Voice AI Driving Evolution in Business
Voice Artificial Intelligence (AI) is driving the future of business. This technology is already significantly impacting the banking, healthcare, and retail industries. Voice AI has the potential to change how we do business, making everyday tasks more convenient and efficient.
The articles in this issue of The Voice Tech Newsletter provide insights into how this technology is evolving, its history, and what new applications we can expect to see in the future.
In this issue, you'll discover:
Continue reading to learn more.
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Before we dive into our round-up of Voice AI articles, we're excited to announce that Kardome will present its #SpatialHearing technology at CES 2023.
Kardome will be in Las Vegas at the Israeli Pavilion in Eureka Park, Jan. 5 - 8.
Book a demo to discover how Kardome's Spatial Hearing technology can help improve your #speechrecognition systems. Schedule here ?? https://bit.ly/KardomeCES2023
Learn more about Kardome's voice technology at Kardome.com
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Bank of America Customers Virtual Assistant Reaches More Than 1 Billion Interactions
美国银行 , the second-largest U.S. bank, reported that 32 million customers have been using its virtual assistant Erica with an average of 1.5 million client interactions daily, a total of 1 billion interactions since its launch in 2018.
Erica allows clients to check bill payments and account balances, locate past transactions across accounts, track spending, and more. In addition, there's a plan to connect users with financial specialists through Erica next year.
Banks have recently invested heavily in research and development to compete in the digital banking sector to keep up with customer demands and reduce overhead expenses at physical branches.
“Bank of America has invested $3 billion or more on new technology initiatives each year for over a decade, including significant investments in AI.” — Aditya Bhasin, chief technology and information officer
Read more here
The Evolution of Conversational Interfaces
Long before the most popular voice assistants, #Siri, #Alexa, and 谷歌 existed, there was Eliza (166), Parry (1972) and jabberwocky (1981). But did you know that the idea of talking to a computer program, or what we today call #conversationalai, began in 1950 when the Turing Test was introduced? This development became the generative idea of chatbots, and many developers strive to pass the test today.
Read more interesting facts about the evolution of conversational interfaces from the Women in Voice Medium blog.
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Substantial Investments Made for Using Voice AI in Health
Voice AI for healthcare is seeing significant private and public investments. The U.S. National Institutes of Health launched its Bridge to AI Program over a year ago with more than $100 million in federal funding. The program aims to collect voice data and use Voice AI to diagnose people using their voices. Read more about the program from NPR here:
Other investments in voice AI for screening and diagnosis come from the private sector.
High-Precision Voice Screening App for Parkinson's and Severe Covid-19
Diagnosing Parkinson's can be challenging and could take up to 90 minutes through a neurologist's evaluation. Now the process may be more straightforward. A research team at 澳大利亚皇家墨尔本理工大学 has developed a screening app that they say can screen for #parkinsonsdisease in 10 seconds. The researchers say the app analyzes a person's voice who has Parkinson's disease or severe COVID-19 to filter with high precision.
How does it work? The app uses artificial intelligence to analyze the changes in a person's voice, using only three sounds: A, O, and M.
If the app is successfully employed, it can be a no-contact, easy-to-use, and low-cost test that can be done remotely with patients anywhere in the world.
Read the full story here.
Voice Biomaker Developers Making Waves in Healthcare
Other health screening apps include using #voicebiomarkers to identify mental health issues. However, some companies developing these apps differ in their approach to use-- Kintsugi , based in Berkeley,?is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to approve their technology for diagnostic screening. At the same time, Sonde Health, Inc. , whose headquarters are in Boston, MA, positions its technology as a screening tool.
While there is a great deal of investment in voice biomarkers, many in the medical community are skeptical because of concerns involving bias and privacy issues.
Preserving Unique Voices with Artificial Intelligence
No one can forget the line, "Luke, I am your father," in the famous scene where the villain Darth Vader in Star Wars informs Luke Skywalker of his dark origins. The unique gravelly voice belongs to legendary actor James Earl Jones, who has voiced the character for more than 45 years.
Jones, ready to take a break from the job, recently signed an agreement with Disney to allow the entertainment company to duplicate his voice for future projects. Renditions of Jones' voice will now use an AI voice-modeling tool from the Ukrainian company Respeecher .
The voice cloning product uses deep learning to model and reproduces a human voice almost identical to the real one.
Of course, there are concerns about misusing such an accurate voice cloning tool, but the company vows to protect security, privacy, and copyrights.
Read more from ArsTechnica here.
Summary
#VoiceAI is also driving an evolution in business interfaces, with more and more applications for the technology being developed every day. As a result, businesses of all sizes benefit from voice AI, which is essential to future business growth.
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