{"id":16990,"date":"2026-01-26T14:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T14:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/26\/the-power-of-sound-in-a-virtual-world\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T14:38:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T14:38:00","slug":"the-power-of-sound-in-a-virtual-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/26\/the-power-of-sound-in-a-virtual-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The power of sound in a virtual world"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><iframe height=\"200px\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https:\/\/player.simplecast.com\/4c4001e7-474a-4d6d-9725-42fc6a7686aa?dark=false\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In an era where business, education, and even casual conversations occur via screens, sound has become a differentiating factor. We obsess over lighting, camera angles, and virtual backgrounds, but how we sound can be just as critical to credibility, trust, and connection.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the insight driving Erik Vaveris, vice president of product management and chief marketing officer at Shure, and Brian Scholl, director of the Perception &amp; Cognition Laboratory at Yale University. Both see audio as more than a technical layer: It\u2019s a human factor shaping how people perceive intelligence, trustworthiness, and authority in virtual settings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re willing to take a little bit of time with your audio set up, you can really get across the full power of your message and the full power of who you are to your peers, to your employees, your boss, your suppliers, and of course, your customers,\u201d says Vaveris.<\/p>\n<p>Scholl\u2019s research shows that poor audio quality can make a speaker seem less persuasive, less hireable, and even less credible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know that [poor] sound doesn\u2019t reflect the people themselves, but we really just can\u2019t stop ourselves from having those impressions,\u201d says Scholl. \u201cWe all understand intuitively that if we\u2019re having difficulty being understood while we\u2019re talking, then that\u2019s bad. But we sort of think that as long as you can make out the words I\u2019m saying, then that\u2019s probably all fine. And this research showed in a somewhat surprising way, to a surprising degree, that this is not so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For organizations navigating hybrid work, training, and marketing, the stakes have become high.<\/p>\n<p>Vaveris points out that the pandemic was a watershed moment for audio technology. As classrooms, boardrooms, and conferences shifted online almost overnight, demand accelerated for advanced noise suppression, echo cancellation, and AI-driven processing tools that make meetings more seamless. Today, machine learning algorithms can strip away keyboard clicks or reverberation and isolate a speaker\u2019s voice in noisy environments. That clarity underpins the accuracy of AI meeting assistants that can step in to transcribe, summarize, and analyze discussions.<\/p>\n<p>The implications across industries are rippling. Clearer audio levels the playing field for remote participants, enabling inclusive collaboration. It empowers executives and creators alike to produce broadcast-quality content from the comfort of their home office. And it offers companies new ways to build credibility with customers and employees without the costly overhead of traditional production.<\/p>\n<p>Looking forward, the convergence of audio innovation and AI promises an even more dynamic landscape: from real-time captioning in your native language to audio filtering, to smarter meeting tools that capture not only what is said but how it\u2019s said, and to technologies that disappear into the background while amplifying the human voice at the center.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a future out there where this technology can really be something that helps bring people together,\u201d says Vaveris. \u201cNow that we have so many years of history with the internet, we know there\u2019s usually two sides to the coin of technology, but there\u2019s definitely going to be a positive side to this, and I\u2019m really looking forward to it.<\/p>\n<p>In a world increasingly mediated by screens, sound may prove to be the most powerful connector of all.<\/p>\n<p><em>This episode of Business Lab is produced in partnership with Shure.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Full Transcript<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Megan Tatum: <\/em>From MIT Technology Review, I\u2019m Megan Tatum, and this is Business Lab, the show that helps business leaders make sense of new technologies coming out of the lab and into the marketplace.<\/p>\n<p>This episode is produced in partnership with Shure.<\/p>\n<p>Our topic today is the power of sound. As our personal and professional lives become increasingly virtual, audio is emerging as an essential tool for everything from remote work to virtual conferences to virtual happy hour. While appearance is often top of mind in video conferencing and streaming, audio can be as or even more important, not only to effective communication, but potentially to brand equity for both the speaker and the company.<\/p>\n<p>Two words for you: crystal clear.<\/p>\n<p>My guests today are Erik Vaveris, VP of Product Management and Chief Marketing Officer at Shure, and Brian Scholl, Director of the Perception &amp; Cognition Laboratory at Yale University.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome, Erik and Brian.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik Vaveris:<\/em> Thank you, Megan. And hello, Brian. Thrilled to be here today.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian Scholl:<\/em> Good afternoon, everyone.