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Articles by Phillip Britt

Eliminate Ambient Noise to Make Speech Recognition More Accurate

Technology is improving speech's ability to hear what is necessary.

Speech Analytics Expands Beyond Voice

AI innovations mean interaction analytics can provide more actionable insights.

2024 Vertical Market Case Studies: Speech Technology in Hospitality

Golden Nugget is handling customer calls with PolyAI virtual assistants.

2024 Vertical Market Case Studies: Speech Technology in Entertainment

TrueFan is a true fan of Resemble AI's TTS

Safety and Ethical Concerns Loom Large in Voice Cloning

AI makes synthetic speech sound more realistic than ever—and therein lies the danger.

2024 State of AI in the Speech Technology Industry: GenAI-Fueled Speech Analytics Enable Real-Time Results

The insights come faster and are more comprehensive

2024 State of AI in the Speech Technology Industry: Voice Biometrics Both Profits From and Is Plagued by AI

Deepfakes threats advance, and technology is challenged to keep up.

10 Tips for Maximizing Content for Voice Search

A quarter of the world's population uses voice search, and the numbers are only going to rise.

Speech Analytics Can Help Steer Chatbot Interactions

Companies are beginning to apply traditional speech analytics to their automated conversations.

How Speech Analytics Helps Improve Coaching/Training

Data-driven guidance provides a better agent and customer experience.

2023 Vertical Markets Spotlight: Speech Technology in Financial Services

Rise in voice banking requires a rise in voice-based support, verification, and AI.

2023 Vertical Markets Spotlight: Speech Technology in Healthcare

Speech gives caregivers more time to spend with patients.

2023 Vertical Markets Spotlight: Speech Technology in Retail

Voice shopping from home and at retail kiosks is proliferating.

2023 Vertical Markets Spotlight: Speech Technology in Travel and Hospitality

Voice brings concierge service to bookings and hotel stays.

Speech Model Training Gets Easier with the Latest Tools

Training AI models for some voice interfaces could be as simple as drag and drop.

The 2023 State of Speech Analytics

Growth is set to continue as demand rises and use cases abound.

The 2023 State of Voice Biometrics

AI is making both attacks and defenses more sophisticated than ever.

The 2023 State of Assistive Technology

New rules and initiatives are helping make devices more accessible.

The Low-Code/No-Code Movement Builds in Speech Technology

Programming speech applications is becoming easier for people outside the IT department.

Interest Mounts for Emotion Detection

Speech analytics are getting better at identifying emotional states, but challenges remain.

Analytics Turns Its Sights on Interactions

A growing number of use cases in the contact center make the case for increased analytics.

Vertical Markets Spotlight: Speech in Retail

Purchases and checkouts top the uses for retailers' voice assistants.

Vertical Markets Spotlight: Speech in Financial Services

Commerce, convenience, and compliance top banking's use of voice.

Vertical Markets Spotlight: Speech in Healthcare

Dictation dominates, but speech is expanding the care continuum .

Vertical Markets Spotlight: Speech in Travel and Hospitality

Post-COVID surge challenges properties.

The 2022 State of Speech Analytics

Analysis expands to new channels and use cases.

The 2022 State of Voice Biometrics

Technology expansion goes beyond the contact center.

The 2022 State of Assistive Technology

Expanding opportunities to improve everyday lives.

Building a Voice Brand Is a Sound Policy

As more marketing moves to audio channels, companies need a unified voice.

Call Recording, Transcription, and Analytics Find Strength in Unity

With these technologies, companies are achieving deeper alignment by trading point solutions for packages from one vendor.

Seniors Increase Use of Assistive Speech Tech

The growing aging population is a market ripe for voice-enabled technologies.

The State of Speech Analytics

Technology now looks at more than what the customer said

The State of Voice Biometrics

Vendors need to respond to increasingly sophisticated threats

The State of Assistive Technology

Advances bring accessibility to more platforms and devices

Voice Search Sees Business Boost

Companies are starting to use voice search for internal operations, but challenges remain.

As Speech Translation Advances, Barriers Continue to Fall

Technology improvements have pushed speech translation out to a smaller world

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

Overcoming Bias Requires an AI Reboot

Biases in artificial intelligence can be mitigated with multiple programmers

Marketers Need to Optimize for Voice Search

The voice channel presents unique opportunities and challenges for marketers

The State of Speech Analytics

Speech analytics is at the heart of digital transformations

The State of Voice Biometrics

Voice biometrics moves downstream

How IVR with a Human Touch is Changing Healthcare

By putting "the human touch" into its IVR, executives at Wolters Kluwer Health are finding patients to be more responsive to automated calls, thereby reducing staffing costs and improving patient care.

