How Speech Recognition Technology Will Lead The Way to Better Communication More and more companies are turning to speech recognition technology to carry out tasks that were once performed by live chat agents

We live in the age of multitasking where we try to complete each and every task at one go. However, in the digital world, switching from one activity to another has become stress-free. The gadgets we use everyday doubles as our personal virtual assistant. These virtual assistants are using speech recognition technology that understands different voices to answer queries and perform other tasks. This technology also allows people to control their devices with their voices. More and more companies are turning to speech recognition technology to carry out tasks that were once only performed by live chat agents.

Entrepreneur India spoke to experts as they listed the top trends that will impact the speech recognition technology in coming years.

Changing Definition of Literacy

According to Subodh Kumar, Co-founder, and CEO of Liv.ai, speech interfaces are going to be ubiquitous on all the devices. Speech-enabled virtual assistants will probably be the first and foremost technology through which people will get to taste AI. In developing countries like India, Speech Recognition is going to change the definition of literacy.

"Now everyone can write by speaking using speech to text technology while reading will be supplanted by listening to the text to speech technology. When I was growing up I often used to wonder that we have a low literacy rate and how we can catch up with the other countries which are so ahead. Now through this technology in one stroke, we are all literate. That is the power of technology and that is the joy that drives us every day," Kumar explained.

The Role of Speech in Human-machine Communication

Speech recognition applications like Siri and Google have changed the way we look for information on our phones. Umesh Sachdev, CEO, and Co-founder of Uniphore Software Systems said for humans, speech is the most natural way of communication.

"What we are doing when we are interacting is speaking to each other. With internet and machines around us getting smarter, our bet is that our preferred way of interaction with machines is also going to be speech. So we believe and imagine a world where we will be speaking to machines and they will be speaking back to us as we humans do. That requires a tremendous amount of technology, "said Sachdev.

Using Virtual Assistants For Other Digital Tasks

A lot of innovation and development is yet to happen across languages and dialects. Sachdev emphasized that advancement in speech recognition technology will open a plethora of use cases and opportunities for tech companies.

"Some of the trends we are beginning to see are already in the corner center because we have millions of hours of speech conversations. There is this huge opportunity to mine that data and analyze it for business outcomes. We hope in future virtual assistants will be able to speak to machines to carry out not only online transactions but other digital tasks," he added.

Virtual Assistants Would Understand Human Behavior

AI is an ever-evolving space with limitless possibilities. Research and development in the speech recognition and virtual assistant field is growing steadily. A significant number of companies are now embracing these technologies to retain and expand the existing customer base, as well as widen the service offerings.

Sachin Jaiswal, CEO, Niki.ai. believes in coming years, neural net learning and deep learning techniques will further lead to a boost in speech recognition technology and by that time, virtual assistants would be able to understand the nuances of human behavior through the medium of voice.

"Addition of various additional languages into virtual assistants would help us deal better in a situation where language becomes a barrier for us. Looking at the current growth rate of advancements in speech recognition and virtual assistant space, we can be sure of an absolutely interesting, convenient and technology-led life," said Jaiswal.