LiveTiles launches LiveTiles Soundbites - an Enterprise audio communications solution

MELBOURNE, Australia, Oct. 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- LiveTiles is pleased to announce the launch of LiveTiles Soundbites.  LiveTiles has been working in partnership with Texas-based Soundbite.ai for 12 months for the planned release of a secure, Enterprise Audio solution to drive stronger employee engagement in the modern workplace.

Over the past two years, consumer audio adoption has skyrocketed, highlighted by the global growth of consumer audio apps like Clubhouse and the very recently announced beta social audio products from Twitter, Facebook, and Spotify. This consumer trend will make secure enterprise products like LiveTiles Soundbites an expectation within organisations over the next 12-36 months.

In August 2021, LiveTiles announced its strategic goals to the market, sharing one of its ambitions to be recognised as the global leader in Employee Experience by 2024. The Employee Experience market is a significantly larger total addressable market than where LiveTiles has previously come from, presenting great opportunities for growth. The LiveTiles strategy requires new types of R&D and product innovation to service the entire Employee Experience market. The release of LiveTiles Soundbites is a strong step forward to deliver a more holistic set of Employee Experience capabilities to the market.

The problem that exists with communications in the enterprise

There has been significant in-depth research into the overall employee experience since the beginning of the pandemic, with a big focus on the effectiveness of communications and how people feel about their employer and workplace. The research shows:

• Only 44% of people read a single email for more than 9 seconds.^[1]
• Only 7% of the effectiveness of messages are derived from the words alone, with the vast majority of the effectiveness coming from tone and body language.^[2]
• 70% of a communicators' time is spent creating content that 90% of people will essentially ignore.
• 53% of employees feel disengaged.
• 27% of employees waste 1-2 days per week on emails and meetings.

All of this leads to the obvious conclusion that communications in the workplace need to change quickly to ensure companies retain top talent and connect employees to their mission, so that companies are highly productive and perform to expectations.

The changes to the work environment and the rapid digitisation of the employee experience that the Covid-19 pandemic has driven means there are now more employees than ever requiring effective communication and engagement from their employers.

The LiveTiles Soundbites solution explained

LiveTiles Soundbites combines the best capabilities of LiveTiles & Soundbite.ai by seamlessly integrating them into an experience where employees can collaborate using both longer form written methods and audio Soundbites. LiveTiles Soundbites provides a scalable, modern way for organisations to engage their workforce across any device.  The ability to communicate through voice is the next step in truly engaging people in the workplace.

Some key details about LiveTiles Soundbites:

• It integrates key capabilities of Soundbite.ai into the LiveTiles Reach and LiveTiles Intranet experience.
• It allows any user to simply click and record short-form audio communications for sharing corporate news, updates, policies, tasks, or whatever is on their mind.
• Audio communications are able to be securely targeted across an organisation using the existing communication channels that LiveTiles Reach and LiveTiles Intranet delivers.
• It is available both as a mobile app, and in desktop form.
• It has been designed and further developed to ensure that the User Experience feels very natural between classic communications and audio communications.
• It has been successfully piloted in companies across APAC & USA.

LiveTiles enters the high-growth short-form audio market

The last two years have seen phenomenal growth in the consumer market of social short-form audio apps. Clubhouse^[3] is arguably the fastest growing and most talked about product in this space right now.  Clubhouse launched in March 2020, as of December 2020 it had 600,000 weekly users, and it now has in excess of 10 million weekly users. This extraordinary growth is a strong indication of the demand for the capabilities of short-form audio. Clubhouse currently has a valuation of ~$4 billion USD. In January 2021, Clubhouse went from 2 million users to over 10 million users within the month. This success has seen other leading consumer platforms announce similar features including Twitter and Spotify.

This growth has happened because audio is an agile, scalable, and engaging medium for authentic storytelling and communication. Users can consume on the go, such as catching up on the latest announcements from the CEO while driving or cooking dinner.

LiveTiles and Soundbite.ai have been working closely together since the start of 2021 defining the future of audio in the employee experience. Soundbite's mission to provide the world's most comprehensive audio platform for the enterprise aligns perfectly with LiveTiles vision for the modern employee experience platform.

The immediate market opportunity

With the explosion in short-form audio for communications, LiveTiles will enter the market with proven capabilities and unique differentiation, delivered through a single application experience. The planned go-to-market will aim to attract new customers, along with providing existing customers the ability to extend their current LiveTiles subscription to include the new LiveTiles Soundbites capabilities.

LiveTiles will execute a go-to-market strategy to drive the success of this product in market and is expecting strong demand to drive key revenue and licensing goals in CY2022. LiveTiles Soundbites will be available to select customers before the end of CY2021, with general availability by early 2022.

Simon Tyrrell, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, said: "Audio is exploding. The reasons for this are clear; audio is easy to create, easy to consume from anywhere, and engages people in ways that written or video communications don't. LiveTiles is now able to deliver the breadth of communication methods through a single cohesive experience allowing our customers to ensure they engage their entire workforce and deliver a truly modern employee experience."

Mike Lantzy, Co-founder of Soundbite.ai, said: "We are incredibly excited and confident that our LiveTiles Soundbites solution will grab the attention of key decision makers in the market. We've been working with some of the largest companies in 2021, and the timing for this solution could not be any better. The communications problem trends are very clear and well understood, and we have the solution to resolve this now."

About LiveTiles

LiveTiles is a global leader in the employee experience market creating software to enhance employee collaboration and communication. LiveTiles is delivering solutions that drive human connection, employee engagement, well-being and productivity in the modern workplace.

LiveTiles have operations spanning North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and services over 1,000 customers. LiveTiles is a leading player in the Employee Experience Platform Industry and has been acknowledged prominently by Forrester and Gartner.

About Soundbite.ai

Founded in early 2020, Soundbite.ai has quickly become the global leader in secure enterprise audio for business communications teams. Soundbite.ai customers streamline communications processes by creating and sharing engaging Soundbites and Podcasts that yield a happier, healthier, and more engaged workforce.

Media ContactAlex Liddington-Cox+61 (0) 474 701 469 alexander.lc@livetilesglobal.com