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan:<\/em> Fantastic. Thank you both so much for being here. Erik, let\u2019s open with a bit of background. I imagine the pandemic changed the audio industry in some significant ways, given the pivot to our modern remote hybrid lifestyles. Could you talk a bit about that journey and some of the interesting audio advances that arose from that transformative shift?<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik: <\/em>Absolutely, Megan. That\u2019s an interesting thing to think about now being here in 2025. And if you put yourself back in those moments in 2020, when things were fully shut down and everything was fully remote, the importance of audio quality became immediately obvious. As people adopted Zoom or Teams or platforms like that overnight, there were a lot of technical challenges that people experienced, but the importance of how they were presenting themselves to people via their audio quality was a bit less obvious. As Brian\u2019s noted in a lot of the press that he\u2019s received for his wonderful study, we know how we look on video. We can see ourselves back on the screen, but we don\u2019t know how we sound to the people with whom we\u2019re speaking.<\/p>\n<p>If a meeting participant on the other side can manage to parse the words that you\u2019re saying, they\u2019re not likely to speak up and say, \u201cHey, I\u2019m having a little bit of trouble hearing you.\u201d They\u2019ll just let the meeting continue. And if you don\u2019t have a really strong level of audio quality, you\u2019re asking the people that you\u2019re talking to devote way too much brainpower to just determining the words that you\u2019re saying. And you\u2019re going to be fatiguing to listen to. And your message won\u2019t come across. In contrast, if you\u2019re willing to take a little bit of time with your audio set up, you can really get across the full power of your message and the full power of who you are to your peers, to your employees, your boss, your suppliers, and of course your customers. Back in 2020, this very quickly became a marketing story that we had to tell immediately.<\/p>\n<p>And I have to say, it\u2019s so gratifying to see Brian\u2019s research in the news because, to me, it was like, \u201cYes, this is what we\u2019ve been experiencing. And this is what we\u2019ve been trying to educate people about.\u201d Having the real science to back it up means a lot. But from that, development on improvements to key audio processing algorithms accelerated across the whole AV industry.<\/p>\n<p>I think, Megan and Brian, you probably remember hearing loud keyboard clicking when you were on calls and meetings, or people eating potato chips and things like that back on those. But you don\u2019t hear that much today because most platforms have invested in AI-trained algorithms to remove undesirable noises. And I know we\u2019re going to talk more about that later on.<\/p>\n<p>But the other thing that happened, thankfully, was that as we got into the late spring and summer of 2020, was that educational institutions, especially universities, and also businesses realized that things were going to need to change quickly. Nothing was going to be the same. And universities realized that all classrooms were going to need hybrid capabilities for both remote students and students in the classroom. And that helped the market for professional AV equipment start to recover because we had been pretty much completely shut down in the earlier months. But that focus on hybrid meeting spaces of all types accelerated more investment and more R&amp;D into making equipment and further developing those key audio processing algorithms for more and different types of spaces and use cases. And since then, we\u2019ve really seen a proliferation of different types of unobtrusive audio capture devices based on arrays of microphones and the supporting signal processing behind them. And right now, machine-learning-trained signal processing is really the norm. And that all accelerated, unfortunately, because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan:<\/em> Yeah. Such an interesting period of change, as you say. And Brian, what did you observe and experience in academia during that time? How did that time period affect the work at your lab?<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian:<\/em> I\u2019ll admit, Megan, I had never given a single thought to audio quality or anything like that, certainly until the pandemic hit. I was thrown into this, just like the rest of the world was. I don\u2019t believe I\u2019d ever had a single video conference with a student or with a class or anything like that before the pandemic hit. But in some ways, our experience in universities was quite extreme. I went on a Tuesday from teaching an in-person class with 300 students to being on Zoom with everyone suddenly on a Thursday. Business meetings come in all shapes and sizes. But this was quite extreme. This was a case where suddenly I\u2019m talking to hundreds and hundreds of people over Zoom. And every single one of them knows exactly what I sound like, except for me, because I\u2019m just speaking my normal voice and I have no idea how it\u2019s being translated through all the different levels of technology.<\/p>\n<p>I will say, part of the general rhetoric we have about the pandemic focuses on all the negatives and the lack of personal connection and nuance and the fact that we can\u2019t see how everyone\u2019s paying attention to each other. Our experience was a bit more mixed. I\u2019ll just tell you one anecdote. Shortly after the pandemic started, I started teaching a seminar with about 20 students. And of course, this was still online. What I did is I just invited, for whatever topic we were discussing on any given day, I sent a note to whoever was the clear world leader in the study of whatever that topic was. I said, \u201cHey, don\u2019t prepare a talk. You don\u2019t have to answer any questions. But just come join us on Zoom and just participate in the conversation. The students will have read some of your work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Every single one of them said, \u201cLet me check my schedule. Oh, I\u2019m stuck at home for a year. Sure. I\u2019d be happy to do that.