Voice tech moves into two-way conversations and music space

2016 seems to be the year that voice recognition technology moves from merely giving commands to having two-way conversations with devices. Tech-heads have every reason to be excited at new possibilities – and music fans could see their interactions become simpler and more focussed.

Last week, Google’s I/O developer’s conference in Mountain View, California, unveiled voice-activation technology along with virtual reality. During his keynote address, CEO Sundar Pichai declared, “We want users to have an ongoing, two-way dialogue.”

He introduced Google’s new artificially intelligent Assistant, which can be used on all devices when launched later this year.

Apple’s Siri and Amazon Echo got there first. But the Assistant, the size of a small speaker, is integrated into Google Home. It can play or stream music on command. It can also do other “home” things like ordering a taxi, activating an alarm, compiling a shopping list or lowering the heat or lights in the music room.

It was inevitable that Google would move into voice recognition; according to Pichai, half its search engine’s queries are made from mobiles, and a fifth of these via voice activation.

The biggest game changer for music fans is from the Santa Clara, California-based SoundHound Inc., a leading innovator in sound recognition and voice search technologies. It’s made its SoundHound app – one of the most downloaded music apps, with 300 million global users and used by artists and fans to interact directly – a hands-free experience.

Users no longer have to tap or swipe SoundHound. They just have to say “OK Hound!” to initiate music searches, play music and videos from YouTube, access deep music knowledge, launch a Pandora station, and even add a song to their Spotify playlist. It expects this technology update to increase music consumption.

“We are creating a future where we speak naturally to connected devices, starting with our mobile phones and the apps we love,” said Katie McMahon, Vice President and General Manager of SoundHound Inc. “By incorporating ‘OK Hound’ within the SoundHound music app, we bring the power and elegance of our speech-to-meaning technology to our music fans who can now search, discover, play music and videos, and even build playlists, by simply speaking.”

The latest voice technology also allows music fans to have a wider conversation with devices. For instance, they can command, “Play my Foo Fighters playlist” and also add, “But take out the ballads.”

Apple has made its Siri more compatible with Apple TV and adding features on Apple Music including the ability to shuffle or add tracks to playlists or skip songs during playback.

The original creators of Siri have come up with Viv, which has created such a buzz that Google and Facebook have both made overtures to buy it.

Microsoft is working on, but keeping mum about, a rival to Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa and Viv with the Bing Concierge Bot. It is not known whether it will be a standalone app or embedded into one of Microsoft’s existing services.

Sonos, which is already compatible with every major streaming service, is restructuring its staff, to pursue voice recognition for its products. It’s not known whether it plans to develop its own technology or licence it.