Voice Assistants are around us for quite some time but once it was introduced into the smart phones, voice assistants have gained much more popularity.
From Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa to Microsoft’s Cortana and less known Samsung’s Bixby – all the way, people got more interested in Voice AI (Artificial Intelligence).
The trend of voice assistants is growing as only last year it was reported that over 1 million people in the US alone use voice assistants.
What is Voice Recognition?
Voice recognition refers to the ability of a specific device to receive and interpret spoken directives – simply said, voice recognition technology can interact and respond to human’s commands.
Voice recognition originated on PCs but with integration in smartphones and its rising popularity, it became more accessible within the use of home devices. This way, the technology became available in our kitchens, living rooms etc.
The interest in voice recognition is continually growing as many people use it nowadays – this is the reason why businesses consider the utilization of voice recognition technology.
Today, we distinguish two types of voice recognition:
- Text-Dependent – depends on the specific set of words the person says – you need step-up authentication and identity verification and in order to be activated, the user has to say the necessary phrase.
- Text Independent – does not depend on a specific text yet relies on conversation speech. The authentication does not require for the user to say a set of required phrases.
Brief History
The first time the voice speech recognition was documented was in 1952, when Bell Laboratories designed the ‘Audrey’ system – it was a system that recognized digits spoken by a single voice.
IBM developed ‘Shoebox’ in the early 1960s, which could recognize and respond to 16 English words including the digits from 0 to 9 – it was referred to as the ‘forerunner of today’s voice recognition systems’.
Following years brought technology advances and fast processors which led to the development and more common use of software like Dragon Dictate.
Throughout the time, voice speech processing technology has steadily progressed all the way up to 2011, when Apple decided to launch Siri.
Since then, voice recognition is in the constant uprise and with Google’s Voice Search, Amazon’s Alexa following, it became widely accepted.
How Does Voice Recognition Work?
Speech recognition and voice recognition are not the same thing.
Speech recognition recognizes only the words and focuses on translation of verbal from to a text one.
Voice recognition ensures for the voice to be recognized and to identify an individual user’s voice.
Voice recognition is able to authenticate the speaker by analyzing the patterns and sequences of a person’s voice hence capable to identify the specific person.
Such approach ensures safety as all the inputs will be authorized solely by your own voice and no others.
Benefits of Voice Recognition Technology
Voice recognition technology is already the trend – businesses should consider to explore such innovations as there are numerous benefits they can get if they include it to their own strategies:
Generate Personalization
‘Everything is about personalization’
The best way to add more personalization to your services is to enable your customers to easily and quickly present their needs – this can be accomplished by voice recognition technology.
For example, today’s market consists of customers who are digitally literate or e.g. Millenials who are considered the digital generation – voice recognition technology would bring a personal touch for their needs and may be a winner for them.
Those personal conversations can be developed with Voice AI which may provide better connection between the company and the individuals.
Source: voicerecognition.com.au
Generates More Time
Talking is faster than typing!
Voice recognition technology is being built-in to more devices and gadgets in order to make life easier as voice inputs are far more efficient than typing.
Voice recognition technology is improving each day and as per The University of Stanford, it has improved to the extent where it is able to be much faster and more accurate with text outputs (e.g. dictation on a mobile device etc.) than a person could be when typing on a keyboard.
If such technology is implemented, businesses can streamline administration processes and mitigate the burden of typing and other similar tasks while enabling employees to focus on more complex aspects of the job.
Boosts Productivity Levels
When talking about workplaces, voice recognition can provide support and assistance with task-management duties such as setting up conference calls, scheduling meetings or setting up reminders, like with Amazon’s Alexa, for example. Such an approach enables companies to streamline the process for everyone leading to improved productivity and efficiency.
With the development of voice recognition, it is now possible to acquire relevant information upon a voice instruction or request data for any specific project – all these activities can now take less time than it would usually do if we did it manually.
Translational capabilities enable people who speak different languages to communicate – the technology has the capability to translate the content into the target language which helps to remove the language barriers within daily business operations.
Makes You Accessible to Everyone
As voice technology requires only voice, it is a great option for people with motorical disabilities or difficulties to communicate much easier to your business.
Such technology brings power to people who originally could have accessed it either at slow pace or not at all.
In addition, using voice recognition software can significantly help people with other kinds of disabilities like arthritis or hand tremors which can worsen if typing too much during the day.
Reach Multiple Users At Once
With Voice AI, it is possible to reach different customers all at once, unlike earlier when a customer support officer could only talk to a single person at the time.
Such technology enables businesses to increase the number of customers and deal with multiple questions or concerns more efficiently.
Voice technology is continually improving and becoming more and more sophisticated thus companies invest more in exploring different ways on how to implement it and increase their reach as well as improve their business results.
In the next year, it will certainly grow even more and a majority of companies will depend on it for their marketing.
Enables Hand Free Work
Whatever you do and whichever job you perform, task completion can be done more easily with voice recognition.
Dealing with a client, writing down notes after a customer call or sending a message to your colleague about the latest meeting etc. – all these tasks take a lot of time if done manually.
The Voice AI can facilitate work processes in a useful manner as you don’t have to use other materials – all client’s information and all notes or questions will be recorded automatically and accurately.
Final
Voice recognition technology is a trend that a lot of people and companies want to embrace – it can provide benefits not only to households but also to businesses as well.
As voice searches and voice assistants become increasingly popular, businesses started to consider if they should use such technology in their communication strategy.
The evolution and improvement is still ongoing but keep in mind that voice technology has slowly proved its advantage to having voice assistance within your everyday life.