Speak With Me partners with Renovo to bring voice and emotion recognition to autonomous vehicles

Aug 2, 2018, 3:13 pm EDT | Stephen Mayhew

Speak With Me partners with Renovo to bring voice and emotion recognition to autonomous vehicles

Conversational AI company Speak With Me has partnered with self-driving car software startup Renovo to bring its voice recognition and emotion detection capabilities to the AWare OS for autonomous vehicles, VentureBeat reports.

Voice recognition from Speak With Me can run online, offline, or in a patented hybrid server architecture which preserves the reliability of interactions regardless of internet speed and preserves user privacy, the company says. The software takes context, historical interactions, and personalization into account to respond to commands. It will be integrated with Renovo’s automated driving system, route management system, passenger management, fleet operations, remote teleoperation, commerce, and advertising services.

“Speak With Me is a leading creator of cognitive and conversational AI technology, and we are delighted they have joined the AWare ecosystem,” said Renovo CEO and Co-founder Chris Heiser. “Commercial Automated Mobility deployments must be passenger-centric, and conversational interactivity is a key interface. Speak With Me is a powerful addition to the AWare ecosystem and is now available to fleet operators who have already or are deploying services using AWare.”

VentureBeat notes that Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and Toyota have already made voice control available in some vehicles.

Renovo has already integrated AWare OS with Samsung, Verizon, Velodyne, Parsons, Phantom Auto, Metamoto, and Bestmile products, and announced a partnership earlier this year to integrate the operating system into autonomous taxis from Voyage.

“We share Renovo’s vision of an open, interoperable, on-demand ecosystem where best-in-class technologies combine to foster innovation and bring about automated mobility safely, quickly, and economically,” Speak With Me founder and CEO Ajay Juneja said in a statement. “This helps get Speak With Me’s technology into more automated vehicle cabins faster, interacting with passengers and other services in innovative ways.”

The market for biometric technology in the auto industry is expected to grow by 12 percent CAGR to $1.13 billion in 2024, according to Allied Market Research.