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AI-powered tech could help people with speech impairments to work remotely

You’ve probably experienced the frustration of being misheard or misunderstood by a smart speaker or AI assistant. For people with non-standard speech, it can happen in nearly every interaction with this kind of technology — Israeli company Voiceitt aims to change that.

By using personalized voice models, its AI-powered speech recognition system helps people with speech impairments, caused by conditions like cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s, Down Syndrome or stroke, communicate more effectively with both people and digital devices.

For Voiceitt co-founder Sara Smolley, facilitating speech recognition for non-standard speech patterns is a personal mission.

"My grandmother was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease," she said. "By the time I was born, she had lost most of her motor capabilities, and her speech was impacted."

Voiceitt was launched as an app in 2021 and operated as a simple vocal translator, converting non-standard speech to audio. The AI is trained by the user recording themselves saying around 200 simple stock phrases.

Smolley said the original idea was to facilitate in-person communication, but the technology has now also been tailored to remote workers.

Voiceitt has developed integrations with WebEx and ChatGPT, along with a Google Chrome extension, which convert non-standard speech to captions shown on the screen. The company is also partnering with Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

"One of the things that really stood out to me was the importance of accessibility technology in the workplace," Smolley noted. "What a (wheelchair) ramp was to yesterday’s office building Voiceitt is to today’s remote workplace," she said.

The software is sold as either a per-minute or per-user license, kraken market with prices ranging from $20 to $50. Licenses can be bought in bulk for workplaces and health or education institutions.

"People are using Voiceitt not just for video meetings, but for writing documents, emails, posting on LinkedIn and accessing web browsers by voice," Smolley explained. "This has opened up the digital world for individuals who previously might not have been considered for certain jobs or able to communicate with colleagues or customers."