\u201d And that was quite a positive. The students got to meet a who\u2019s who of cognitive science from this experience. And it\u2019s true that there were all these technological difficulties, but that would never, ever have happened if we were teaching the class in real life. That would\u2019ve just been way too much travel and airfare and hotel and scheduling and all of that. So, it was a mixed bag for us.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>That\u2019s fascinating.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> Yeah. Megan, can I add?<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>Of course.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik: <\/em>That is really interesting. And that\u2019s such a cool idea. And it\u2019s so wonderful that that worked out. I would say that working for a global company, we like to think that, \u201cOh, we\u2019re all together. And we\u2019re having these meetings. And we\u2019re in the same room,\u201d but the reality was we weren\u2019t in the same room. And there hadn\u2019t been enough attention paid to the people who were conferencing in speaking not their native language in a different time zone, maybe pretty deep into the evening, in some cases. And the remote work that everybody got thrown into immediately at the start of the pandemic did force everybody to start to think more about those types of interactions and put everybody on a level playing field.<\/p>\n<p>And that was insightful. And that helped some people have stronger voices in the work that we were doing than they maybe did before. And it\u2019s also led businesses really across the board, there\u2019s a lot written about this, to be much more focused on making sure that participants from those who may be remote at home, may be in the office, may be in different offices, may be in different time zones, are all able to participate and collaborate on really a level playing field. And that is a positive. <a>That\u2019s<\/a> a good thing.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>Yeah. There are absolutely some positive side effects there, aren\u2019t there? And it inspired you, Brian, to look at this more closely. And you\u2019ve done a study that shows poor audio quality can actually affect the perception of listeners. So, I wonder what prompted the study, in particular. And what kinds of data did you gather? What methodology did you use?<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian: <\/em>Yeah. The motivation for this study was actually a real-world experience, just like we\u2019ve been talking about. In addition to all of our classes moving online with no notice whatsoever, the same thing was true of our departmental faculty meetings. Very early on in the pandemic, we had one of these meetings. And we were talking about some contentious issue about hiring or whatever. And two of my colleagues, who I\u2019d known very well and for many, many years, spoke up to offer their opinions. And one of these colleagues is someone who I\u2019m very close with. We almost always see eye to eye. He was actually a former graduate student of mine once upon a time. And we almost always see eye to eye on things. He happened to be participating in that meeting from an old not-so-hot laptop. His audio quality had that sort of familiar tinny quality that we\u2019re all familiar with. I could totally understand everything he was saying, but I found myself just being a little skeptical.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t find his points so compelling as usual. Meanwhile, I had another colleague, someone who I deeply respect, I\u2019ve collaborated with, but we don\u2019t always see eye to eye on these things. And he was participating in this first virtual faculty meeting from his home recording studio. Erik, I don\u2019t know if his equipment would be up to your level or not, but he sounded better than real life. He sounded like he was all around us. And I found myself just sort of naturally agreeing with his points, which sort of was notable and a little surprising in that context. And so, we turned this into a study.<\/p>\n<p>We played people a number of short audio clips, maybe like 30 seconds or so. And we had these being played in the context of very familiar situations and decisions. One of them might be like a hiring decision. You would have to listen to this person telling you why they think they might be a good fit for your job. And then afterwards, you had to make a simple judgment. It might be of a trait. How intelligent did that person seem? Or it might be a real-world decision like, \u201cHey, based on this, how likely would you be to pursue trying to hire them?\u201d And critically, we had people listen to exactly the same sort of scripts, but with a little bit of work behind the scenes to affect the audio quality. In one case, the audio sounded crisp and clear. Recorded with a decent microphone. And here\u2019s what it sounded like.<\/p>\n<p><em>Audio Clip<\/em>: After eight years in sales, I\u2019m currently seeking a new challenge which will utilize my meticulous attention to detail and friendly professional manner. I\u2019m an excellent fit for your company and will be an asset to your team as a senior sales manager.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian:<\/em> Okay. Whatever you think of the content of that message, at least it\u2019s nice and clear. Other subjects listened to exactly the same recording. But again, it had that sort of tinny quality that we\u2019re all familiar with when people\u2019s voices are filtered through a microphone or a recording setup that\u2019s not so hot. That sounded like this.