The View from the Office.

Met Ria Shah for breakfast at Suited, a coffee house near Wall Street. We both had the granola but I regretted not getting the scrambled eggs.

Ria is the co-founder of Tone AI, a start up that analyzes video/audio files into searchable documents that can be posted online and on social media.

She launched the company last year, seeking to leverage the insight that 40% of human communication is conveyed via tone, yet most don’t have easy ways to capture voice. The idea was that more media could be captured at scale and conveyed to audiences.

One early customer was the Chicago Bears. The team uses Tone AI to capture audio recordings from fans and add them to video. A recent social media post overlaid audio of fan comments welcoming the 2024 draft class with footage of the team.

Ria’s team is working on features that will allow clients to process video interviews and automatically generate transcripts, summaries and even draft social posts. The application will let you search documents for emotions such as excitement.

The big picture Ria sees is that leveraging meaningful clips of spontaneous, in-the-moment spoken audio by asking the right questions at the right time will play a larger role in social media.

Ria recently moved back to NYC and is eager to connect. Reach out to her via LinkedIn or DM me if you want a warm intro.

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