With the advent of MyMagic+, many Disney Parks guests have turned to their phone and various apps to inquire about wait times, show times, and more. Now Disney is looking to do you one better by partnering with SoundHound and their Hound virtual assistant to better help guests navigate the parks.
According to VentureBeat, this pilot program will launch later this summer and enable guests to ask about height requirements, restroom location, merchandise questions, and more just by using Hound. But that’s not all — also in the works is a plan to integrate Hound into Disney’s hospitality operations. For example, you could soon be able to request more towels for your hotel room via Hound instead of calling down to the frontdesk.
From VentureBeat:
The move to make itself more technologically aware comes amid reports of Disney looking to modernize itself. A Seeking Alpha article opined that the company was “grounded in the ‘old’ media world,” but was in the process of adapting to the future. This could be why Disney approached SoundHound to leverage Hound’s capabilities. Additional possibilities, such as tie-ins with Disney’s MagicBand wristband or maybe even using Hound within Disney’s retail stores, are likely.
Launched in March, Hound reflects a decade’s worth of work by SoundHound to create what it envisioned a voice-powered virtual assistant should be. It’s a direct competitor to the likes of Siri, Google Now, and Microsoft Cortana. The company bills it as being faster and more accurate than the ones directly built into the mobile operating system, and the app utilizes speech-to-meaning recognition technology.
There is currently no word on when the Disney integration will launch within Hound.