Speech Adoption Continues Its Climb

There's no doubt that consumers are warming up to speech technology. In the consumer market, speech technology is attaching itself to items people love, such as their cars, their smartphones, and their televisions. Naturally, consumers' familiarity and comfort level with speech technologies should bode well for businesses.

The popularity of speech analytics in contact centers, for example, continues to wax because of the technology's ability to help organizations improve customer experiences, cut costs, retain customers, and minimize risks. According to one analyst in the feature story, "Speech Analytics: Turn Conversations into Dollars," by Staff Writer Michele Masterson, in 2004 there were only 25 traceable speech deployments. However, that number skyrocketed in 2011 to more than 3,100. Clearly, speech analytics has reached a tipping point.

While these deployments have largely focused on contact center improvements, other uses for speech technology outside of customer service and support departments are cropping up. One of these is in fraud detection.

In response to a terror event, Nemesysco (an Israeli company founded in 2000) produced its Layered Voice Analysis technology. The solution, used by government and law enforcement agencies, offers security and fraud prevention tools that can analyze speech to determine if someone is lying or being malicious. (For an example of how this works, check out this YouTube video: http://bit.ly/wYitkv).

While LVA has been around for more than a decade, it is receiving more attention lately for its ability to spot deception of those on television. Our cover story, "LVA: The New Fraud Detector?," also by Michele Masterson, offers more information on this, including results of an LVA test on Jerry Sandusky (retired Penn State assistant football coach) and Herman Cain (former 2012 presidential candidate).

Moving beyond today's commercially available solutions, one potential use for speech technology is underscored in the article "Voice Could Open New Doors for Hotels," by News Editor Leonard Klie. The article features a voice biometrics application from Voice Trust, which would enable guests to open their hotel room doors using their voice. This might not save hotels a lot of money, but it could improve guests' experiences.

From the fun to the practical, speech technology has been—and continues to be—adding value to businesses and consumers.

****Mark your calendar for SpeechTEK 2012 (August 13–15) at the New York Marriott Marquis. Visit www.speechtek.com for updates on the biggest speech technology conference in the United States.