<\/p>\n<p><em>Audio Clip<\/em>: After eight years in sales, I\u2019m currently seeking a new challenge which will utilize my meticulous attention to detail and friendly professional manner. I\u2019m an excellent fit for your company and will be an asset to your team as a senior sales manager.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian: <\/em>All right. Now, the thing that I hope you can get from that recording there is that although it clearly has this what we would call, as a technical term, a disfluent sound, it\u2019s just a little harder to process, you are ultimately successful, right? Megan, Erik, you were able to understand the words in that second recording.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian: <\/em>And we made sure this was true for all of our subjects. We had them do word-for-word transcription after they made these judgments. And I\u2019ll also just point out that this kind of manipulation clearly can\u2019t be about the person themselves, right? You couldn\u2019t make your voices sound like that in real world conversation if you tried. Voices just don\u2019t do those sorts of things. Nevertheless, in a way that sort of didn\u2019t make sense, that was kind of irrational because this couldn\u2019t reflect the person, this affected all sorts of judgments about people.<\/p>\n<p>So, people were judged to be about 8% less hirable. They were judged to be about 8% less intelligent. We also did this in other contexts. We did this in the context of dateability as if you were listening to a little audio clip from someone who was maybe interested in dating you, and then you had to make a judgment of how likely would you be to date this person. Same exact result. People were a little less datable when their audio was a little more tinny, even though they were completely understandable.<\/p>\n<p>The experiment, the result that I thought was in some ways most striking is one of the clips was about someone who had been in a car accident. It was a little narrative about what had happened in the car accident. And they were talking as if to the insurance agent. They were saying, \u201cHey, it wasn\u2019t my fault. This is what happened.\u201d And afterwards, we simply had people make a natural intuitive judgment of how credible do you think the person\u2019s story was. And when it was recorded with high-end audio, these messages were judged to be about 8% more credible in this context. So those are our experiments. What it shows really is something about the power of perception. We know that that sort of sound doesn\u2019t reflect the people themselves, but we really just can\u2019t stop ourselves from having those impressions made. And I don\u2019t know about you guys, but, Erik, I think you\u2019re right, that we all understand intuitively that if we\u2019re having difficulty being understood while we\u2019re talking, then that\u2019s bad. But we sort of think that as long as you can make out the words I\u2019m saying, then that\u2019s probably all fine. And this research showed in a somewhat surprising way to a surprising degree that this is not so<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>It\u2019s absolutely fascinating.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik: <\/em>Wow.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>From an industry perspective, Erik, what are your thoughts on those study results? Did it surprise you as well?<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> No, like I said, I found it very, very gratifying because we invest a lot in trying to make sure that people understand the importance of quality audio, but we kind of come about that intuitively. Our entire company is audio people. So of course, we think that. And it\u2019s our mission to help other people achieve those higher levels of audio in everything that they do, whether you\u2019re a minister at a church or you\u2019re teaching a class or you\u2019re performing on stage. When I first saw in the news about Brian\u2019s study, I think it was the NPR article that just came up in one of my feeds. I read it and it made me feel like my life\u2019s work has been validated to some extent. I wouldn\u2019t say we were surprised by it, but iIt made a lot of sense to us. Let\u2019s put it that way.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan:<\/em> And how-<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian: <\/em>This is what we\u2019re hearing. Oh, sorry. Megan, I was going to say this is what we\u2019re hearing from a lot of the audio professionals as they\u2019re saying, \u201cHey, you scientists, you finally caught up to us.\u201d But of course-<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> I wouldn\u2019t say it that way, Brian.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian: <\/em>Erik, you\u2019re in an unusual circumstance because you guys think about audio every day. When we\u2019re on Zoom, look, I can see the little rectangle as well as you can. I can see exactly how I look like. I can check the lighting. I check my hair. We all do that every day. But I would say most people really, they use whatever microphone came with their setup, and never give a second thought to what they sound like because they don\u2019t know what they sound like.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan:<\/em> Yeah. Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>Avoid listening to yourself back as well. I think that\u2019s common. We don\u2019t scrutinize audio as much as we should. I wonder, Erik, since the study came out, how are you seeing that research play out across industry? Can you talk a bit about the importance of strong, clear audio in today\u2019s virtual world and the challenges that companies and employees are facing as well?