Pre-episode Intro

Everett: Um, so, I'm gonna focus mainly on, on banking, but, uh, know that we have lots of different Aira Access partners, um, whether they be schools, universities, um, some employers, uh, stadiums, we, museums, places of business like Target, Starbucks, um, so, lots of different ways that you can use Aira for free in those locations, or using their website.

Chris: This is a bonus episode of the Penny Forward Podcast, a show about blind people building bright futures one penny at a time. I'm Chris Peterson. In this episode, we feature an excerpt from our September financial sense program, featuring Everett Bacon, VP of Blindness Initiatives with Aira. Everett talks about Aira's partnerships with financial institutions, and how Aira explorers are using Aira to make managing their finances, and working with their financial institutions, more accessible.

Everett: Well, thank you, Liz, for having me, and, uh, it's a pleasure to be here with all of you this evening. Again, my name is Everett Bacon. I am with Aira. Aira is spelled A I R A, so um, when your VoiceOver, or your Jaws says it, it sounds like "Air-a," but uh, it's actually pronounced "Aira." A I R A stands for "artificial intelligence remote assistant." We are a visual interpreting company, uh, that basically provides visual interpreting to, uh, blind, low vision individuals twenty-four seven. Uh, so that means whenever you need it, uh, we are available. Uh, so it's an on demand visual interpreting service. For those who kind of don't know what visual interpreting is, so we have a, a smart phone app. "Aira Explorer" is the name of the app. It's available both in the app store for the iPhone and the Google play store for the android operating system. Uh, and basically what happens is, you make a call to an Aira agent, and the Aira agent can immediately see through your phone camera. They can do the front facing or the back facing camera, whichever you'd like, and can provide you visual interpreting information, or visual information, real time, in whatever fashion you would like. So, if you would like something described, they can describe something to you. If you would like something read, uh, they can read something to you, um, if you would like navigation assistance, they can help you navigate. Our agents are trained professionals. They go through a, a pretty rigorous hiring process, uh, and uh, then they have to, uh, pass a HIPA compliance test, and they have to sign a nondisclosure agreement, and they have access to a dashboard on their computer, uh, that gives them a myriad of tools, including the ability to see through your camera. Uh, so they can see through your camera, they have these tools on their dashboard, whether it be access to Google Maps, access to relative information that you want to get access to, so if you're, you need something quite quickly looked up while you're navigating, they can do that. They can find, um, places of business around you, help you navigate to those places of business, give you more information about them, if you need some kind of detailed information on help with a, a PDF, they can read that to you, uh, help translate it, if you need it translated into a Word doc, they can do that for you. Uh, you can share photos with them, they can describe the photos, they can help you, uh, name the photos, all of these types of things these Aira agents can do. Uh, I could go on and on and on. Basically, they're, uh, an assistant, um, to you, uh, and as I said before, they are trained and, um, and certified, uh, or HIPA compliant, and uh, also sign a nondisclosure agreement. So, you can feel, um, secure that your, whatever you're sharing with them, uh, whether that be your personal information, like banking information of course, um, that you can share that information with them, and it would be secure. Um, so, we do have the ability to record the sessions, and we can, we can and do do that on a regular basis, but if you do not want us to record a session, you can tell us immediately at the start of the call, and immediately, the Aira agent will not record the session. So, it, imagine it's your personal assistant, that can see through your camera at any time. Uh, and we also offer an AI, um, so an artificial intelligence, uh, basically a language model, access to both Google Gemini and Chat GBT, uh, but we call it Access AI. So, it's a tab again in the uh, in the app, where you can now take pictures of an image and have it described to you. Uh, and so, you take a picture, very quickly you get a detailed description of whatever you're taking a picture of. From there, if you're not sure the picture is accurate, or the description is accurate I should say, you can hit an "Aira verify button." And you can tap that button, uh, and now, an Aira agent will now get that picture, and can look at that picture, and can look at the description that the AI gave you, and can immediately tell you whether the description was accurate, or whether there might have been something wrong with it. And, or something left out of it. And uh, and will immediately tell you that in a chat, um, so you get that information. If you want to go a step further, you can call the Aira agent, and you can discuss the picture. So, um, it's pretty, pretty neat services that we have. We have the ability for you to go in and get preferences to the AI, so if you want a more detailed description, we can give you that, or if you want more of a, a simple description, uh, you can choose for that. Um, if you want it technical speak, or plain speak, we can do that as well. And so, it's a, it's a pretty neat tool that we have that we're very proud of. We're especially proud of the Aira verify. Because we know that, that AI doesn't always get it right. And it's nice to know that we can give you that verification, um, when you need it. We also, uh, offer integration with smart glasses, uh, so we