SoundHound AI’s Voice Assistant in Full Production with Stellantis DS Automobiles; In-Car Usage Surges

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By Business Wire On Feb 23, 2024

SoundHound Chat AI voice assistant already piloting with several brands and goes into full production with DS automobiles next month

SoundHound AI, Inc., a global leader in voice artificial intelligence, announced that its voice assistant with integrated ChatGPT will be the first to go into full production with an international automaker. SoundHound Chat AI for Automotive was the first generative AI-enabled in-vehicle voice assistant on the market in April 2023, and will be available in Stellantis DS Automobiles starting next month, less than a year later.

“This is a world first, made possible by our exceptional voice AI technology that integrates seamlessly with ChatGPT, or any other generative AI model”

Following a successful pilot with DS vehicles in the UK, Spain, France, Germany, and Italy, the automaker will now make its SoundHound Chat AI-powered assistant, Iris, available in thirteen languages across eighteen countries. The most sophisticated assistant available today, Iris can respond to a vast range of questions from hundreds of real-time domains, as well as large language models like ChatGPT.

This new technology ultimately allows drivers and passengers to use hands-free voice control to unlock a vast range of information and updates – whether that’s for planning a trip, opening the sunroof, asking for the sports scores, making a call, or accessing parking information from their destination.

The SoundHound system also uses a proprietary approach to massively reduce the risk of “AI hallucinations” – misleading and unpredictable responses often associated with some large language models (LLMs).

“This is a world first, made possible by our exceptional voice AI technology that integrates seamlessly with ChatGPT, or any other generative AI model,” said Keyvan Mohajer, CEO and Co-Founder of SoundHound AI. “In piloting SoundHound Chat AI with automakers, we’ve been blown away by consumer enthusiasm as demonstrated by the huge increase in engagement with the voice assistant. We believe the potential use cases are endless.”

First data shows huge increase in usage

SoundHound AI has now piloted this technology across a range of high profile OEM brands, and has found that adding generative AI capabilities to in-vehicle voice assistants hugely increases the frequency with which drivers and passengers use them – with DS Automobiles reporting an increase of over 50%.

Alongside more familiar requests, like navigation, texting, and weather updates, voice assistants with integrated generative AI further help drivers by answering questions like:

What’s the typical weather in Normandy in March?
What are fun things to do there in the rain?
Tell me about the best museum around there?
Navigate me to the museum you just recommended

This enthusiasm for ChatGPT-like functionality bears out the findings of SoundHound AI’s 2023 driver survey, where 50% of all regular drivers responded to say they were likely to use it.

How it works

SoundHound Chat AI platform can integrate with any third party generative AI model to create a seamless conversational experience. It keeps the conversation going, providing fast, accurate responses to queries without frustrating results (“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that”). It does this using proprietary technology that intelligently selects the correct response from the most appropriate domain – whether that’s a ChatGPT-powered answer, or the kind of response that large language models can’t handle, like real-time questions about weather, sports, stock, and flight status.

With the launch of SoundHound Chat AI, SoundHound unveiled its proprietary approach, which uses software engineering technology named CaiLAN (Conversational AI Language) and machine learning technology named CaiNet (Conversational AI Network) to ensure fast, accurate, and appropriate responses. The former, deploys software engineering to efficiently build knowledge domains (like weather, restaurants, traffic, and local search), while the latter uses machine learning to better understand queries and provide the right responses. CaiNET can connect to SoundHound’s internal models as well as external models such as OpenAI’s GPT, among others. CaiLAN controls and arbitrates the results to provide the best response to the user.

SoundHound AI + global automakers

SoundHound AI continues to expand its existing customer base, which has attracted over 25 car brands in just seven years. The automotive brands that have chosen SoundHound’s solutions represent roughly 25% of all the units produced in the world today.

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