<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> Yeah. Sure, Megan. That\u2019s a great question. And studies kind of back this up, businesses understand that collaboration is the key to many things that we do. They know that that\u2019s critical. And they are investing in making the experiences for the people at work better because of that knowledge, that intuitive understanding. But there are challenges. It can be expensive. You need solutions that people who are going to walk into a room or join a meeting on their personal device, that they\u2019re motivated to use and that they can use because they\u2019re simple. You also have to overcome the barriers to investment. We in the AV industry have had to look a lot at how can we bring down the overall cost of ownership of setting up AV technology because, as we\u2019ve seen, the prices of everything that goes into making a product are not coming down.<\/p>\n<p>Simplifying deployment and management is critical. Beyond just audio technology, IoT technology and cloud technology for IT teams to be able to easily deploy and manage classrooms across an entire university campus or conference rooms across a global enterprise are really, really critical. And those are quickly evolving. And integrations with more standard common IT tools are coming out. And that\u2019s one area. Another thing is just for the end user, having the same user interface in each conference room that is familiar to everyone from their personal devices is also important. For many, many years, a lot of people had the experience where, \u201cHey, it\u2019s time we\u2019re going to actually do a conference meeting.\u201d And you might have a few rooms in your company or in your office area that could do that. And you walk into the meeting room. And how long does it take you to actually get connected to the people you\u2019re going to talk with?<\/p>\n<p>There was always a joke that you\u2019d have to spend the first 15 minutes of a meeting working all of that out. And that\u2019s because the technology was fragmented and you had to do a lot of custom work to make that happen. But these days, I would say platforms like Zoom and Teams and Google and others are doing a really great job with this. If you have the latest and greatest in your meeting rooms and you know how to join from your own personal device, it\u2019s basically the same experience. And that is streamlining the process for everyone. Bringing down the costs of owning it so that companies can get to those benefits to collaboration is kind of the key.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan:<\/em> I was going to ask if we could dive a little deeper into that kind of audio quality, the technological advancements that AI has made possible, which you did touch on slightly there, Erik. What are the most significant advancements, in your view? And how are those impacting the ways we use audio and the things we can do with it?<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> Okay. Let me try to break that down into-<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>That\u2019s a big question. Sorry.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik: <\/em>\u2026 a couple different sections. Yeah. No, and one that\u2019s just so exciting. Machine-learning-based digital signal processing, or DSP, is here and is the norm now. If you think about the beginning of telephones and teleconferencing, just going way back, one of the initial problems you had whenever you tried to get something out of a dedicated handset onto a table was echo. And I\u2019m sure we\u2019ve all heard that at some point in our life. You need to have a way to cancel echo. But by the way, you also want people to be able to speak at the same time on both ends of a call. You get to some of those very rudimentary things. Machine learning is really supercharging those algorithms to provide better performance with fewer trade-offs, fewer artifacts in the actual audio signal.<\/p>\n<p>Noise reduction has come a long way. I mentioned earlier on, keyboard sounds and the sounds of people eating, and how you just don\u2019t hear that anymore, at least I <a>don\u2019t<\/a> when I\u2019m on conference calls. But only a few years ago, that could be a major problem. The machine-learning-trained digital signal processing is in the market now and it\u2019s doing a better job than ever in removing things that you don\u2019t want from your sound. We have a new de-verberation algorithm, so if you have a reverberant room with echoes and reflections that\u2019s getting into the audio signal, that can degrade the experience there. We can remove that now. Another thing, the flip side of that is that there\u2019s also a focus on isolating the sound that you do want and the signal that you do want.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft has rolled out a voice print feature in Teams that allows you, if you\u2019re willing, to provide them with a sample of your voice. And then whenever you\u2019re talking from your device, it will take out anything else that the microphone may be picking up so that even if you\u2019re in a really noisy environment outdoors or, say, in an airport, the people that you\u2019re speaking with are going to hear you and only you. And it\u2019s pretty amazing as well. So those are some of the things that are happening today and are available today.<\/p>\n<p>Another thing that\u2019s emerged from all of this is we\u2019ve been talking about how important audio quality is to the people participating in a discussion, the people speaking, the people listening, how everyone is perceived, but a new consumer, if you will, of audio in a discussion or a meeting has emerged, and that is in the form of the AI agent that can summarize meetings and create action plans, do those sorts of things. But for it to work, a clean transcription of what was said is already table stakes. It can\u2019t garbled. It can\u2019t miss key things. It needs to get it word for word, sentence for sentence throughout the entire meeting. And the ability to attribute who said what to the meeting participants, even if they\u2019re all in the same room, is quickly upon us. And the ability to detect and integrate sentiment and emotion of the participants is going to become very important as well for us to really get the full value out of those kinds of AI agents.