Less Known Facts about AI voices and Text to Speech

Voice artificial intelligence is an emerging technology that uses voice commands to interact with humans. The technology is witnessing tremendous growth and intense research in modern engineering to explore untapped areas.

We are well accustomed to hearing AI voices narrating monotone articles and reports. One of the most trending examples of their use by many people is Alexa and Siri-enabled devices.

These devices are getting significant recognition, and the market for similar products is growing exceptionally. Even businesses are trying to optimize their voice AI as they are a powerful low-cost upgrade to their current system. It is also because voices are a great form to engage with consumers for marketing products and services.

Text to Speech generators uses artificial intelligence technology to convert text into speech in the voice of a human. Text to speech is a great tool to aid people who have visual impairments and also for kids who are learning to speak and have difficulty reading written sentences.

These technologies are not that costly, easily scalable, and can be integrated with the existing system. Audible is a very famous product designed using Text-to-speech technology.

Let us look at some mind-blowing facts that you may not know about AI and Text to Speech:

1. Technically, Thomas Edison invented the first Speech recognition device named the phonograph in 1877, a device to record and reproduce sound. Since then, the technology has grown significantly, and we can see the use of AI voices and TTS in almost all places, be it in malls, households, training centers, or offices.
2. Whether it be Siri, Alexa, or other AI bots, there are more Female-gendered synthetic voices than males. Interestingly, both women and men preferred female voices to their other human counterparts. But we will like to see more male voices for AI-enabled devices.
3. Word Error Rate (WER) is a metric to measure how often a word is transcribed incorrectly in a speech recognition system. Google claims to have a word error rate of 4.9%. Human transcriptions are still the most accurate speech recognition system, but they also have a WER of 4%. Though the metric itself has some flaws as it does not account for certain factors which it should.
4. Many tech leaders have shared their insights on AI on various platforms. Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, stated in a town hall event in San Francisco in 2018 that AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on and would be more transformative to humanity than electricity.
5. Business houses are optimizing the use of AI voices to leverage growth. As per Speechmatics of 2021, the increase in new businesses adopting voice marketing is around 18% on a year-over-year basis, and among the businesses that do not have a voice AI strategy, 60% of them were considering implementing the same in the next five years. In general, engagement in the case of audio content is much higher. Businesses with foresight are using voice AI to give voice to their brands by which they can differentiate themselves with customers to increase brand loyalty. It will take brand innovation altogether to a new pedestal.
6. A recent study shows that 40% of people use the voice search feature to look for things on the internet at least once a day. This simply means that AI voices have almost become part and parcel of our daily lives because of their ease of use. Alexa-enabled devices are especially trending, as they are found in almost all households these days.
7. To stay ahead of the competition in today’s dynamic market scenario, businesses need to optimize their Voice SEO. Voice SEO will eventually turn out to be one of the essentials of robust marketing since using text to speech will enable users to understand and interpret the content of websites more easily.
8. Research is underway to develop an AI that can detect whether a person is suffering from depression by interpreting the voice of that person. Currently, the accuracy of such interpretation is highly dubious, but efforts are being made to develop more powerful AI to improve the accuracy and reliability of such tests.
9. Text-to-speech technology is often called “read aloud” technology because the technology gives a human voice to written text.

Conclusion

We are living in a dynamic and ever-growing economy. Discoveries are being made in AI Voice and TTS technology with each passing day.

AI voices have replaced human voices in various places, and it is more likely that they will become part and parcel of our daily lives by becoming more accessible to the public.

Text-to-speech technology has opened doors for people who are not able to read. Using TTS technology can help them grow in their personal and professional lives. In short, research and development in the areas of AI voices and TTS is a win-win situation for everyone.