now are offering integration with Envision glasses, so if you're an Envision glass user you can use that. We also just announced, uh, an integration with the Meta Smart glasses. The, uh, Meta smart glasses is, is brand new. These are the Ray-Ban glasses. This integration is, is just rolling out, um, to testers right now, we're piloting it, but if you want to uh, be, get on that list, you can go to our app, go under the "more" tab, and you can choose "Smart glasses," and there's a, there's a "Meta glasses" sign up form that's easy to fill out, and you can get on that list. We're gonna be updating people, uh, hopefully daily, getting more and more people to test with their Meta glasses. We also are looking at other products like the Arx, A R X, camera, that is uh, a new product that was announced this, this past summer, um, and we'll be, we'll be uh, on that platform, and we're always looking for other platforms as we go. So, it's a, it's a pretty neat, um, way to get hands free, and it's something that we, we believe the market is really going towards hands free, finally. Um, where the connection is good, and, and the picture quality is good, and so, um, we’re, Aira is excited to, uh, participate in that and be a part of it. We also offer Aira events. These are different events that we will announce, um, like for instance when we did the roll-out just a couple of nights ago, we were, um, we did an event there. We just did the presidential debate where we offered visual interpreting of the presidential debate 'cause you don't really get audio description of that. We did the Kentucky Derby, we've done different things throughout the year and we'll continue to do that. These are really event spaces where you can join in, and, and watch. Um, we save all those, so if you, you want to go back and see any of those, you can go under that, uh, "more" tab, and, under "events," and you can watch any of those, through, through our app or through YouTube. As Liz Mentioned, Aira Access. So, Aira is a subscription service. To talk with the agent, we, our, our agents are paid employees. Um, they, uh, make about twenty dollars an hour, depending on what their shift is. If they work more, um, evenings or holidays, they can, uh, make a little more, uh, than twenty dollars an hour. We also, um, give them benefits. All of our employees are remote, uh, so they work from home, or wherever their location is. We do offer a subscription to sign up for it. So Aira does, um, have different subscriptions. We have nine different ones that you can sign up for. The very basic one is a fifteen-dollar a month subscription, which would give you approximately twenty minutes of Aira. From there, it goes up. The uh, gold level plans are shared plans, so you can, um, share those plans with another individual who wants to use Aira to cut down on the cost. So, I believe like the, the gold level one is a hundred dollars a month, and, uh, it might be a little more than that. I, in fact, don't quote me on that. I don't know all the prices off the top of my head. But you can find all of that on, on our website at
aira.io
Uh, like I said, there are nine different plans, and you can, they tell you whether you can share them or not. Our most basic plans are not sharable, the fifteen-dollar one, but the, the ones going up from there are sharable, so you can share them with up to one, or even two people if you'd like. Access Offers. So, we know that, um, not everybody can afford to pay for a subscription, and we totally recognize that blind and low vision individuals can be on a fixed income, so we offer a lot of different ways to use Aira for free. Currently, right now, we have a special program, 'cause we, we are working with a, another tech company on building a faster AI that does streaming, that can give you real time information, and so it's called Build AI. It's a way for us to share your videos with this tech company, and we realize that that is a bit scary for people. They, they may not want their data shared. And we totally understand. Um, so it's an opt in type program. You have to opt in to, uh, get access to the build AI program, and Build AI basically gives you ten minutes free, every thirty minutes. Now, what kinds of data will we share? We want to share, um, things that, that you're doing, whether it be getting descriptions of things, or having it read things to you, or navigation, whatever, whatever you're wanting to use Aira for, but what we will not share, no matter what, is any personal information. Uh, the company that we're working with doesn't even want that because of, you know, liability and, and things like that. So, we won't share anything like if you're, if you're looking at a credit card, or if you're looking at a bill of some kind, or if you're looking at any kind of, of data that's personal, we won't share that. But, any other things, like if you're wanting something described to you from your kitchen or something like that, that's the kind of thing we're sharing, because we want to be able to teach, uh, and build, a better AI that can give us more real time information, uh, in, in more of a streaming platform. So, um, so that's what we're doing with it, and, uh, that's, Build AI is available right now. Um, it won't be available forever, but it's definitely available right now. Ten minutes free, every thirty minutes provided that you opt in. We also have lots of access offers that we have. For instance, we have a, a program for Intuit. This is for small business owners, where you can get Aira for free, as long as you're doing a, a task related to your small business. So, um, just tell the Aira agent that you want to use the Intuit small business offer, and, uh, that will be immediately applied. We are, are working all the time to partner with different businesses where they would offer Aira for free at their location, or through their website. Um, so I'm gonna focus mainly