Chatbot Development: Your Guide to Getting It Right

The race is on to include chatbots in marketing and CRM efforts, but many companies still aren't getting it right—and these tips can help

The Challenges of Monetizing Speech Applications

Speech applications are hot, but still provide more value than revenue. We talk to the experts about how to monetize your speech apps, and how value might be just as important as revenue.

Speech Analytics Aids Customer Relationships

Contact centers are increasingly relying on speech for a combination of agent training, enhancing customer relationships, and improving product quality, as speech experts discussed at the recent Verint Engage19 conference.

Five Tips for Managing Voice Data in the GDPR Era

As the UK 's Information Commissioner's Office orders the nation's tax authority to delete 5 million voice recordings under GDPR, we offer 5 tips for staying out of trouble with privacy regulators.

AI for Speech, Other Uses Primary Message from NICE Interactions

Delivering and leveraging artificial intelligence throughout the contact center, including several AI-enabled speech capabilities was the theme of the NICE Interactions 2019 Conference, which drew an estimated 3,000 attendees.

Verint Launches AI Blueprint

Verint announced a new offering, Verint AI Blueprint, which is designed to help companies launch conversational artificial intelligence solutions through a combination of consulting and technology.

The State of Voice Biometrics

Voice biometrics is becoming popular with big corporations but is still out of reach for many

New Uses for Speech Analytics

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are transforming many industries and technologies. Speech analytics is no exception--take a deep dive into the new uses and applications for speech analytics.

Will Consumers Let Alexa Read Their Emails Out Loud?

Earlier this year, Amazon added the ability for Alexa to read and delete emails. Google Home and other voice-enabled digital assistants will likely be developing this capability as well. That may present serious consequences for marketers.

The 2019 State of Speech Analytics

Cloud-based solutions give speech analytics a boost

Embedding Speech Biometrics on Devices

Voice biometrics just might be the next great hope in securing data and other content. But as people use their mobile devices for more and more, embedding speech biometrics on these devices becomes more important

Technology Helps Solve Educational Dilemmas

Whether a student is hard of hearing or a foreign-language speaker, speech technologies can help make the classroom more accessible for everyone.

LumenVox, VoiceTrust Merge, Offer Full-Suite of Speech Tech Biometrics

LumenVox and VoiceTrust are merging their businesses in what Neil MacDonald, chief commercial officer, calls a true merger of equals to provide customers with a full suite of speech technology speech biometric solutions.

Speech Tech Systems Need Expanded Capabilities, Training for Improved Customer Service

Seventy-four percent admit they are more loyal to a company if they can talk to a person—versus a machine—when they need assistance, according to a new report from Calabrio.

Adding Speech into the Cross-Platform Mix

Conversational interfaces that operate across platforms are a customer service must-have

Survey Shows Frustration with Traditional Approach to AI

Speech tech providers should realize that people expect any voice communications on a smartphone to be very short and will shy away from voice recognition "help" that is often more frustrating than helpful because the actual speech recognition is poor, says Abinash Tripathy, founder and CSO at Helpshift. 

New Smart Glove in Development to Turn Hand Motions into Sound and Text

Hearing and speech-challenged people could have a new device to aid them with their communications hurdles by the end of this year. Start-up company BrightSign has developed a "smart glove" that includes a series of sensors to translate hand motions into sound and text.

Lexalytics Recommends Some Firms Leave the Cloud

While many published reports discuss continuing growth of companies using cloud services, Lexalytics has launched a "Get Out of the Cloud" campaign. "About a year ago, we started seeing many of our customers moving from the cloud to on-premises software," says Seth Redmore, Lexalytics chief marketing officer. "So we talked to them to find out why. It was economics, latency, and control."

Voice Biometrics: Building Its Business Base as New Uses Emerge

Biometric solutions built on voice recognition technologies are projected to create an incremental opportunity of $4.5 billion between 2017 and 2025. 

