Voiceitt has partnered with Webex by Cisco to create an accessible voice AI, enabling people with speech impairments to speak and be understood during video meetings.
Describing itself as a “leading speech recognition technology for non-standard speech”, Voiceitt is leveraging AI on Webex to add innovative captioning and transcription capabilities.
The new solution is now available on the Webex App Hub for use in Webex Meetings.
Sara Smolley, Voiceitt Co-Founder and Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, said: “Cisco’s commitment to inclusive collaboration is aligned with Voiceitt’s mission to make voice AI accessible to people with non-standard speech.
“The integration with Webex is game-changing because it creates more independence for users with disabilities while increasing the potential for more collaborative, inclusive work environments.
“True collaboration means everyone at the table has a voice.”
Voiceitt’s application uses proprietary speech technology to allow non-standard speakers to communicate with accuracy and flexibility.
This communications enablement tool can be applied to face-to-face conversations, email and text dictation, and transcription for meetings.
The technology is adaptive, which means it learns the patterns of an individual’s speech from enrolment data.
Its underlying machine learning algorithms use this information and have evolved from its growing database of non-standard speech recordings.
Voiceitt also provides an API that seamlessly integrates its technology with any voice interface, which allows the products to be used by people with disabilities, brain injuries, degenerative diseases, developmental disorders, speech changes due to aging, and challenging dialects.
Michael Cash, an employee at Voiceitt who has cerebral palsy, is a beta tester of the video call integration.
He believes the integration has enabled him to communicate “efficiently and effectively” and to be heard too, without colleagues and partners needing to ask him to repeat himself.
Amit Barave, Vice President, Product Management at Webex by Cisco, commented: “This partnership epitomizes how Cisco works to power inclusivity through innovations that fuel the human potential.
“We know accessibility can be a huge barrier to adoption of technology and services, but through purpose-built AI like Voiceitt and partnerships with Webex to drive more inclusive collaboration, hybrid work can empower greater communities.”
Later this year, Voiceitt will be embedded into the Webex platform to improve its transcription accuracy for Webex users with non-standard speech patterns.
A no-cost Voiceitt beta program is available for those with non-standard speech.
Voiceitt was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Israel, with a mission, it says, to “apply its machine learning and speech recognition technologies to help people with speech disabilities” and to “help people with disabilities live more connected, independent lives”.
Investors in Voiceitt include Cisco Investments, Microsoft’s M12, Amazon Alexa Fund, AARP, and Third Culture Capital.
Cisco announced last month that it will introduce air-gapping to Webex in 2024 to address national security concerns.
The air-gapping solution will include a U.S.-based cloud environment isolated from public networks, which will only be accessible to staff with the necessary security authorisations.
When the data is successfully ‘air gapped’, it means it cannot be accessed, modified, or destroyed by attackers.
Earlier in April, Webex completed its seventh integration with CallCabinet by adding its call recording solutions.
As a result, the compliance recording specialists, CallCabinet, now have one of the few solutions that provide comprehensive integrations for Cisco cloud, on-premise, and contact centre platforms.
Previously, CallCabinet has integrated solutions with Webex Contact Center, Cisco HCS, UCCE, UCCX, UCM, and UCM-C Dedicated Instance.