on, on banking, but, uh, know that we have lots of different Aira access partners, um, whether they be schools,  universities, um, some employers, uh, stadiums, we, museums, places of business like Target, Starbucks, and, and, and on and on and on. So, and, we're growing that all the time. We plan to roll out a partnership with Walmart, uh, before the end of the year, um, so, lots of different ways that you can use Aira for free in those locations, or using their website. Um, and, oh, airports, I forgot to mention, lots of airports as well. Banks, though. Um, we have a partnership with, uh, TD bank, um, so if you go to a TD bank location, both in, uh, the United States or in Canada, you can use Aira for free. We currently are only an English speaking company, so we, we don't offer French, uh, speaking agents yet for, for Canadians that, that happen to be in that area, but it is something we plan to, um, launch, uh, in 2025. So, um, we are looking to hire and bring on French agents, so we can offer, uh, Aira in French, uh, because we know TD bank is, is big in that, that part of Canada. Uh, and then, we know it's big in North America too, um, and you can also, if you go to their website, you can use Aira for free, on the, on the TD Bank websites. This allows you, basically, to, for you to navigate into a location, a branch, um, you can, uh, you know, have it navigate from the sidewalk to the front door, uh, have you, have, help you get the layout of the, of the bank itself, uh, read anything that you might need, uh, if you need to use the ATM, they can help guide you to where the ATM is, or where the counters are, or where the loan officials are, uh, banking, the officials that work there, um, basically, anything like that, they can help you at the TD Bank branch. We also are the same at Bank of Americas. So, um, if you want to go to any Bank of America, same exact thing, or go on the Bank of America website. Um, we will be launching Chase. A partnership with Chase in October. Um, so, this was, this is uh, brand new, we're pretty excited about, um, so you'll be able to walk into any Chase bank location, as well as use, uh, Aira for free, on, uh, Chase's website. Um, so, uh, that's a pretty big deal, uh, Chase, Bank of America, uh, TD Bank, um, we're looking at, at others. Wells Fargo we're hoping we can get soon, uh, and, and we want to continue to, to look at other ways, and other banks we can partner with. It's always very helpful that uh, our blind explorers that use Aira can help us advocate, um, so, you know, letting us know what kind of location they're looking for, but then also, um, going and talking with the businesses that they would like to see Aira for free at, uh, and, and, and, you know, letting them know how a blind person could, could use this service to be a better customer. Uh, at, at their place of business. Uh, and, and be a more active, independent customer. Uh, and so that appeals to a lot of, uh, businesses, and so we, we feel like having blind individuals, uh, or blind explorers, helping us advocate, and getting Aira free to all of these different areas is something we, we really want to do, and, and we need help with to continue to grow. We also have a job access offer, um, so, if you're having to do a specific task related to employment like, uh, filling out a resume, or, uh, helping find, navigate to a job interview or something like that, we will offer Aira for free for that, and uh, lots of different ways that you can get access to Aira for free. But, you know, for the times that you are not really in those types of arenas, and, and you want to use Aira in your home, or something like that, uh, then we do have the subscription offers, and, you can, um, you can even purchase blocks of minutes, um, so if you ever, you're a subscriber and you think you're gonna use more minutes a certain month, but you don't want to change your subscription, we can, we can, um, sell you blocks of minutes, as well. And, and so, all of this information, um, is available on our website. It's also available, uh, by contacting our customer care team. Um, it's very simple to, to E-mail them. It's
support@aira.io
uh, and you can ask questions, they'll E-mail you right back, but, uh, you, you can find the phone number in the app. It's really easy to get to. The other part of Aira I didn't mention, um, Aira, the mobile app version is how the majority of blind individuals use it, but a lot of people use it on their desktop. Um, so, we don't have an actual desktop app, but we have a link, it's basically explorer, that's the word explorer spelled out, E X P L O R E R, at aira.io. And that takes you to a website where you immediately can log in, using your, your phone number, or E-mail, or if you can even log in through Apple or Google, you can do that, and now you are, uh, using Aira on the desktop. And so, you can make a call and the Aira agent will see through your, computer, your web cam. Um, but you can also, uh, share your screen, share your computer, with the Aira agent so they, they can help you with tasks specific to the computer. We do this in a number of ways. Microsoft Quick Assist is one way, on the Windows platform, Team Viewer is one way, but we're really excited that we've also partnered with RIM. RIM is uh, Remote Incident Manager, and it's a blind ran company, uh, by blind people, and, and so it is a, a very accessible, uh, platform to use, uh, and, and so you can share your screen using RIM, and that's both available on the PC and the Mac. Uh, and, um, so we're pretty excited about all these different platforms. Lots of different ways that, uh, you can get, uh, assistance from the, uh, trained Aira agents. Uh, and so, I think I've kind of given a good solid overview uh, of, of what Aira is, and, and would love to, you know, sit down and take some questions, and see if I can help people understand what, what Aira can help you with. Liz?

