Studio Ab Ovo - Dieter Veldhuis - CTO at Ab Ovo - about Speech to Software innovation

In this episode, we sit down with Dieter Veldhuis at Studio Ab Ovo to explore a bold vision shaping the future of IT: Speech-to-Software. What if you could simply talk, and instantly generate software-ready processes, documentation, and even system designs?

Dieter shares how Ab Ovo is navigating today’s fast-moving AI landscape while staying focused on a long-term strategy. At the heart of that vision is a platform built from hundreds (eventually thousands) of components, all working together to turn human input, speech, or text, into fully structured software outputs.

We dive into one of the most exciting innovations already emerging from this vision: the BPMN Wizard. This tool automatically converts conversations into visual business process maps in real time, eliminating the need for lengthy documentation and reducing miscommunication between stakeholders. Instead of writing reports after meetings, teams can now validate processes together and instantly.

Key topics include:

•  Why traditional documentation slows down software development 
•  How visual process mapping improves alignment across teams 
•  The shift from asynchronous documentation to real-time collaboration 
•  Generating not just process flows, but also data models and UI designs from speech 
•  How the BPMN Wizard is evolving into a standalone, multipurpose product 
•  Use cases beyond IT, from process optimization to auditing and enterprise standardization 
•  The human side of adoption: change management, trust, and learning new ways of working 

Dieter also reflects on how intuitive these tools are becoming, so simple that even kids naturally interact with technology through speech rather than buttons. This signals a broader shift in how we’ll all build and interact with software in the near future.

Whether you're in IT, business transformation, or simply curious about where AI is taking us, this conversation offers a compelling look at what’s next.

🎧 Tune in to discover how talking might soon replace typing in the world of software creation.

Our mission is to improve the operational processes, to support the sustainability targets, and enhance the profitability of our customers with more efficient resource usage and streamlined processes.

We do this because we care.

We thrive in complexity. We embrace innovative, business-minded thinking and cherish devotion and passion. The perfect combination of talented colleagues, strong industry ties & eagerness to create eco-friendly solutions.

Always Hands-On

We take a no-nonsense, down-to-earth approach to tackling challenges by rolling up our sleeves. We go the extra mile to deliver high quality results that provide the most value to our customers.

Always Together

We believe in better together – with our customers and with our teams. By bringing people, processes, and data together we create mutual benefits that have an impact on our customers and society. 

www.ab-ovo.com
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ab-ovo/

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

Welcome listeners and viewers at Studio Ab Ovo. Today with Dieter Veldhuis.

Speaker 0:09

Thank you.

Speaker 1 0:10

Talking about uh IT and the future of IT, and uh yeah, about the exciting movement from speech to software.

Speaker 0:19

Wow, indeed. Yeah, thank you. So uh yeah, as uh everybody knows within Ab Ovo our company's strategy is to develop a speech to software platform, and uh this has been adopted in our vision uh since uh since a couple of years, and um yeah, we're all working on that uh um today, and we're very excited about the capabilities of new AI developments and these kind of things. Uh, but it's good to know a little bit on on yeah, what is our approach uh and also what kind of products we even develop within that uh in that vision.

Speaker 1 0:56

What does it bring to Ab Ovo?

Speaker 0:57

What does it bring to Ab Ovo? Yeah, in in even things we we well didn't plan before uh but seem to be very valuable outside uh uh outside the speech to software uh software development cycle itself. And um, so yeah, I I hope I can uh inform you a little bit about it today. Nice, yeah. Um, so one of the interesting things is yeah, we live in a real fast changing world. The digital landscape is basically changing every day. Lots of new AI developments, lots of startups. Um, and then for us as an IT company, how do you keep focused? It's of course very important. Um, because yeah, everybody wants to try out new tools, uh, and it can be very disrupting for our own strategy as well. And actually, our vision for speech to software, which we released a couple of years ago, is actually helping us to well stay on track and navigate through this fast-changing landscape. Okay, and one of the uh, well, actually, the the whole vision or the whole platform will consist of well, hundreds or even thousands of components, and our team is developing on different components every day. Uh, some are very abstract or even very technical, but there are also more tangible products in that. Uh, and one of them is what we call uh business process mappings, uh, also known as BPMN.

Speaker 1 2:23

Okay.

Speaker 2:24

Um, and actually, we use that as an input for software generation in a later stage. And while um we already see in the whole software development lifecycle that uh uh basically creating the specification documentation can be a very cumbersome task. Uh documents can be very long, uh they can be very hard to read, and sometimes even people well, basically uh read the specifications in a different way depending on uh what kind of stakeholders reading it. And even before AI, we already had a well thought about a solution for that, and that's actually what we want to do with these business process mappings. It's a way to visually uh present a business process. And well, as you might know, a visual says more than a thousand words. Absolutely, you understand that will reduce the documentation uh a lot. Um, because you have to understand the specification has to be read by, well, for us, a customer, which of course wants to digitize a process, it has to be read by our analyst uh who's actually designing and helping in uh defining the process. It has to be read by the developer, by a tester. Uh so there are a lot of different stakeholders that are involved. So you want to make sure that everybody is reading this in the same way. And the BP MN uh or the business process mappings, which uh is a uh which we also call BPMN, um, is actually helping with that. And one of the coolest things we we just uh developed is something we call the wizard, and it's the it's a BPMN wizard, which can actually automatically generate those visuals for you. Yeah, it's really cool actually. And uh uh of course uh you can always create them by well by hand as well. Uh but what if you just add in some text or some some some speech, even uh, and actually create this whole visual automatically?

