Speechmatics Introduces Flow API for Advanced Speech Interactions

Speechmatics, a pioneer in speech recognition and currently a leader in multilanguage transcription technology, has announced the launch of an API that will enable developers to build voice interactions into any product, including AI assistants and agents. Flow combines Speechmatics' real-time automatic speech recognition (ASR) with large language models (LLMs) and text-to-speech capabilities, offering a complete solution for voice-based interactions that are accurate, responsive, and secure.

HEAD acoustics continues to perfect measurement and analysis solutions in the field of speech and communication quality, expanding from a vast range of hardware platforms and tools - including its HMS II.3 fullband artificial head - all the way to dedicated software that adjusts to the quickly-evolving needs in this field. The German company continues to expand VoCAS, a sophisticated software tool for performance evaluation of automatic speech recognizers, addressing real life conditions in the lab.

As rumored, Microsoft has announced the acquisition of Nuance Communications, the speech-to-text and voice recognition pioneer, for US$19.7 billion - the second-largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history. Microsoft apparently recognized the value of Nuance's efforts in healthcare, financial services, telco, retail, travel, and government applications, and recent investments in conversational AI. How will Microsoft leverage the company's products and technologies is certainly more related to his efforts in those very same verticals and synergy with its Office and Business software suites, than any effort to revive Cortana.

For the past 20 years, Nuance Communications, the voice recognition pioneer that was once Dragon Systems and ScanSoft, has been building deep domain expertise across verticals such as healthcare or retail. Now focusing on conversational AI and building AI‑powered solutions that amplify human intelligence, Nuance has announced the acquisition of Saykara, a like-minded startup focused on developing a mobile AI assistant to automate clinical documentation for physicians.

The market for virtual assistants (VAs) continues to illustrate strong positive momentum, according to a new report from Futuresource Consulting. Shipments of products supporting virtual assistants rose 25% year-on-year to 1.1 billion units in 2019, with the market on course to exceed 2.5 billion shipments by 2023. Apple leads the market in terms of products sold with support for its Siri voice assistant.

Promoted every year by the market research firm Futuresource Consulting, Audio Collaborative 2019 full-day conference on November 7 was invaluable, with Futuresource's leading market analysts and researchers sharing some of the latest stats and trends on the topics in the agenda, combined with great panels and in-between keynotes. This is the fourth - and last - of my reports, originally published in The Audio Voice newsletter.

Virtual Assistants (VAs) are poised to become the next-generation go-to interface, according to new market data and reporting from Futuresource Consulting. The company’s recent home audio quarterly tracker shows that products with integrated VAs grew to 41.8% of all home audio shipments in Q4 2018, an increase of nearly 50% on Q4 2017, with smart speakers increasing by 79%.