Krisp launches new AI feature
Krisp launches an AI feature to change accents during calls, starting with Indian English to American English. The feature is in beta and promises improvements over time.
Krisp, an audio startup, announced the launch of a new feature that uses artificial intelligence to change users' accents during calls. Initially, support will be available for changing Indian English accents to American English. This innovation was developed to improve understanding among people who speak English with different accents.
The accent conversion process preserves the speaker's original voice, changing only the phonemes to match American accents. The feature has been tested in enterprise environments, and a beta version is now available in the Krisp desktop app. Users can activate the feature at any time during or before calls.
Arto Minasyan, the company's co-founder, explained that the idea stemmed from a personal issue: "Many people don’t understand my accent even though I speak English well. We thought changing accents might help people understand each other better. We started working on this problem two years ago and now we are releasing it in beta." However, during a test, the processed voice did not sound natural and missed some words. The company attributed these faults to being a beta release, promising improvements over time.
Krisp claimed that during tests with enterprises, sales conversion rates rose by 26.1% and revenue per book increased by 14.8%. The decision to work on Indian accents first was due to the fact that people from this country account for a large portion of the global workforce in STEM fields. Plans are also in place to add support for other accents, including Filipino. Other startups, such as GV-backed Sanas, have deployed similar technology in call centers at scale.
The company trained the model on thousands of speech samples covering different accents and dialects, using data from its meeting assistant after obtaining user consent. Another advantage of the feature is that it does not require any pre-training on a user's voice, creating a profile for the speaker in real time. Krisp, which last raised capital in 2021, plans to release iOS and Android apps this year to support in-person meetings. A new Chrome extension for better integration with Google Meet is also in the works.
