Speechmatics Explained

Speechmatics Ltd
Type:Privately held company
Area Served:Global
Industry:Speech recognition
Products:Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Cloud-based ASR, Speech-to-text, Autonomous Speech Recognition
Num Employees:100-250
Founder:Tony Robinson
Key People:Katy Wigdahl (CEO)
Num Locations:Cambridge, UK, London, UK, Chennai, India, Brno, Czech Republic
Foundation:2006
Location:Cambridge, UK

`Speechmatics is a technology company based in Cambridge, England, which develops automatic speech recognition software (ASR) based on recurrent neural networks and statistical language modelling. Speechmatics was originally named Cantab Research Ltd when founded in 2006 by speech recognition specialist Dr. Tony Robinson.[1] [2]

Speechmatics Ltd became the trading name of Cantab Research Ltd in 2012 when the company commercialized.[3] Speechmatics offers its speech recognition for solution and service providers to integrate into their stack regardless of their industry or use case.[4] Businesses use Speechmatics to understand and transcribe human-level speech into text regardless of any gender or demographic barrier. The technology can be deployed on-premises and in public and private cloud.[5] [6]

History

Speechmatics was founded in 2006 by Tony Robinson who pioneered in the application of recurrent neural networks to speech recognition.[7] [8] [9] He was one of the early people who has discovered the practical capabilities of deep neural networks and how they can be used to benefit speech recognition.[10] In 2012, Cantab Research Ltd commercialized its speech recognition product and started selling the technology to customers as Speechmatics Ltd.[11]

In 2014, the company led the development of a billion-word text corpus for measuring progress in statistical language modelling and placed the corpus into the public domain to help accelerate the development of speech recognition technology.[12]

In 2017, the company announced they had developed a new computational method for creating new language models at speed.[13] Around the same time Speechmatics announced a partnership with Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) to develop advanced Arabic speech to text services.[14]

In 2018, Speechmatics became the first ASR provider to develop a Global English language pack which incorporates all dialects and accents of English into one single model.[15]

In 2019, the company raised £6.35 million in venture capital investment in a Series A funding round.[16] With investment from Albion Venture Capital, IQ Capital, and Amadeus Capital Partners, Speechmatics were able to scale into a fast-growth technology start-up. In the same year, the company wins a Queen's Award for Innovation.[17] [18]

In 2020, Speechmatics began scaling beyond its product development and into physical geographic locations. The company opened offices in Brno, Czech Republic, Denver, USA and Chennai, India.[19] [11]

In March 2021, Speechmatics announced its launch on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace to offer any-context speech recognition technology at scale. The ability to consume Speechmatics’ speech recognition engine directly in the Microsoft Azure technology stack enables businesses to start using the technology quickly without barriers to adoption.[20]

In December 2021, Speechmatics and consumer AI startup Personal.ai announced their partnership to offer individuals a personal AI that empower them to never forget their conversations, spoken notes, reminders, details of what they said during a meeting, and more — no matter the dialect of English that they use or accent that they carry.[21]

Product and services

In February 2018, Speechmatics launched Global English, a single English language pack supporting all major English accents for use in speech-to-text transcription. Global English (GE) was trained through spoken data by users from 40 countries and billions of words drawn from global sources, making it comprehensive and accurate accent-agnostic transcription solutions on the market.[22] [23]

In November 2020, the company launched the first Global Spanish language pack on the market that supports all major Spanish accents. Global Spanish (GS) is a single Spanish language pack trained on data drawn across a wide range of diverse sources – specifically those from Latin America – making it the most accurate and comprehensive accent-independent Spanish language pack for speech-to-text.[24]

In October 2021, Speechmatics launched its ‘Autonomous Speech Recognition’ software.[25] [26] Using the latest techniques in deep learning and with the introduction of its breakthrough self-supervised models, Speechmatics outperforms Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft in the company's latest step towards its mission to understand all voices.[27] [28]

Awards and recognition

Speechmatics was named in the FT 1000: Europe's Fastest Growing Companies list for consecutive four years from 2019 to 2022.[29] [30]

In 2018, the company won SME National Business Awards in High Growth Business of the Year.[31]

