Seattle AI experts who sold last company to Baidu unveil new startup

Back at it: After selling their speech recognition startup to Chinese tech giant Baidu, Guoguo Chen and Xuchen Yao (above) are building another Seattle tech company. Seasalt is a 22-person startup that sells a software platform to enterprise companies with contact centers, helping developers build apps, devices and services that communicate conversationally with users. Read more about the company. 

Amazon rebrands discounted Prime tier: Now called Prime Access, the program is for qualifying government assistance recipients and costs $6.99/month, compared to the normal $14.99/month plan. Read more. 

Elevator Pitch finale preview: On the latest episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we hear the pitches made by four CEOs who won their respective episodes of our startup competition show this season. It’s a preview of the upcoming finale, taking place live on stage at the GeekWire Summit this week.

🎟️ Register here for the GeekWire Summit in person or online, Oct. 6-7.

Ready for October baseball? The Seattle Mariners are headed back to the postseason for the first time in 21 years. The city and its tech industry have changed a lot since 2001.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week. — GeekWire managing editor Taylor Soper, taylor@geekwire.com, and GeekWire reporter Kurt Schlosser, kurt@geekwire.com.