Liz: Well, thank you, Everett, and before we open it up for questions, I have two of my own.

Everett: Okay.

Liz: Uh, the first is, you mentioned that people can contact Customer Care with questions. Is that also the best way to contact for giving possible businesses in our local communities for Aira access, and then my second question is, have you yourself ever used one of the access offers related to banks, or known of anyone who has, and what sort of tasks has that looked like for either yourself or that person?

Everett: Sure. So, first question is yes, that's probably the easiest way. I'm gonna give my information too, uh, at the end of the call, um, so you're welcome to contact me directly, uh, and, and uh, if you need to, you know, to tell me you want a location that you're really trying to see, you would like to see Aira at, I'm happy to take down that information as well and help with that. I have used, uh, Aira at a Chase bank, and a Wells Fargo bank. As I said, we don't have a, an actual agreement yet with Wells Fargo, um, and Chase goes live in October, I think around the tenth of October, um, is what we're shooting for. But it is gonna be going live at that point. So, um, in my, in the two instances I've used, uh, Aira at banks, um, I've been using my own minutes for that. Um, but, but what was really neat for both of these locations, I mean I was able to, through my phone camera, uh, have the Aira agent help me find the front door from where the bus stop was, uh, and then, I could go in, I needed to use the ATM, so, uh, they were able to help, 'cause sometimes you just really don't know where the headphone jack is, uh, on ATM'S, and, and every ATM seems like it's different in its instructions. And so, um, it was really nice to have the Aira agent give me the full lay-out of the, of the keypad, um, where all of the buttons are, what, what they all are, um, where I need to put my debit card in, um, where the cash would come out, and all of that. Um, it was, it was really, really uh, helpful for that. Uh, and then also, um, when I went into the bank itself, you don't always know where the counter is, to, to go to the line, and, and, and to get help, and when I went to the Wells Fargo location, there was only one employee working that day, and he was, um, you know, at the counter, helping other customers, and so, uh, it was really helpful to have Aira to be able to help me navigate to where that, uh, the back of the line was. Um, it wasn't very, it wasn't too long or anything, and I'm sure somebody yelled at me and said, "Over here," and something like that, but, um, I was more focused on what the Aira agent was telling me, and, and I just thought, that was really nice. You know, to be able to navigate freely like that, and get to where I needed to go inside the bank.

Liz: Well, thank you for sharing, Everett.

Everett: Sure.

Liz: Uh, we will open it up for questions. Patricia, do we have any raised hands?

Patricia: We do. FIRST is William.

