SoundHound and Honda Partner on Development of a Voice-Enabled AI Assistant

October 29 2018, 01:10
SoundHound Inc., the voice-enabled AI and conversational intelligence technology company, announced a strategic partnership with Honda Motor to accelerate the development of a voice-enabled AI assistant. Using SoundHound's Houndify Voice AI Platform, the AI Assistant will support highly sophisticated and natural interactions with speed and accuracy, leveraging its proprietary Speech-to-Meaning and Deep Meaning Understanding technologies, and intelligence in voice recognition and understanding. 
 

SoundHound’s Houndify voice and conversational AI platform has distinctive advantages including the ability to support natural interactions. Houndify understands complicated queries and context, such as the user's location, previous queries, and compound criteria including exclusion. In addition, SoundHound's Collective AI architecture allows partners to have complete control of the user experience and their own innovation, while benefiting from Houndify’s growing developer ecosystem.
 

“Our Houndify Collective AI is a natural fit for automotive brands that aim to provide voice AI to drivers while differentiating, innovating and retaining ownership of their brands,” says Keyvan Mohajer, co-founder and CEO of SoundHound Inc. “We are thrilled to partner with Honda to further enhance the driving experience with the fastest and most accurate voice and AI technology on the market.”

SoundHound Inc. has been collaborating with Honda through Honda Xcelerator, the open innovation program that facilitates collaboration with startups, led by Honda Innovations. The program helped nurture and solidify the partnership between the two companies, leading to Houndify being chosen as the solution based on its technological differentiators and aligned AI strategies.
 

In May 2018, SoundHound announced an alliance with a group of strategic investors, with a combined reach of over 2 billion users globally. The alliance includes Tencent, Daimler, Hyundai, Midea Group, and Orange. These companies join SoundHound Inc.’s existing list of strategic investors including Samsung, NVIDIA, KT Corporation, HTC, NAVER, LINE, Nomura, Sompo Japan Nipponkoa, and Recruit. More than 60,000 partners have registered on the Houndify platform with many products integrating Houndify, including Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Peugeot, Citroën, DS, Opel, Vauxhall, Nvidia (cars), Samsung (IoT platforms), Onkyo (speakers), Motorola (phones) and more.

SoundHound is using the new funding to drive adoption and distribution of its Houndify voice AI platform across verticals including automotive, Internet of Things, consumer products, and enterprise apps and services. The company is also opening new offices in China, France and Germany, in addition to furthering momentum in the US, Japan, and South Korea.

The Houndify platform’s Collective AI architecture already provides access to knowledge and data from Yelp, Uber and Expedia, as well as over 100 other domains such as weather, stocks, sports, local businesses, flights, hotels, mortgage, and even interactive games. The platform also provides a large number of domains specifically targeted for the automotive industry. Houndify is featured in SoundHound Inc.’s mobile apps: Hound, the voice search & assistant app, and SoundHound, the music search, discovery and play app, making them hands-free and voice interface-enabled. Houndify supports other technology and service providers to make their offerings available to its large and growing developer community, such as its partnerships with Acapela Group and SELVAS AI, both of which allow users to incorporate more than 32 distinct text-to-speech solutions, in multiple languages, into their products or services.
SoundHound.com/HoundHoundify.com
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