<\/p>\n<p>So audio quality is as important as ever for humans, as Brian notes, in some ways more important because this is now the normal way that we talk and meet, but it\u2019s also critical for AI agents to work properly. And it\u2019s different, right? It\u2019s a different set of considerations. And there\u2019s a lot of emerging thought and work that\u2019s going into that as well. And boy, Megan, there\u2019s so much more we could say about this beyond meetings and video conferences. AI tools to simplify the production process. And of course, there\u2019s generative AI of music content. I know that\u2019s beyond the scope of what we\u2019re talking about. But it\u2019s really pretty incredible when you look around at the work that\u2019s happening and the capabilities that are emerging.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan:<\/em> Yeah. Absolutely. Sounds like there are so many elements to consider and work going on. It\u2019s all fascinating. Brian, what kinds of emerging capabilities and use cases around AI and audio quality are you seeing in your lab as well?<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian: <\/em>Yeah. Well, I\u2019m sorry that Brian himself was not able to be here today, but I\u2019m an AI agent.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>You got me for a second there.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian: <\/em>Just kidding. The fascinating thing that we\u2019re seeing from the lab, from the study of people\u2019s impressions is that all of this technology that Erik has described, when it works best, it\u2019s completely invisible. Erik, I loved your point about not hearing potato chips being eaten or rain in the background or something like that. You\u2019re totally right. I used to notice that all the time. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve noticed that recently, but I also didn\u2019t notice that I haven\u2019t noticed that recently, right? It just kind of disappears. The interesting thing about these perceptual impressions, we\u2019re constantly drawing intuitive conclusions about people based on how they sound. And that might be a good thing or a bad thing when we\u2019re judging things like trustworthiness, for example, on the basis of a short audio clip.<\/p>\n<p>But clearly, some of these things are valid, right? We can judge the size of someone or even of an animal based on how they sound, right? A chihuahua can\u2019t make the sound of a lion. A lion can\u2019t make the sound of a chihuahua. And that\u2019s always been true because we\u2019re producing audio signals that go right into each other\u2019s ears. And now, of course, everything that Erik is talking about, that\u2019s not true. It goes through all of these different layers of technology increasingly fueled by AI. But when that technology works the best way, it\u2019s as if it isn\u2019t there at all and we\u2019re just hearing each other directly.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> That\u2019s the goal, right? That it\u2019s seamless open communication and we don\u2019t have to think about the technology anymore.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian: <\/em>It\u2019s a tough business to be in, I think, though, Erik, because people have to know what\u2019s going on behind the surface in order to value it. Otherwise, we just expect it to work.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik: <\/em>Well, that\u2019s why we try to put the logo of our products on the side of them so they show up in the videos. But yeah, it\u2019s a good point.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian:<\/em> Very good. Very good.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>And we\u2019ve talked about virtual meetings and conversations quite a bit, but there\u2019s also streamed and recorded content, which are increasingly important at work as well. I wondered, Erik, if you could talk a bit about how businesses are leveraging audio in new ways for things like marketing campaigns and internal upskilling and training and areas like that?<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> Yeah. Well, one of the things I think we\u2019ve all seen in marketing is that not everything is a high production value commercial anymore. And there\u2019s still a place for that, for sure. But people tend to trust influencers that they follow. People search on TikTok, on YouTube for topics. Those can be the place that they start. And as technology\u2019s gotten more accessible, not just audio, but of course, the video technology too, content creators can produce satisfying content on their own or with just a couple of people with them. And Brian\u2019s study shows that it doesn\u2019t really matter what the origins of the content are for it to be compelling.<\/p>\n<p>For the person delivering the message to be compelling, the audio quality does have to hit a certain level. But because the tools are simpler to use and you need less things to connect and pull together a decent production system, creator-driven content is becoming even more and more integral to a marketing campaign. And so not just what they maybe post on their Instagram page or post on LinkedIn, for example, but us as a brand being able to take that content and use that actually in paid media and things like that is all entirely possible because of the overall quality of the content. So that\u2019s something that\u2019s been a trend that\u2019s been in process really, I would say, maybe since the advent of podcasts. But it\u2019s been an evolution. And it\u2019s come a long, long way.<\/p>\n<p>Another thing, and this is really interesting, and this hits home personally, but I remember when I first entered the workforce, and I hope I\u2019m not showing my age too badly here, but I remember the word processing department. And you would write down on a piece of paper, like a memo, and you would give it to the word processing department and somebody would type it up for you. That was a thing. And these days, we\u2019re seeing actually more and more video production with audio, of course, transfer to the actual producers of the content.