In the not too distant future, you will be able to sit in a chair, relax, and command your computer to multitask for you without touching anything. Advanced speech recognition technology is becoming more efficient and will one day be an integral part of all technology. You may be wondering, what about SIRI or products like Dragon Naturally Speaking? While those are good examples of early technology evolution, if you’ve ever used any of the products, you know they are flawed. While not perfect by any means, the advancements in the field of speech recognition are extremely impressive. Many Fortune 500 companies use these features through IVR services that you have probably spoken with and interacted with. This call center industry has truly been the first to embrace speech regulation technology and integrate it into their way of doing business.
There are two types of speech recognition software and each is designed for different purposes. Speaker-dependent speech recognition software is one of the most useful applications. This application is used to convert speeches into readable texts. The speaker-dependent speech recognition programs are integrated with various word processors and e-mail programs. You can enable this speech recognition software by speaking through the microphone. This allows you to make the speech engine write the spoken words into a word processor. The software will recognize the method in which you speak and pronounce the words, along with the speed of the speech, the pitch of the voice, and the inflection. These are factors that differ for each person; therefore, speaker-dependent speech recognition programs require training to understand your speech. The user should read some pre-installed script pages in the program to familiarize the software with their voice. When you are done with setup, the software is ready to follow your verbal commands.
You can say commands, such as “Open word,” and your computer will open the word processor for you. You can tell your computer what you want to write to the Word file and say “save” to save the file. Your email programs would wait for your verbal command to open and compose the emails for you. To ensure accuracy, you must edit the document manually after the speech engine does its job.
Speaker standalone speech recognition software is another type of automatic speech recognition programs that are commonly used in IVR and have more answering service type applications. Speaker-independent speech recognition programs do not require any training, but are less efficient than speaker-dependent applications. You can record words in these applications and schedule the speaker-dependent applications to perform particular tasks if someone initiates an action based on the hits of the recorded words. Let’s take the example of calling a business and asking the computer to transfer the call to someone by saying their last name (sometimes called a dial-by-name directory). Once you say the name, the speech engine reviews the logs and verifies if that person works for the organization. If the record matches, the call is transferred to the appropriate person. This entire IVR process is carried out using speaker-independent speech recognition programs.
Speech recognition programs are not new to the market, but these applications were not accurate enough to be useful. Accuracy and speed are the two parameters on which speech recognition programs are judged. Today’s speech recognition is able to understand the words you are saying, not the meaning of those words. Therefore, if you cannot pronounce the words as they are registered in the system, these programs will not recognize what you are saying. Therefore, if you want to speak to an operator and use the term “agent” instead, if the word “agent” is not associated with the word “operator”, the call will not transfer.
The speed with which you speak is also a key factor in using these apps. You must wait until your program recognizes your first word before saying the next. Today, various companies have introduced speech recognition programs that are capable of understanding the human voice with commendable precision.
This technology, while surprising, is still in its infancy. Future advancements in speech recognition will become a powerful tool with unlimited potential.
