Speech Technology's 2020 People's Choice Awards
Following last year’s success, we again this year gave you, our readers—and the people who use, develop, and work with voice technologies every day—the power to decide who wins our annual awards.
The process began last fall when we asked vendors to nominate themselves for consideration in the 2020 People’s Choice Awards. Then in February, we opened up the voting through our website. We received input from more than 1,200 industry insiders, casting their votes for more than 100 technology vendors across 11 categories. Here are the top three vote getters (listed alphabetically) in each category:
Speech Recognition
- AppTek
- LumenVox
- Nuance Communications
Speech Analytics
- CallMiner
- Nemesysco
- Verint Systems
Speech Biometrics
- LumenVox
- Nuance Communications
- Sensory
Speech-to-Text
- AppTek
- Google
- Verint Systems
Text-to-Speech
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing
- AppTek
- Avaya
- Verint Systems
Chatbots
Interactive Voice
Response (IVR)
- LumenVox
- Nuance Communications
- Verint Systems
Translation/Localization
- Appen
- Google
- Lionbridge Technologies
Voice Control
Voice Search
A Guide to the Winners
Acapela Group is a Belgian company that develops text-to-speech software and services. It was formed from a combination of three European companies specializing in voice technologies: Babel Technologies, Infovox, and Elan Speech.
Amazon, a multinational technology company based in Seattle, focuses primarily on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has become a speech powerhouse with its Alexa voice assistant and other speech offerings, which include voice search, speech recognition, transcription, translation, and text-to-speech technologies.
Appen, an Australian company, specializes in machine learning and artificial intelligence that serves as the backbone for search engines, social media platforms, voice recognition systems, translation and localization, transcription, sentiment analysis, and e-commerce sites.
AppTek, which is headquartered in McLean, Va., specializes in automatic speech recognition, machine translation, natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
Avaya, a huge multinational technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., specializes in business communications, specifically unified communications, contact center, and cloud services.
CallMiner, a Waltham, Mass.-based software company, develops speech analytics and interaction analytics software for contact centers.
Google, the Mountain View, Calif.-based tech giant, specializes in Internet-related services, but has become a force to be reckoned with in speech-related areas like voice assistants, translation, voice search, speech recognition, and app development.
Lionbridge Technologies, which is based in Waltham, Mass., specializes in translation, localization, and artificial intelligence training data services.
LumenVox, a San Diego-based speech automation company, offers speech recognition, text-to-speech, speech analytics, speech tuners, natural language processing, and multifactor biometric authentication solutions.
Microsoft, the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant, offers speech recognition, text-to-speech, speech servers, speech developer platforms, and conversational speech interfaces.
Nemesysco, an Israeli company, offers voice analysis technologies for call centers, fraud detection, emotion detection, and health tracking.
Nuance Communications, which is headquartered in Burlington, Mass., specializes in speech technologies that include voice recognition, natural language understanding, clinical documentation, voice biometrics, text-to-speech, chatbots, virtual assistants, artificial intelligence, machine learning, speech recognition, voice command and control for connected devices, dictation, and home automation.
Sensory, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., specializes in speech technologies including speech recognition, speech synthesis, speaker identification and verification, and voice control, on both hardware and software platforms for consumer electronics.
TTEC is primarily a business process outsourcing company with headquarters in Englewood, Colo. It also offers outcome-based customer service technologies.
Verint Systems is a Melville, N.Y.-based analytics and customer engagement technology company that sells software and hardware for contact centers, security, surveillance, and business intelligence. Among its other offerings are workforce optimization, contact center, artificial intelligence, chatbot, automation, voice-of-the-customer, and intelligent self-service solutions.