Accenture collaborated with CereProc, a text-to-speech technology provider, to create Sam, the world’s first comprehensive non-binary voice solution for the fast-growing global digital assistant market. To encourage adoption, the companies have released all the materials used to generate the voice to the Open Source community.
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“While gender-neutral voice samples have been released previously, Sam is the first non-binary AI-based digital voice solution that can be embedded into any software solution to speak text in a human-sounding voice”
This year, consumers interacted with 4.2 billion digital voice assistants around the world, and that number is expected to double to 8.4 billion devices by 2024, according to a report by Juniper Research. The vast majority of today’s device voices are female, or female by default, and this limited diversity is problematic. A 2019 UNESCO report found that designing female-only voice assistants reinforces gender bias and encourages negative behavior, both with digital assistants and with real people. Additionally, voices available today are binary and do not reflect the transgender or gender non-conforming community, which represents 12% of millennials.
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To help address these issues, researchers at Accenture Labs worked closely with members of the non-binary community on the development of Sam’s voice. Accenture surveyed non-binary individuals and used their feedback and audio data to influence not only pitch, but speech patterns, intonation, and word choice. CereProc then created the text-to-speech model using its artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The result is a voice that combines aspects of male and female voices to better resonate with the community it was designed to represent.
“While gender-neutral voice samples have been released previously, Sam is the first non-binary AI-based digital voice solution that can be embedded into any software solution to speak text in a human-sounding voice,” said Marc Carrel-Billiard, senior managing director and Technology Innovation lead at Accenture. “This work is a great example of how technology and human creativity can come together and spark a moment of societal change that can benefit many people. We believe it’s essential that voice assistants more accurately represent the diversity of our global population.”
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