March 2021 Summaries

The future of contact centers is expected to be significantly enhanced by the integration of real-time AI. Currently, 60% of contact centers use or plan to use AI in the next year, focusing on improving customer service and productivity. However, some companies are hesitant due to concerns about implementation costs and technical challenges. Despite these obstacles, it is believed that AI has matured enough to be a valuable tool for businesses. The future contact center will likely involve chatbots and virtual agents handling the majority of customer interactions, with human agents only dealing with complex or difficult issues. This approach can lead to cost savings, increased agent satisfaction, and improved customer experience through faster issue resolution and shorter wait times.

A new data report by Deepgram and Opus Research reveals that while companies are investing in Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), they are not fully utilizing its potential for growth. The study, which surveyed 400 North American decision-makers across various industries, found that ASR is mainly used for operational efficiency, compliance, and regulatory mandates. However, there is a growing appetite for innovation-focused use cases where speech data can be leveraged for real-time analytics, virtual assistants, market research, etc. The report also highlights that while 88% of respondents are using ASR to transcribe or analyze spoken content, two-thirds say they are significantly underutilizing their audio. Despite this, the majority of companies plan to increase their investment in ASR in 2021, recognizing its importance for their future strategy. The pandemic has accelerated ASR adoption, with 80% of respondents listing COVID-19 as a top reason for speeding up implementation. Deepgram believes that voice data presents enterprises with significant opportunities to gain insights into their business, customers, and markets, and is committed to helping companies unlock the potential hidden within their voice data.

Testing Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) providers is crucial when making a buying decision for your business. First, identify your priorities and consider features such as speed, multi-channel support, speaker separation, and deep search capabilities. To effectively test ASR providers, follow these steps: 1) Select 50 representative audio files from your company's data; 2) Send the same clips to each speech vendor for API testing; 3) Normalize text outputs for comparison; 4) Perform a Word Error Rate (WER) analysis on the files; and 5) Create visual representations of errors. Consider other variables like accuracy improvements with keywords, libraries, reprogramming, and custom training before making pricing conversations and decisions for your business.

The 2021 State of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) report highlights the significance of ASR technology for enterprises and its potential impact on their future strategies. According to the report, 85% of enterprises consider ASR important or very important in their planning. This underscores the growing importance of voice recognition technology in various industries.