Canary Speech, maker of speech evaluation software program, is partnering with Microsoft to use the tech large’s AI expertise to increase its machine studying speech fashions for healthcare.
Canary provides vocal biomarker expertise that captures and analyzes knowledge to find out whether or not irregularities exist inside a person’s speech. The corporate touts its expertise as having the ability to detect temper, stress and vitality ranges previous to medical screenings, and earlier than signs are noticeable. It additionally says it could probably improve telemedicine and distant medical providers.
Via the collaboration, Canary will probably be a Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare co-sell accomplice and make use of Microsoft’s AI to speed up speech evaluation expertise to scale back healthcare prices, handle psychological well being challenges and scale distant affected person monitoring options.
The corporate will even make the most of Microsoft Azure to increase its machine studying speech fashions to new prospects, and Canary’s API platform has been built-in into Microsoft Groups.Â
“AI helps to empower healthcare suppliers by automating duties, reworking unstructured types of knowledge into structured codecs, gleaning affected person insights, and supporting clinicians in delivering personalised affected person care,” Dr. David Rhew, world chief medical officer and vice chairman of healthcare at Microsoft, mentioned in an announcement.Â
“Canary Speech is making use of AI to allow voice to function a biometric, which might probably support within the screening and monitoring of medical circumstances. We’re happy to work with Canary to assist rework care by means of AI expertise that may make a constructive impression on the business and affected person outcomes.”
THE LARGER TREND
Microsoft has made waves within the healthcare business with its AI expertise.
Final yr, the tech large acquired Nuance Communications, which gives AI and speech recognition software program, for round $16 billion. It additionally made significant investments in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, in addition to GPT-4, its successor.Â
OpenAI revealed the newest iteration, GPT-4, in March. That very same month, Microsoft’s Nuance Communications introduced a brand new medical documentation instrument, Dragon Ambient eXperience Specific, that makes use of the newest model of OpenAI’s synthetic intelligence language mannequin, GPT-4.Â
DAX Specific drafts medical notes inside seconds from conversations with sufferers performed by means of telehealth or in particular person. The product builds off its DAX documentation product that launched in 2020.Â
Microsoft additionally makes use of AI for speech recognition in different initiatives, together with by way of a coalition with tech giants Amazon, Meta, Apple and Google, and with nonprofit companions.Â
In October, the companions introduced a collaboration with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to increase speech capabilities for these with disabilities by way of the Speech Accessibility Project, which might gather speech samples from people with various speech patterns to assist practice machine studying fashions to determine numerous speech patterns.