Developing a Bilingual Voice Assistant

Author(s): Deepak Krishnamurthy

Originally published on Towards AI.

Exploring ways to make voice assistants more personal

Google Nest, Alexa and Siri are the ubiquitous voice assistants that serve most of the internet connected population today. For the most part, English is the dominant language used with these voice assistants. However, for a voice assistant to be truly helpful, it must be able to understand the user as they naturally speak. In many parts of the world, especially in a diverse country like India, it is common for people to be multilingual and to switch between multiple languages in a single conversation. A truly smart assistant should be able to handle this.

The article discusses the development of a bilingual voice assistant that can effectively understand and respond in English and Tamil. It outlines the limitations of existing voice assistants in supporting multiple languages, particularly focusing on the challenges of linguistic switching in multilingual societies. The author presents an innovative approach utilizing a confidence score algorithm to determine the spoken language dynamically, allowing the assistant to adapt based on the user’s speech. Ultimately, this method aims to enhance the user experience by facilitating seamless conversations in the user’s preferred language.

Read the full blog for free on Medium.

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Published via Towards AI