In 2019, Speechmatics won 2019 Queen's Award for Enterprise in Innovation category.[32] [33]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Clawson. Trevor. Finding A Voice - Can A UK Startup Compete With IT's Heavy Hitters In The Speech Recognition Market. Forbes. 17 May 2018.
  2. Research. QY. Global Speech and Voice Recognition Market Research Report 2018. QY Research Reoprts. April 2018. 118. 17 May 2018.
  3. News: New vision as Speechmatics moves into Science Park site . 22 March 2022 . Cambridge Independent . 18 March 2020 . en.
  4. News: Cooper . Lanna . Shaping the future of speech recognition . 22 March 2022 . Startups Magazine . en.
  5. News: Speechmatics pushes forward recognition of accented English . 22 March 2022 . TechCrunch.
  6. News: Turner . Brian . Best speech-to-text software in 2022: Free, paid and online voice recognition apps and services . 22 March 2022 . TechRadar India . 29 September 2021 . en.
  7. Robinson. Tony. Fallside. Frank. A recurrent error propagation network speech recognition system. Computer Speech and Language. July 1991. 5. 3. 259–274. 10.1016/0885-2308(91)90010-N.
  8. Book: Robinson. Tony. Automatic Speech and Speaker Recognition. The Use of Recurrent Neural Networks in Continuous Speech Recognition. 1996. 355. 233–258. 10.1007/978-1-4613-1367-0_10. The Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science. 978-1-4612-8590-8. 10.1.1.364.7237.
  9. News: Wakefield. Jane. 14 March 2008. Speech recognition moves to text. en-GB. BBC News. 24 August 2020.
  10. Robinson. Tony. A neural network based, speaker independent, large vocabulary, continuous speech recognition system: the WERNICKE project. Third European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology. September 1993. 1. 1941–1944. 17 May 2018.
  11. News: Ohr . Thomas . Cambridge-based Speechmatics raises €7.4 million for the global expansion of its speech recognition technology . EU-Startups . 21 October 2019.
  12. Chelba. Ciprian. Mikolov. Tomas. One billion word benchmark for measuring progress in statistical language modeling. Interspeech. March 2014. 1312.3005. 2013arXiv1312.3005C.
  13. Web site: Orlowski. Andrew. Total recog: British AI makes universal speech breakthrough.. The Register. Situation Publishing. 17 May 2018.
  14. Web site: Erdagami. Ahmed. QCRI in deal with UK's Speechmatics to take Arabic transcription technology global. Qatar is Booming. ME Business Wire. 17 May 2018.
  15. News: Speechmatics Improves Language Recognition Accuracy with Next Generation Update . 22 March 2022 . audioXpress . en.
  16. News: Speechmatics raises £6.35m Series A . 22 March 2022 . UK Tech News . 21 October 2019.
  17. News: Speechmatics’ Queen’s Award honours translation at its best . 22 March 2022 . Cambridge Independent . 25 September 2019 . en.
  18. News: Eight Cambridge life science and technology companies win Queen’s Awards Business Weekly Technology News Business news Cambridge and the East of England . 22 March 2022 . www.businessweekly.co.uk.
  19. News: Live Chennai: Speechmatics adds Chennai office as part of global expansion plans, Speechmatics, Speech Therapy, Second International Office in Chennai, Hive Collaborative Workspaces . 22 March 2022 . www.livechennai.com.
  20. News: Team . EBM ADMIN . Speechmatics launches on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace to offer any-context speech recognition technology at scale . 4 April 2022 . European Business Magazine . 24 March 2021.
  21. News: McFarl . Alex . Speechmatics Partners With Personal.ai to Capture Voice Memories . 4 April 2022 . Unite.AI . 10 December 2021.
  22. News: Speechmatics Launches Global English, an Accent-agnostic Language Pack for Speech-to-text Transcription . 22 March 2022 . www.bloomberg.com . 20 February 2018.
  23. News: Turner . Brian . Best speech-to-text software in 2022: Free, paid and online voice recognition apps and services . 22 March 2022 . TechRadar . 29 September 2021 . en.
  24. News: Speechmatics launches industry-first Global Spanish language pack for automatic speech-to-text transcription at scale Cambridge Network . 22 March 2022 . www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk.
  25. News: Coldewey . Devin . Speechmatics pushes forward recognition of accented English . 22 March 2022 . TechCrunch.
  26. News: McFarl . Alex . Speechmatics Launches Autonomous Speech Recognition Software . 22 March 2022 . Unite.AI . 26 October 2021.
  27. News: How Speechmatics is leading the way in tackling AI bias . 22 March 2022 . Information Age . 28 October 2021 . en.
  28. News: Burt . Chris . Speechmatics says dramatic speech recognition bias reduced with unlabelled training data Biometric Update . 22 March 2022 . www.biometricupdate.com . 27 October 2021.
  29. Web site: FT 1000: the sixth annual list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies . 4 April 2022 . 1 March 2022.
  30. News: Smith . Ian . The FT 1000: third annual list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies . 4 April 2022 . Financial Times . 1 March 2019.
  31. News: City successes at SME national awards 2018 . 4 April 2022 . Cambridge Independent . 19 December 2018 . en.
  32. News: Speechmatics recognised with prestigious Queen's Award Cambridge Network . 4 April 2022 . www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk.
  33. Web site: Cambridge Independent: Speechmatics’ Queen’s Award honours innovation at its best - News & insight . Cambridge Judge Business School . 4 April 2022 . 18 September 2019.

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