Speech recognition comes of age in the Middle East

Emerging Technologies is the company behind the voice recognition directory announced by Etisalat earlier this week at MECOM, and its CEO, Sassine Mazraani believes intuitive speech recognition has reached such an advanced stage that it is ready to help improve the way companies do business.

"Calling 181 for directory enquiries and having to push numbers and codes for different functions is being superseded by speech recognition activities," Mazraani told MECOM Daily. "Ours is a human-like interface, and what this does is help companies offer customers what they want in a very efficient manner, which is a win-win proposition for both parties."

Emerging Technologies is the first UAE software application developer of bilingual speech recognition solutions. It develops and deploys self-service speech applications for specific business needs that closely simulate human-to-human interface.

With Emerging Technologies' voice enabled solutions, people can use their natural language to make telephone calls and speak to computer systems, bringing an end to the frustration of the touch-tone menu systems. Callers can make bank enquiries, acquire travel information and reservations, receive stock quotes and trade, enquire traffic fines and pay, find businesses, send and receive emails using a phone from anywhere at any time.

Emerging Technologies has built its reputation by delivering successful bilingual voice portals to automate informational and transactional calls with enhanced security using voice biometric. Today, many businesses depend on its voice solutions and thousands of calls are being automated every day.

"We are a true company of the region, looking to resolve issues within the region and our work in enhancing Arabic speech recognition, for example, is a testament to that," said Mazraani.