Swiss startup unveils ‘world’s first’ AI translation service

The startup claims to have launched the world’s first AI speech translation system.

This tool, called Aivia, was developed by Interpreta provider of translation services based in Zurich. The company focuses on the interpretation of conferences and events, a market booming due to globalization.

Understanding can become more difficult as interactions spread across borders.English is the language of international business, but it is presumed 17% of the worldThe rest are often left out of the conversation.

Interprefy offers a way to remove this language barrier, and the demand seems to be strong. Interprefy says it has supported more than 50,000 meetings in the eight years since the company was founded.they range from remote press conference at euro 2020 soccer tournament to Interview with an astronaut on the International Space Station.

Aivia was designed to grow this customer base. With the push of a button, the service converts audio into speech and captions in real time.Interpret that is The first ever advanced automatic speech translation service for online and live events.

“Many organizations and events do not have the budget to book professional interpreters.

Interprefy CEO Oddmund Braaten has grand ambitions for Aivia.He hopes to eventually make simultaneous translation widely accessible.

“Over the past eight years, our remote interpretation technology has gone a long way in democratizing access to these services and has been widely adopted, especially during Covid times,” Braaten told TNW.

“However, we have still seen many organizations and events that lack the budget to book professional interpreters. We have developed a service that offers flexibility and support.”

Braaten is bullish about the results.he believes Ivia is The most accurate and flexible AI voice translator on the market.

Under the hood, Aivia integrates three major AI technologies: automatic speech recognition, machine translation, and synthetic speech generation.

Built by Interprefy to enhance their output A benchmarking toolkit for evaluating the best AI for all language combinations. The company also uses a glossary extractor tool to further customize Aivia for each event. This will prime your system with relevant keywords and hard-to-find names or abbreviations from relevant content.

according to Braten, this This approach addresses two drawbacks: Real-time speech translation: inconsistent results and the needs of event organizers.

“We believe we have solved both issues,” he says. “We have been supporting events of all shapes and sizes for nearly a decade, so we have the expertise to support event organizers hands-on. We have also built a solution that can use only the highest performing AI technologies.”

Initially, Aivia will be available in 24 languages ​​and regional accents.Both in-person audiences and platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and ON24 can use the service

Interprefy plans to add more languages In the near future—and for good reason. World wide, estimated 30% of internet users use an online translation tool every week but use real-time voice translation remains an issueAivia offers a new solution to this problem.

Aivia comes amid rapid advances in AI translation.Last year, an Italian interpreting company predicted Machines will surpass human translation by the end of the decade.

Naturally, progress raises concerns about the future prospects of the profession. Braaten argues that AI and humans can play complementary roles.

Only a skilled linguist can translate the subtleties of context, tone, humor and idioms, he says. Additionally, they are the only secure option for sensitive content.

“Interpreters not only have the unique ability to adapt their translations to any scenario, but they can also paraphrase and interpret unspoken information, such as body language and tone of voice,” says Braaten. say.

“These are qualities that AI cannot mimic, and are especially important in higher-level communications such as board meetings, legal meetings, and diplomatic conversations.”

AI, on the other hand, is less nuanced and better suited for low-risk situations. In these scenarios, machine translation can offer a more affordable and practical alternative.

However, for live events and conferences, simultaneous interpretation remains a niche service. Braaten hopes that Aivia’s accessibility will change that.