<\/p>\n<p>In my company, at Shure, we make videos for different purposes to talk about different initiatives or product launches or things that we\u2019re doing just for internal use. And right now, everybody, including our CEO, she makes these videos just at her own desk. She has a little software tool and she can show a PowerPoint and herself and speak to things. And with very, very limited amount of editing, you can put that out there. And I\u2019ve seen friends and colleagues at other companies in very high-level roles just kind of doing their own production. Being able to buy a very high quality microphone with really advanced signal processing built right in, but just plug it in via USB and have it be handled as simply as any consumer device, has made it possible to do really very useful production where you are going to actually sound good and get your message across, but without having to make such a big production out of it, which is kind of cool.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>Yeah. Really democratizes access to sort of creating high quality content, doesn\u2019t it? And of course, no technology discussion is complete without a mention of return on investment, particularly nowadays. Erik, what are some ways companies can get returns on their audio tech investments as well? Where are the most common places you see cost savings?<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik: <\/em>Yeah. Well, we collaborated on a study with IDC Research. And they came up with some really interesting findings on this. And one of them was, no surprise, two-thirds or more of companies have taken action on improving their communication and collaboration technology, and even more have additional or initial investments still planned. But the ROI of those initiatives isn\u2019t really tied to the initiative itself. It\u2019s not like when you come out with a new product, you look at how that product performs, and that\u2019s the driver of your ROI. The benefits of smoother collaboration come in the form of shorter meetings, more productive meetings, better decision-making, faster decision-making, stronger teamwork. And so to build an ROI model, what IDC concluded was that you have to build your model to account for those advantages really across the enterprise or across your university, or whatever it may be, and kind of up and down the different set of activities where they\u2019re actually going to be utilized.<\/p>\n<p>So that can be complex. Quantifying things can always be a challenge. But like I said, companies do seem to understand this. And I think that\u2019s because, this is just my hunch, but because everybody, including the CEO and the CFO and the whole finance department, uses and benefits from collaboration technology too. Perhaps that\u2019s one reason why the value is easier to convey. Even if they have not taken the time to articulate things like we\u2019re doing here today, they know when a meeting is good and when it\u2019s not good. And maybe that\u2019s one of the things that\u2019s helping companies to justify these investments. But it\u2019s always tricky to do ROI on projects like that. But again, focusing on the broader benefits of collaboration and breaking it down into what it means for specific activities and types of meetings, I think, is the way to go about doing that.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>Absolutely. And Brian, what kinds of advancements are you seeing in the lab that perhaps one day might contribute to those cost savings?<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian:<\/em> Well, I don\u2019t know anything about cost savings, Megan. I\u2019m a college professor. I live a pure life of the mind.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan:<\/em> Of course.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian: <\/em>ROI does not compute for me. No, I would say we are in an extremely exciting frontier right now because of AI and many different technologies. The studies that we talked about earlier, in one sense, they were broad. We explored many different traits from dating to hiring to credibility. And we isolated them in all sorts of ways we didn\u2019t talk about. We showed that it wasn\u2019t due to overall affect or pessimism or something like that. But in those studies, we really only tested one very particular set of dimensions along which an audio signal can vary, which is some sort of model of clarity. But in reality, the audio signal is so multi-dimensional. And as we\u2019re getting more and more tools these days, we can not only change audio along the lines of clarity, as we\u2019ve been talking about, but we can potentially manipulate it in all sorts of ways.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re very interested in pushing these studies forward and in exploring how people\u2019s sort of brute impressions that they make are affected by all sorts of things. Meg and Erik, we walk around the world all the time making these judgments about people, right? You meet someone and you\u2019re like, \u201cWow, I could really be friends with them. They seem like a great person.\u201d And you know that you\u2019re making that judgment, but you have no idea why, right? It just seems kind of intuitive. Well, in an audio signal, when you\u2019re talking to someone, you can think of, \u201cWhat if their signal is more bass heavy? What if it\u2019s a little more treble heavy? What if we manipulate it in this way? In that way?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When we talked about the faculty meeting that motivated this whole research program, I mentioned that my colleague, who was speaking from his home recording studio, he actually didn\u2019t sound clear like in real life. He sounded better than in real life. He sounded like he was all around us. What is the implication of that? I think there\u2019s so many different dimensions of an audio signal that we\u2019re just being able to readily control and manipulate that it\u2019s going to be very exciting to see how all of these sorts of things impact our impressions of each other.