Fabiani

Published Jun 11, 2021 at 09:20 AM

Reading time: 3 minutes

Whenever you call a number and hear: “This call is being recorded for training and quality control,” it isn’t just the customer service representative they’re monitoring. It can be you, too. When it comes to your shopping experience, as you dial in, the computer of an artificial intelligence company hired by the store is then activated. It accesses previous data on the speaking style you used when you phoned other companies the same software firm services.

You’re in luck, the computer has concluded you are ‘friendly and talkative’. Using predictive routing, it connects you to a customer service agent who company research has identified as being especially good at getting friendly and talkative customers to buy more expensive versions of the goods they’re considering to buy. In other words, voice profiling allows them to exploit not only your feelings but also your privacy and your wallet.

If you don’t believe me, check out the company CallMiner and exactly what it offers on its website. “Reveal patterns and insight at scale to understand customers, better meet their needs and expectations, and drive improved loyalty and satisfaction,” is just a nicer way to say what I just stated above.

When conducting research for his forthcoming book The Voice Catchers, author Joseph Turow went through over 1,000 trade magazines and news articles on the companies connected to various forms of voice profiling. “I examined hundreds of pages of US and EU laws applying to biometric surveillance. I analysed dozens of patents. And because so much about this industry is evolving, I spoke to 43 people who are working to shape it,” Turow wrote in an article published on Big Think.

“It soon became clear to me that we’re in the early stages of a voice-profiling revolution that companies see as integral to the future of marketing,” he continued. And although he precised how, for now, we’re still in the early stages of that revolution, it’s clear to see that things are already well in motion. Thanks to the public’s embrace of smart speakers, intelligent car displays and voice-responsive phones, marketers say they are on the verge of being able to use AI-assisted vocal analysis technology to achieve unprecedented insights into shoppers’ identities and inclinations.

Soon enough, they’ll be able to circumvent the errors and fraud associated with traditional targeted advertising. At least, that’s what they’re willing to share with us. Top marketing executives Turow interviewed said they expect their customer interactions to include voice profiling within a decade. Let’s look at what marketers say they need voice profiling for, and what they don’t want to share just yet.

Part—and part is the key word here—of what attracts them to this new technology is a belief that the current system used to create unique customer profiles (and therefore targeting them with personalised offers and ads) has drawbacks that simply can’t be ignored any longer. Too often, customer data isn’t up to date, profiles are based on multiple users of a device, names can be confused and, well, people lie.

As a result, these create barriers to understanding individual shoppers—and selling more crap they probably don’t need. Voice analysis, on the other hand, is seen as a solution that makes it nearly impossible for people to hide their feelings or evade their identities, Turow explains.

Here’s where marketers’ real interest in voice profiling comes into play—in customer support centres, which are largely out of the public eye. Since they’ve been introduced to us as the little helper we all need and deserve, hundreds of millions of Amazon Echoes, Google Nests and other smart speakers have infiltrated our homes. Smartphones also contain such technology.

You’ve probably heard rumours of this before, but all these smart speakers are listening—just not in the way you might think. They don’t listen to your conversations to then present you with ads of what you might have mentioned as per se, but they’re tied to advanced machine learning and deep neural network programmes that analyse what you say and how you say it.

Voir cette publication sur Instagram

Une publication partagée par Screen Shot Media (@screenshothq)

The user agreements of Amazon and Google (as well as many other companies that people access routinely via phone app) give them the right to use their digital assistants to understand you by the way you sound. Amazon’s most public application of voice profiling so far is its Halo wristband, which claims to know the emotions you’re conveying when you talk to relatives, friends and employers.

Although these Big Tech companies assure customers that they’re not using this data for their own purposes—yet—their patents offer a clear vision of what’s coming. From deciphering a shopper’s voice to measure unconscious reactions to products to collecting gender and age information based on the pitch of voice signatures throughout a house, the future is nearing.

As scary as this sounds, you probably haven’t even considered the worst part yet: the impact voice profiling could have on both political campaigns and government activities.

Keep On Reading

By Charlie Sawyer

Watch Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly surprise Snoop Dogg with a Step Brothers rap reunion

By Charlie Sawyer

Timothée Chalamet’s dating history proves that Kylie Jenner has always been next on his list

By Mason Berlinka

Meta’s coming for Elon Musk’s bag: Everything you need to know about the latest Twitter copycat, Threads

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

What is legal cocaine? And how is it now being incorporated into our food and drinks?

By Abby Amoakuh

Watch this video of pro-Palestinian protesters raiding an airport in search of Israelis

By Emma O'Regan-Reidy

How LinkedIn has managed to appeal to four generations at once, gen Z included

By Alma Fabiani

Worst London tube lines and stations for air pollution exposed in worrying research

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Why Burberry’s London Fashion Week takeover of Norman’s Cafe is causing outrage online

By Emma O'Regan-Reidy

Gen Z say see ya to the bra. Are there any downsides to going braless?

By Jack Ramage

Is gen Z bringing dairy back or moo-ving on from milk for good?

By Bianca Borissova

What is the girlfriend effect? Inside the TikTok trend improving men’s style

By Alma Fabiani

Got painful periods? This virtual clinic for period pain is here to help

By Charlie Sawyer

Is John Pork calling or is he dead? Chatting with the creator of the viral meme that had us all hooked

By Alma Fabiani

TikTok trends: Internet culture

By Mason Berlinka

Who is TikToker Nekoglai? The Moldovan streamer tortured by Russia paying tribute to Ukrainian soldiers

By Charlie Sawyer

Tinder’s new problematic feature lets users spend £5,000 to contact people they haven’t matched with

By Alma Fabiani

Watch this video of Ryan Gosling rehearsing for I’m Just Ken dance in Barbie movie

By Alma Fabiani

The rise of CringeTok and the end of coolness

By Abby Amoakuh

Controversial video chat site Omegle shuts down after mounting child abuse allegations

By Bianca Borissova

How stan culture is turning manic pixie dream boy Timothée Chalamet’s fans into misogynistic haters