Speaker 1 4:25

And that BPMN can be read in other software or in other basics.

Speaker 4:30

It's the bas well, it's it's one of the inputs we use for the software development side lifecycle. Um, and next to that, uh, and those are more the future developments we're working on, is that also a data model uh we want to generate based on the same speech or the same uh uh text input, uh, and also a user interface design. And these are the three components that we need to really do the code generation to generate the software that you will use in the end. Um and yeah, that's part of the of the of the core vision that we have today. Um, and with the BPMN wizard as as well, uh in itself uh as one of the well important components to do this functional analysis, we actually saw an opportunity that it might be a product in itself. Okay, um, we didn't design it up front like that because it was really to support our software development lifecycle, with together with our customers, of course. But when we showed it to a couple of companies, they were really impressed about the results. Um, and also the uh yeah, basically the the improvements that um uh that the BPMN wizard can also suggest.

Speaker 1 5:43

Is it is it is it actually it's more it's multi-purpose from yeah, yeah, you can say it like that, it's multi-purpose.

Speaker 5:50

So not only for software development lifecycles, but also, well, maybe you'll have uh a lot of processes in your company that you would like to visualize, and that's actually where it ends.

Speaker 1 6:01

You know, you don't need to generate software from it, it's just knowing what are the processes in your company, and and as a person, you don't have to have all the requirements normally when as a coder or or as a programmer or as an analyst you can be yourself and just talk to the system then to the wizard or actually yes, so uh so what normally happens in um in software development is that our uh analysts or our consultants they will visit the company and talk about the processes that need to be digitalized, and that's normally done in several workshops, uh, where of course there will be a discussion on a lot of details.

Speaker 6:44

Uh, what kind of well, not only the the process that will be uh that will have to be digitalized, but also what kind of functionality does the server need, all these kind of things. We also call it the functional requirements.

Speaker 1 6:57

Yeah.

Speaker 6:58

And after that meeting, then um what basically happens, people travel back back home, and the next day they start, well, documenting it. So they start writing these long documents, yes, uh, with a lot of details, very important, and then the customer in our case, we will send it back so they can review it. Did we understand it correctly? Uh is it written down correctly? Well, of course, sometimes there are some changes needed, and in the end, they need to give a stamp, of course. Indeed, this is what we need. This is what we need, yeah. Please go ahead and start uh uh developing the software. But what if you can do this actually in real time? Yes, that will be a huge time saver, right? So, and that is actually what we do with this uh this BPMN and a wizard. And you can and you can also uh take out the moments that it can go wrong, indeed, because you're in sync and no it's no longer async. So if you have a conversation and you make some notes, go back home and actually write it all down.

Speaker 1 7:58

Yeah, do I hear it? Did I hear you correctly? Do I understand you correctly?

Speaker 8:02

I cannot verify it directly with you, you know. Uh we need to well, you need to see it first what I've written down, and then maybe I write it down in a certain way.

Speaker 1 8:11

Do I understand it? No, I'm not that failure or I'm not that user.

Speaker 8:14

Indeed. Yeah, and there's even just a language barrier. Not everybody's a native English speaker, me neither, but you know, uh basically English is our interface. Uh also but maybe both of us don't have a native English background.

Speaker 1 8:28

But even when you talk the same language, you can your role in your role you can speak another language. Yeah, your yeah, your business your business is another than than the IT as a as a as a client. I can be in a completely other business, but in need of of your software.

Speaker 8:45

So you understand it is crucial that we start visualizing this.

Speaker 1 8:48

Yes.

Speaker 8:49

But you know, if you do this by hand and you need to draw every component, every line, and another component, and you make a mistake, you need to change something. Well, it takes even longer than writing that long document. So that's why nobody's doing that. And that can actually change now today, just by having this conversation, and we can generate in real time this whole overview. Uh, and that's gonna happen also in in the future in in our vision with our speech to software uh focus, where yeah, uh, we just generate the whole business process mappings in real time in a conversation, and directly together we can look at the screen and say, hey, indeed, it was this indeed what we meant, or oh, we missed a step. Can we adjust it? So there you have a direct interaction. That is possible now.

Speaker 1 9:40

Talking about IT is a complete other dimension now.

Speaker 9:43

It's it's it's yeah, it changes a lot, yeah. Well uh and that's just uh very well for us, it's just a component. Like I said, the whole speech to software platform will consist of thousands of components. This is just one of them, and it seems to be valuable in itself as well. Also, uh, what we just discussed, separately from only software development. Uh, so we are talking with other companies that need to do a lot of uh well process reviews like accountants of course uh that new need to do yearly checks, for example, or other companies that are more larger corporates that have like entities in different countries, and well, you know, from the headquarters they think that everybody's working in in a mutual and the same way, but in the end, when they visit such a factory, it seems they're all working differently. Yeah, so how can you actually visualize that and actually show where the differences are? Uh and some may be very good, and some others uh maybe very inefficient. Um, so also in those kind of areas, uh which is not soft for development, but still valuable for process definition.

