VoiceXML (VXML) is a digital document standard for specifying interactive media and voice dialogs between humans and computers.
It is used for developing audio and voice response applications, such as banking systems and automated customer service portals.
These applications include order inquiry, package tracking, driving directions, emergency notification, wake-up, flight tracking, voice access to email, customer relationship management, prescription refilling, audio news magazines, voice dialing, real-estate information and national directory assistance applications.
Historically, VoiceXML platform vendors have implemented the standard in different ways, and added proprietary features.
AT&T Corporation, IBM, Lucent, and Motorola formed the VoiceXML Forum in March 1999, in order to develop a standard markup language for specifying voice dialogs.
[1] The W3C produced several intermediate versions of VoiceXML 2.0, which reached the final "Recommendation" stage in March 2004.
Some deficiencies were identified in VoiceXML for this application and so companies designed specific scripting languages to deal with this environment.
These languages also contain 'hooks' so that external scripts (like VoiceXML) can run on call legs where IVR functionality is required.