SoundHound Introduces Chat AI Voice Assist Platform and Smartphone Application
SoundHound Chat AI is a new generative AI voice assistant platform and smartphone app. The new platform integrates soundHound's voice AI technology with third-party big language models like OpenAI's GPT-4 for business usage, while the Android and forthcoming iOS applications provide consumers with a voice assistant with conversational skills like ChatGPT and other generative AI chatbots.
SoundHound ChatAI
SoundHound's Chat AI platform targets companies looking to build a multi-modal voice assistant using generative AI models. The software can combine ChatGPT and domain-specific databases with news, weather, and personal data. SoundHound's new CaiLAN and CaiNet platforms power the platform and mobile apps. CaiLAN creates local and changing knowledge domains for the voice assistant, such as neighbouring businesses, traffic, and weather. CaiLAN selects databases and sets up the pipeline to provide user queries. SoundHound began integrating these systems into its restaurant and car platforms early this year, adding generative AI options to its Dynamic Interaction speech AI for commercial services.
“SoundHound Chat AI uses software engineering and machine learning to power any experience, from navigation to restaurant ordering. Typing takes longer than talking. In an interview with Voicebot, SoundHound COO Michael Zagorsek said, "Reading may be better than listening, but [our platform] can do it all hands-free." Speech interaction is the ideal way to access LLMs and generative AI, but you need various data sources in a voice context. The technology is great for directing inquiries to the right data source for answers. Our natural language comprehension and real-time speech-to-meaning help [the AI] choose a database early in the query. SoundHound employs parallel tracking, so we're certain our system can handle inquiries and ensure [the assistant] doesn't have a nonsensical result.” The smartphone app offers SoundHound Chat AI for $7 a week or $20 a year. As seen above, the app wakes up with "Hello SoundHound" and acts like ChatGPT with a voice. There are six female and male voices with American, British, Australian, and Indian accents, or you may use your phone's built-in voice assistant.
Automatic voice recognition, natural language processing, wake word, and text-to-speech are ours. Zagorsek added, "Market-available TTS voices are automatically tailored for frequent words and phrases." “The app is an entire assistant that can answer inquiries in real-time, and there's no more “I didn't get that.” Many voice assistant applications have depended largely on online search results, but they don't have to anymore. [The AI] connects it elegantly. Everyone benefits.”
SoundHound began the year by projecting profitability and then released the mobile applications and platform quickly. After two rounds of layoffs reduced employees from 450 to 200, the firm secured $25 million in equity financing from unnamed investors in January and has consistently beaten stock analyst estimates.
SoundHound released Hound, a standalone voice assistant smartphone app, six years ago this month. Zagorsek calls the new app “everything that makes Hound amazing and more, an extension of what was first introduced exclusively as a consumer app.” The Android version of SoundHound Chat AI has replaced Hound on the Google Play Store, keeping all of Hound's ratings and update history from its beta period. SoundHound's Conversational AI app page accesses Hound's Apple App Store website, suggesting the iOS version will follow suit. Zagorsek says the SoundHound Chat AI app and platform are a new chapter.
LLMs are AI's next evolutionary step. Before that, you had more localised machine learning, but the capacity to aggregate discovered patterns and machine learning is so strong, I don't think any of us has seen technology take off like this since the web,” Zagorsek said. “Generative AI's virality has affected everyone. Everyone knows it. A new superpower.”