How to Optimize Your Content for Voice Search

Keeping up with the changing whims of search engines has always been a sisyphean task, but now a new obstacle has been tossed into the always evolving SEO mix: voice search. There is some good news, however, for brands and marketing agencies look to optimize content for voice search. Much of what they need to do to optimize content for voice search is simply to hone in on many of the same rules they have used to achieve SEO success in the past.

Speech Analytics: Showing Great Promise Thanks to AI and Machine Learning

Speech analytics has been commercially available for about 15 years, but it is only now starting to move beyond the pilot and early-adoption stages.

Speech Technology Could Aid in Dementia Detection

New algorithm looks at speech patterns to help identify early stages of Alzheimers, dementia and aphasia.

Real-Time Audio News Available from Spokata

Spokata's mobile app converts news stories to audio with Amazon's Polly text-to-speech service.

Market Spotlight—Healthcare: Speech Aids in Patient Care

As speech technology gets more pervasive, expectations are high that it will go beyond dictation to contribute even further to improved health care

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

BoomTown Builds Valuable Insights from Voice Conversations with Invoca

The B2B real estate software company increased conversions and ROI with call intelligence

Marchex Updates Speech Analytics Interface

Marchex has updated its Call DNA interface to accept more inputs and feedback.

VoiceSense Launches SEAL, a Speech-Based Predictive Analytics Tool

New solution uniquely focuses on customer behavior tendencies to deliver improved risk assessment, sales and customer retention.

Affectiva Releases Emotion-Based API

Affectiva's cloud-based API will be able to distinguish emotions in speech.

The 2017 Speech Industry Implementation Awards: State Collection Service

Voicebox Launches Linguistic Code-Switching Capability

The technology allows speech systems to draw from one language to learn another.

VoiceVault Releases Fusion 9 Biometrics Engine

VoiceVault Fusion 9 release was designed with tighter protections against voice spoofing.

Explosive Growth Eyed for Voice Assistants

A report by Ovum predicts more than 7.5 billion units by 2021, exceeding the world population.

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

Microsoft Advances Speech APIs

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

Voice Design Tools Get a Redesign of Their Own

The technology undergoes a transformation as omnichannel takes over interactions

IBM Speech Recognition Nears Human Rate

IBM says the speech recognition accuracy of its Switchboard system is 5.5 percent.

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

The 2017 State of the Speech Technology Industry: Assistive Technology

Lending a Helping Hand with Speech

The 2017 State of the Speech Technology Industry: Intelligent Virtual Assistants

Using AI to Get Even Smarter

Microsoft Advances Speech APIs

Microsoft moves Custom Speech Service from private preview to open trials.

Interactions Launches Voice Biometrics Offering

Interactions has extended its Intelligent Virtual Assistant with a voice biometrics offering based on its Curo Speech and Language Platform.

The Outlook for Deep Neural Networks and Speech Technology

Speech-enabled IVRs can create more humanlike interactions with DNNs

KnuVerse Unveils Speech Verification Platform

KnuVerse extends its portfolio with KnuFactor voice recognition and authentication products.

ABI Finds Voice Critical to Smart Home

ABI Research has identified the smart home as the greatest new market for speech systems.

New Standards for Virtual Assistants Sought

The 2016 Speech Industry Star Performers: IBM Watson

The 2016 Speech Industry Star Performers: Interactions

Cypher's ASR Filter Improves Speech in Noisy Environments

Cypher has developed a technology that uses deep neural networking to remove background noise from voice communications.

Interactions Launches Curo Speech

Curo Speech is a platform for automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech building on AT&T's Watson technology.

Are Intelligent Virtual Assistants Ready for the Enterprise?

Not only is the answer 'yes,' see how Capital One, Domino's Pizza, Hyatt Hotels, and others are deploying IVAs in their organizations

New Standards for Virtual Assistants Sought

The World Wide Web Consortium has formed a new community group to deal with virtual assistants.

Amazon Adds Alexa Voice Service to Triby Devices

Invoxia's kitchen device is the first non-Amazon product to include the Alexa voice interface.

Voice to Become the Personal Assistant, Technavio Predicts

Research firm Technavio has identified three trends in speech technologies that will alter the landscape through 2019.

Pindrop Launches IVR Anti-Fraud Solution

IVR Anti-Fraud monitors IVR transactions to identify risky or suspicious caller activity.

Technavio Sees Great Potential in Voice-Control Apps

Mobile banking, connected car apps, and virtual assistants in mobile devices are expected to be the biggest market drivers.

