You’ve probably experienced the frustration of being misheard or misunderstood by a smart speaker or artificial intelligence assistant. For people who have the speech different from the standard this can happen in almost every interaction with this type of technology, but the Israeli company Voiceitt intends to change that.
By using custom voice models, its AI-powered speech recognition system helps people with speech impairments caused by conditions such as cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s, Down syndrome or stroke communicate more effectively with both other people and digital devices.
For Voiceitt co-founder Sara Smolley, making speech recognition easier for people with non-standard speech is a personal mission.
“My grandmother was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease,” she said. “By the time I was born, she had lost most of her motor skills, and her speech was impacted.”
Voiceitt launched as an app in 2021 and operated as a simple vocal translator, converting non-standard speech into audio. The AI is trained by the user recording themselves saying around 200 simple stock phrases.
Smolley said the original idea was to facilitate in-person communication, but the technology has now been adapted for remote workers as well.
Voiceitt has developed integrations with WebEx and ChatGPT, along with a Google Chrome extension that converts non-standard speech into captions displayed on the screen. The company is also partnering with Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
“One of the things that really stood out to me was the importance of accessibility technology in the workplace,” Smolley noted. “What a ramp [para cadeira de rodas] was for yesterday’s office building, Voiceitt is for today’s remote workplace,” she said.
The software is sold on a per-minute or per-user license basis, with prices ranging from $20 to $50. Licenses can be purchased in bulk for workplaces and healthcare or educational institutions.
“People are using Voiceitt not just for video conferencing, but to write documents, emails, post to LinkedIn and access web browsers by voice,” Smolley explained. “This has opened up the digital world to individuals who previously might not have been considered for certain jobs or able to communicate with colleagues or clients.”
“This whole sector needs a shake-up”
Voiceitt users include Colin Hughes, a former BBC producer turned accessibility advocate. Living with muscular dystrophy, Hughes relies on dictation for his digital interactions, making him acutely aware of the potential and limitations of current technologies. Hughes experimented with Voiceitt to compose emails and dictate longer pieces of writing.
“I found Voiceitt’s app to be impressively accurate with my atypical speech, and its training and setup process was straightforward,” Hughes said, though he highlighted critical gaps for professional users. “Many people with impaired speech and upper limb disabilities need more than just speech-to-text,” he noted.
He advocates adding features like voice cursor control and improved dictation recognition for drafting long-form content, saying Voiceitt works best for single-sentence messages.
Hughes emphasizes the need for more comprehensive speech recognition technology that would allow users to do things like manage email and format documents using their voice.
He sees a future where technology plays a bigger role in accessibility, adding: “This whole industry needs a shake-up. Voiceitt, with better access to major platforms, can be the leader of that change.”
An accessible future
According to Smolley, there has been significant progress in speech recognition technology in recent years.
One example is the Speech Accessibility Project, a research project led by the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois, which is collecting voice data from people with different conditions to create algorithms to support people with non-standard speech.
Earlier this year, Apple launched its AI-powered “Listen for Atypical Speech” feature, which uses machine learning to recognize a wider range of speech patterns.
With technology capturing and storing personal data, such as voice recordings, privacy can be a concern for users. Smolley says her company complies with European Union regulations, which she calls “the highest standards in the world for data privacy.”
“If user data is retained in our database with their consent, it will be anonymized and de-identified, and used to grow our data stack and improve our algorithm,” she adds.
She believes Voiceitt’s technology can change lives. “We want to enable people to not only be more independent in their lives and work,” Smolley says, “but also to enjoy technology and have fun.”
This content was originally published in AI technology can help people with speech disabilities work from home on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