Liz: Hello, William. Welcome.

William: Hello, Liz. Hello, everyone. Uh, thank you very much for allowing me to share. So, I am a Wells Fargo customer myself, and I have not used Aira with my smart glasses either. So those are two things that I will need to try out in the near future. And my question is, uh, with the smart glasses, how does it, um, work with Aira?

Everett: So, um, it depends on, what kind of smart glasses do you have, Uh, William?

William: Uh, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Everett: The Metas. Okay. So, we just announced this. Um, and so how it works is, you'd have to go into the Aira Explorer app, and you have to get signed up for the Meta glasses. So, it's basically you go under the "more" tab, there's a "smart glasses" link, and there's a little form that we want you to fill out to get on the Meta glasses waiting list. And then from there, we are rolling out somewhere around twenty-five to fifty explorers a week. Um, we may get faster at that, 'cause we just started and so we kind of want to see how it's gonna affect how much our usage is. Um, if we can, if we, can manage it, and we can continue to grow it, we will, we will definitely roll out with more, uh, explorers as fast as we can, so we don't, we don't foresee this taking a long time, but it probably, over the next month or so, everyone on that list will be able to have the access to the ability to use Meta glasses. And so, what happens is, you're on that list, and you do get it, then you're gonna get an app update. Your app update will have a new button, um, so you still have the "call Aira agent" button there, but there'll be a new button that says, "Customize." And you hit that button, and from there you have a choice. Uh, "Meta glasses," you also have a couple other choice like navigation, and a choice for, I think Microsoft Quick Assist. Uh, and so, you choose "Meta glasses," and then you make the call, and, and now the Aira agent knows immediately that you want to use your Meta glasses. The Aira agent will, will say "hi," and probably ask you, "You want to use your Meta glasses," and you say "yes," and they will then send you a link to What's App. What's App is the platform that we can use with the Meta glasses. And so, they will, they will immediately shoot out that link, it's a, it's a push notification type of link. So, it immediately appears on your screen, and there's a "join" button. And you double tap on that "join" button, and that opens up What's App, the What's App call, and now you and the, uh, Aira agent are on a What's App call. Now you would double tap your, your uh, button on your glasses to activate the camera, and the Aira agent can see through your camera. So, it's, a, it's a little bit of a process, but it, it works really well. We don't have a partnership with Meta. Meta right now is not doing things with third party venders on their platform. We would love a more seamless way to make this happen with Meta, um, but right now, this is, this way works, and we know it works, and so, we're gonna use it, uh, and, and we hope that you'll try it.

Liz: From what I'm hearing, the Meta beta does require that you need to have a What's App account?

Everett:  Yes, that is correct.

Liz: Okay. I just wanted to be completely transparent for ...

Everett: Yup, that is correct.

Liz: All of our listeners. Thank you, Everett, for being here, and sharing with us about Aira. Thank you MOe, and Chris, for being here as well. Thank you to all of you as, as, attendees, those of you who are attending live, those of you who may be listening on the stream, and/or on the podcast, um, if we can be of any assistance to you, please reach out to us, and let us help you.

Chris: Before we go, we'd like to thank our valued partners, and sponsors, the APH Connect Center, World Services for the Blind, Computers for the Blind, Thrivent, and Wells Fargo. To find out more about sponsoring the Penny Forward Podcast, visit our website at
www.pennyforward.com/sponsorships
The Penny Forward podcast is produced by Chris Peterson and Liz Bottner, with help from MOe Carpenter. Audio editing and postproduction is provided by Brynn Lee, and text transcription is provided by Anne Verduin. The music is performed and composed by Andre Louis. It's not a coincidence that all of those people are blind. Penny Forward is a nonprofit organization founded and led by blind people who help each other navigate the complicated landscape of personal finance. We offer self paced online financial education courses, weekly and monthly group workshops, and one to one financial counseling provided by blind accredited financial counselors, and accredited financial counselor candidates. To find out more, make a donation, or become a member of Penny Forward for just ninety-nine dollars a year, or 9.99 a month, visit our website at
www.pennyforward.com
and click the "join us" link near the top of the page. Now, for all of us in the Penny Forward community, I'm Chris Peterson. Thanks for listening and have a great week.