The 2016 State of the Speech Technology Industry: Intelligent Virtual Assistants

The 2016 State of the Speech Technology Industry: Assistive Technology

Interactions Upgrades Its Speech Offerings

The company is launching a new speech platform and virtual assistant technology.

IBM, University of Michigan Partner on Voice-Enabled Academic Adviser

The system, called Project Sapphire, would be able to provide academic and career guidance to students.

SRI and NYU Medical Center Project Uses Speech Analytics to Identify PTSD

Research finds a correlation between post-traumatic stress disorder and speaking patterns, which can be uncovered with speech analytics.

When Is Speech Technology too Creepy?

It's imperative to understand the fine line between creepy and cool

NICE Systems Enables Law Enforcement to Analyze Recorded Speech

Nuance Acquires Philips Speech Recognition Systems

The deal increases the company's healthcare dictation business throughout Europe.

Nuance Acquires Philips Speech Recognition Systems

Nuance Communications acquired Philips Speech Recognition Systems for $96.1 million to expand its healthcare-related business in Europe.

UC for the SMB

SimpleSignal solution joins a host of other unified communications products offering enhanced features for small and medium businesses.

Demand for Authentication Boosts Voiceprints

As concern over identity theft continues to grow, companies, particularly financial services and healthcare providers, are looking to voice biometrics and other ways to positively identify customers.

Verint and NICE Lead the QM/Liability Recording Market

Speech analytics will help drive the nearly $2.4 billion quality management/liability recording market to new heights.

Advanced Analytics Offer Greater Precision

The latest technology goes beyond simple audio mining for words and phrases.

Speech in Multichannel Customer Service

It has been a longstanding debate: Do you spend a lot of money on high-quality customer service, or risk upsetting customers with a low-cost approach? The answer, which is not always simple, may require a blend of both, as more companies are including speech-self service as part of their multichannel customer service initiatives.

Using Speech for Search

Customers of Pull-A-Part, an Atlanta, Ga.-based owner of five discount, self-service auto parts stores/salvage yards in the southeastern U.S., rely on a speech-based search system to find the parts that they need. A customer-searchable inventory is critical for the company in order to keep employee overhead low, according to Ross Kogon, chief operating officer. The company set up a searchable Web site a couple of years ago, which enabled customers to use search capabilities at its…

Blurring the Lines: Merging Speech and VoIP

Late-at-night homeseekers in the Fredricksburg area of Virginia pass a home with a Coldwell Banker Elite "for sale" sign. They don't have to wait until the next day to get more details. If they call the real estate agency's phone number and enter the code listed on the sign, they will hear information about the particular listing spoken using text-to-speech synthesis. …

Speech in Education

Speech-enabled applications and hardware are increasingly finding their way into the classroom and into the offices of educators at all levels of education, but educational applications still represent a small, though growing, segment of the speech technology market, according to industry analysts. According to Peter Ryan, analyst for London-based Datamonitor, speech technologies derived from education were 3.8 percent in 2004, a figure that is expected to grow to 9.7 percent by 2007. The main areas in…

Embedding Speech into Mobile Devices

Anne Rosenfeld, a Boston, Mass.-based producer of neuroscience conferences for educators, found the 75-minute (one-way) commute between her home and office to be a big waste of time until a dead cell phone helped her become more productive. Needing a new portable phone to keep in touch with her office, suppliers, hotels and family and friends, Rosenfeld bought a new Samsung phone which she later learned was speech-enabled with software from VoiceSignal. …

Trouble Shooting With Speech

In an effort to improve customer service automation Dr. Judith Spitz, senior vice president of network & national operations systems at Verizon, turned to speech. Now, every call to the Repair Center in Verizon East goes to an automated speech system, and 20 percent are completed without associate assistance.

Money Talks: Speech in the Financial Market

As speech recognition matures and moves from research and development into real world applications, companies need to find vertical markets where their products make sense.

Speech Aids People With Disabilities

Speech technology has clearly benefited from the interest of people with disabilities. It has been through their interest that many of the most useful applications in the industry have been developed.

Natural Language Understanding for Customer Service

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems are some of the most commercially viable applications of speech recognition. The way people communicate with such systems is advancing rapidly. It is possible for computers to recognize, understand, and respond to conversational input with complicated structured dialogs or limited vocabularies.