Artificial intelligence has been a key to a number of possibilities. And its not a matter of surprise that the term has grown to become a synonym for change. AI has had a commendable impact on voice technology, enabling the creation of a multitude of options using voice. Thanks to artificial intelligence, technological processes like voice synthesis, modulation and recognition, digital speech synthesis etc. are no longer exclusive realms open only to experts. IBM’s Shoebox is supposedly the first Voice AI venture, the probable forerunner of the wide array of startups world wide that offer diverse services within the Voice AI framework.
South Korea, though second to China in the ‘smart speakers’ market, has an interesting list of Voice-AI driven startups, using innovative technology, some of them even capable of bringing dead artists back to life and those that facilitate baby monitoring and even finding perfect partners!
Here are a few noteworthy startups,
Supertone
A possible future where technology transcends life and even death is a probability that cannot be overlooked. And Supertone, a music technology startup, offers a peek into that future. With its Singing Voice Synthesis (SVS) technology, the startup makes it possible to create new songs in the voice of late artists. Resurrections are no longer limited to the genre of fantasy and horror. Technology has made a claim to that with this latest innovation. The working rule of Supertone is to create “hyper-realistic and expressive voice not distinguishable from real humans.” With the technology, the voice of Kim Kwang Seok, the South Korean folk superstar was brought back to life on the stage of Competition of the Century: I vs Human.
Humelo
Humelo is a popular startup, that uses speech synthesis and creative AI for its AI composition/writing technology. The start up is a well known name in the K-Pop entertainment circle. The solution offered by Humelo is an AI enabled human like voice creation. Prosody, which is incorporated in the product enables the creation of natural voices that are impossible to distinguish from human voices, in addition to enabling emotional choices, speech, speed and pitch adjustment. Humelo has to its credit, the partnership with SME entertainment, one among the biggest K-Pop companies.
Posicube
Posicube’s AI powered voice recognition service is known for its quick response time, thanks to the advanced data processing technologies. According to the claims of the startup, the services are capable of understanding customer voices, with an added advantage of comprehending technical terms, thereby helping to address issues with accuracy. The company plans to expand its services to the Western markets by 2021, with an English version.
These startups are examples for how innovation powered with the right skill set can pave way for possibilities that can take the world by storm. Artificial intelligence does have an ‘art’ in it and its brilliance fused with real art is evident with the achievements of each of these startups.
