95% of search queries about stamps are requests to access them online. In this culture of screens, people expect a seamless postal service experience. Voice Stamp—a Smart Blue Box feature—replaces paper stamps with voice authentication, so you can drop mail into a collection box without affixing a stamp. More importantly, Voice Stamp uses the existing postal system, as postal sorting facilities already scan every letter for origin and destination. The innovation simply links the information on your letter to your account, charging postage via the cloud to your credit card on file. The Postal Service created an intelligent, conversational user experience by using the Google-acquired AI platform API.AI. The platform constantly improves, learning from developers’ examples and conversations with customers. The natural language capabilities of Google and Sensory—creators of the Alexa NL passphrase—let customers switch between conversation topics while the Box remembers where they left off.

We built a Python-based architecture connected to the cloud service API.AI, which serves as the heart and brain of our Smart Blue Box. Its machine-learning capability helps the Smart Blue Box get smarter every day, as users ask it questions. AWS Polly turns the API.AI text into lifelike speech, facilitating the conversation between the user and the Blue Box. The Postal Service opened up their various APIs, which give the Blue Box information on Post Office locations, postage prices, and other functions. These APIs also allow access to the User Account for the Voice Stamp. Sensory’s TrulySecure SDK for voice identification recognizes a user’s identity with their voice-verified and confirmed USPS profile once they speak the passphrase “Hello Blue Box,” and sends a unique verification code via push notification to the user’s phone for them to verify with the box as a double opt-in. Other API’s come from Google’s cloud service, giving the Smart Blue Box knowledge of nearby locations, weather, languages, and voice.

By creating an artificial-intelligence device that fits right on their ubiquitous blue collection box, the Postal Service can create an Internet-capable network that spans the nation — 152,000 boxes strong. Replacing the stamp with a digital version also means big savings for the Postal Service; last year 7 billion stamps were produced and not sold. Voice Stamp could save the U.S. Postal Service up to $147 million.

USPS launched the Blue Box at CES 2017 in Las Vegas to create public and governmental awareness. The prototypes were placed in select post offices for a test market round while the design of the devices was updated to become market-ready for pilot roll-out. This larger pilot roll-out—up to 100 units across the U.S.—awaits congress approval.