Voicebots Outperformed Humans in COVID Detection

Leveraging VOIQ's artificial intelligence-powered voice software to have conversations with citizens over the phone, Colombia became the first country globally to use voicebots at this scale to diagnose millions of individuals within a matter of hours vs. weeks or months with a solely human-powered team.

Overheard/Underheard: A New Collar Gives Dogs a Voice

An AI-powered dog collar uses voice recognition technology to detect and analyze five emotional states—happy, anxious, angry, sad, or relaxed—in dogs and tracks their physical activity.

A New Approach to Conversational AI Uses Symbolic Neural Networks

A joint venture between IBM and MIT relies on machine vision in combination with a broad AI that can multitask and cover multiple domains, but which also can read structured and unstructured data from a variety of sources

Speech Aids in COVID-19 Recovery

A voice-enabled app can help companies detect and monitor employees with the coronavirus; meanwhile, voice and speech samples are being collected from COVID-19 patients to help develop an algorithm for identifying carriers.

IBM, Apple Build on Natural Language Processing

The two industry heavyweights plan to bring to market new natural language processing (NLP) technologies that will help computers and customers communicate in clearer, more natural-sounding ways

Overheard Underheard

Under-the-radar speech news

Voice Assistants Get Friendly with One Another

Amazon Alexa and Microsoft Cortana will soon be able to talk to each other

Progress Made Toward Speech-Based Predictive Analytics

A new type of solution using voice analysis could hold the key to helping companies better predict customer behavior

Overheard/Underheard

Under-the-radar speech news

Marketers Are Unprepared for Voice Search

Voice search is becoming more popular, but too many marketers aren't considering it

Voice Biometrics Needs to Adapt

Accuracy has been a top-of-mind concern

Overheard Underheard

Under-the-radar speech news

Microsoft Advances Speech APIs

Custom Speech Service and the Bing Speech API are now generally available

Speech Recognition Nears Human Accuracy

IBM's Switchboard speech recognition system achieves a new industry record error rate of just 5.5 percent, near the 5.1 percent error rate of humans

Biometrics Help Virtual Assistants Help Customers Faster

Speech vendors are adding voice biometrics to their intelligent assistants, a clear indication the technology is starting to make great strides

OVERHEARD UNDERHEARD

Under-the-radar speech news

IBM Eyes Speech to Spot Mental Maladies

IBM Research predicts that in five years, patterns in speech and writing analyzed by cognitive systems will provide clinicians tell-tale signs of early-stage mental and neurological conditions

Overheard/Underheard: Kenmore Unveils the Alfie App

The voice-controlled intelligent shopper can help you find the right product at the best price

Nuance Adds Deep Learning to Dragon

Nuance Communications has begun leveraging its work with Nuance Deep Learning technology in the latest version of its suite of Dragon professional productivity solutions for PCs and Macs.

Digital Assistants to Bring in $623 Billion by 2020

Digital assistants are expected to generate $7.9 billion in revenue this year, but that amount is expected to balloon to $623 billion by 2020, says an industry expert