AI-powered tech could help people with speech impairments to work remotely

The startup has created software to help people with non-standard speech use their voices with tools like Webex and ChatGPT.

You’ve probably experienced the frustration of being misheard or misunderstood by a smart speaker or AI assistant. For people with non-standard speech, it can happen in nearly every interaction with this kind of technology — Israeli company Voiceitt aims to change that. By using personalized voice models, its AI-powered speech recognition system helps people with speech impairments, caused by conditions like cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s, Down Syndrome or stroke, communicate more effectively with both people and digital devices. For Voiceitt co-founder Sara Smolley, facilitating speech recognition for non-standard speech patterns is a personal mission. “My grandmother was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease,” she said. “By the time I was born, she had lost most of her motor capabilities, and her speech was impacted.” Voiceitt was launched as an app in 2021 and operated as a simple vocal translator, converting non-standard speech to audio. The AI is trained by the user recording themselves saying around 200 simple stock phrases. Smolley said the original idea was to facilitate in-person communication, but the technology has now also been tailored to remote workers.