Speaker 1 10:52

It's a BI, it's it's like a BI tool, even so it's it's gonna be a BI isn't it? It's a BI for process, yeah.

Speaker 10:58

It's a BI for process definitions, you could say it like that. Uh so uh yeah, that's like I said, it's one of the components, and yeah, what I want to emphasize is that everybody starts using this. Um, so also we internally uh are not using this every day yet. Uh of course it's new, people need to get used to it. So we are in this this full trans yeah transformation modus as well. Uh it's a huge change management to think about hey, how can I actually use the tools that are already available compared to you know getting back to all behavior like writing things down, uh maybe not even recording things or starting a recording when you have a conversation. Yep. Um, yeah, it's sometimes people think that's still a little bit well, it can be scary because it can be a little bit scary.

Speaker 1 11:48

It's out of it's out of control, but it's never ex not completely out of control, of course, because they're always yeah, yeah.

Speaker 11:55

And um, and of course it's stored, so you can listen it back. Of course. Yeah, and on one hand it helps, on the other hand, indeed, what you say it's a bit scary. Um, so we have created an environment where this can also be done in a safe way on our own premises. Uh so uh all data is also saved and stored in a safe way. Um, of course, that's very important these days, of course.

Speaker 1 12:18

Of course, because it's about business processes, so it's your own process, so you want to be yeah, take it it, it should not be uh uh connected to the whole world, indeed.

Speaker 12:28

Yeah, indeed. So it it and a lot of times there's also an IP involved, of course. So it you need to guarantee that it is safe.

Speaker 1 12:34

And and is it are there a lot of people at Ab Ovo who can now introduce introduce this to when you want to know some something about this? Or do they need to call you? No, email you.

Speaker 12:47

They can always email me, of course. Uh so of course we share this regularly in our our quarterly meetings, for example. Um, and but I've yeah, actually a lot of consultants that we have in the team are already also experimenting with this. Okay, so that's really cool. Uh so also by themselves, they basically send a message hey, I want to use it in this kind of way, um, or for this customer. Uh, I have a workshop, and there you also see different ways of how people are already using the tool. So we thought about you do this kind of conversation, you record it, let's say it's half an hour, uh, or maybe an hour, whatsoever. Uh you stop it, well, you get a cup of cuff, cup, cup of coffee, yeah, get back, and the process is there. It actually goes within a minute, so it's even it's even easier. You have to run for your coffee. You have to run for your coffee. So you know, fast coffee most of the time is bad coffee.

Speaker 1 13:43

So it's it's so you can also, yeah, it's also for the socializing thing, it's also a very good component.

Speaker 13:50

Then it's already there. Yeah, and um, but uh what I saw actually, or what we recognized, one of our consultants wanted to use it to build up the whole visualization one by one. So instead of having one larger, let's say, uh, audio file, and from there on actually create the whole business process mapping in one visual directly. They wanted to say, okay, I'm starting with this, and now I want to do that, and then I want to add this, and then it goes to this stakeholder. You can see the steps, so you can see all the steps. Okay, so it is a new way of using the tool, and that's also yeah, there's so much fun at this moment because it's you know, they're there are different, it also lets you think how you work, how you work, indeed, yeah. And uh, yeah, for us that's that's that's also something we have to think about in the in the product ownership, and uh how do we add these kind of requests? Can we add it? Is it easily done or not? It's what is the future of the tool, and also does it fit in our speech to software focus?

Speaker 1 14:55

And is it difficult is it difficult for the user to get used to it? So it's how how is the learning curve?

Speaker 15:02

It's very easy. Uh and that's because you know there are not that many clicks, it's it's all it's in a web client, and there's also a learning module which actually shows the what each button means uh in a very well easy to understand way. So it's it's self-explanatory in that. A kid could do it. Even a kid can do it. Uh well, probably they well, if I if I look at my own kids, they probably do it even better. Uh you know, if I'm uh watching the TV and using the remote control, I'm still pushing the buttons, uh, but they just push one button, and that is the microphone, and then they say what they want. Start YouTube, uh, go to channel this or channel that speeches channel software.

Speaker 1 15:45

That's the other thing. That's where ideas come from. Correct.

Speaker 15:50

So uh what I want to conclude with is of course to emphasize uh all of us, you know, Ab Ovo, but also you know, any relationship we have with, yeah, you know, uh try to use the tool. Uh, you know, it's it's open for usage. Uh we have a couple of companies now uh trying it out. We get good feedback from that. Uh and you know that will also help us further develop uh the whole tool, and there's so much value in it, and it's just the beginning. Uh, so we're really looking forward to the to the next steps.

Speaker 1 16:22

Very excited, very excited to hear about this. Thank you very much.

Speaker 16:25

Thanks to you.