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan:<\/em> And there may be some overlap with this as well, but I wondered if we could close with a future forward look, Brian. What are you looking forward to in emerging audio technology? What are some exciting opportunities on the horizon, perhaps related to what you were just talking about there?<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian:<\/em> Well, we\u2019re interested in studying this from a scientific perspective. Erik, you talked about how when you started. When I started doing this science, we didn\u2019t have a word processing department. We had a stone tablet department. But I hear tell that the current generation, when they send photos back and forth to each other, that they, as a matter, of course, they apply all sorts of filters-<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik: <\/em>Oh, yes.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brian:<\/em> \u2026 to those video signals, those video or just photographic signals. We\u2019re all familiar with that. That hasn\u2019t quite happened with the audio signals yet, but I think that\u2019s coming up as well. You can imagine that you record yourself saying a little message and then you filter it this way or that way. And that\u2019s going to become the Wild West about the kinds of impressions we make on each other, especially if and when you don\u2019t know that those filters have been operating in the first place.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>That\u2019s so interesting. Erik, what are you looking forward to in audio technology as well?<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> Well, I\u2019m still thinking about what Brian said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan:<\/em> Yeah. That\u2019s-<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik: <\/em>That\u2019s very interesting.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan:<\/em> It\u2019s terrifying.<\/p>\n<p><em>Erik:<\/em> I have to go back again. I\u2019ll go back to the past, maybe 15 to 20 years. And I remember at work, we had meeting rooms with the Starfish phones in the middle of the table. And I remember that we would have international meetings with our partners there that were selling our products in different countries, including in Japan and in China, and the people actually in our own company in those countries. We knew the time zone was bad. And we knew that English wasn\u2019t their native language, and tried to be as courteous as possible with written materials and things like that. But I went over to China, and I had to actually be on the other end of one of those calls. And I\u2019m a native English speaker, or at least a native Chicago dialect of American English speaker. And really understanding how challenging it was for them to participate in those meetings just hit me right between the eyes.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve come so far, which is wonderful. But I think of a scenario, and this is not far off, there are many companies working on this right now, where not only can you get a real time captioning in your native language, no matter what the language of the participant, you can actually hear the person who\u2019s speaking\u2019s voice manipulated into your native language.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m never going to be a fluent Japanese or Chinese speaker, that\u2019s for sure. But I love the thought that I could actually talk with people and they could understand me as though I were speaking their native language, and that they could communicate to me and I could understand them in the way that they want to be understood. I think there\u2019s a future out there where this technology can really be something that helps bring people together. Now that we have so many years of history with the internet, we know there\u2019s usually two sides to the coin of technology, but there\u2019s definitely going to be a positive side to this, and I\u2019m really looking forward to it.<\/p>\n<p><em>Megan: <\/em>Gosh, that sounds absolutely fascinating. Thank you both so much for such an interesting discussion.<\/p>\n<p>That was Erik Vaveris, the VP of product management and chief marketing officer at Shure, and Brian Scholl, director of the Perception &amp; Cognition Laboratory at Yale University, whom I spoke with from Brighton in England.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s it for this episode of Business Lab. I\u2019m your host, Megan Tatum. I\u2019m a contributing editor at Insights, the custom publishing division of MIT Technology Review. We were founded in 1899 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And you can find us in print on the web and at events each year around the world. For more information about us and the show, please check out our website at technologyreview.com.<\/p>\n<p>This show is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, we hope you\u2019ll take a moment to rate and review us. Business Lab is a production of MIT Technology Review. And this episode was produced by Giro Studios. Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n<p><em>This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Review\u2019s editorial staff. It was researched, designed, and written entirely by human writers, editors, analysts, and illustrators. This includes the writing of surveys and collection of data for surveys. AI tools that may have been used were limited to secondary production processes that passed thorough human review.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an era where business, education, and even casual conversations  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}