The acquisition of a voice artificial intelligence company will allow the company to expand its reach in audio technology, as well as other potential business opportunities. The company announced today that it is acquiring Sonantic, a London-based startup that has built an artificial intelligence engine to create very realistic-sounding, yet simulated human voices from text.
You might have seen Sonantic's work if you don't know it. The company was founded to build artificial intelligence-based realistic voice services for gaming and entertainment environments. In real life, the actor is unable to speak as he did in the past as a result of throat cancer, so for the sequel where he reprised his role as a foil to Tom Cruise, his condition, and the simulation voice Sonantic created, were both.
The financial terms of the deal are not being made public. Sonantic had raised less than $3 million in funding from an interesting group of investors.
It is not clear if the acquisition came out of the startup looking for more funding or if it came out of the success of the film exposure.
A spokesman said that they had been aware of Sonantic's technology for a long time. The Sonantic team will sit inside of the Consumer and Platform BU in the Personalization Mission led by Ziad Sultan, who is VP of personalization atSpotify.
Sultan said that they were excited about the potential to bring Sonantic's voice technology onto the platform. It will allow us to engage users in a more personalized way.
From the looks of it, the most immediate applications for using the tech will be on the platform itself, as it expands its reach further into new environments where consumers can't immerse themselves.
One example of how the tech could be used is to use artificial intelligence to bring more audio-based recommendations and descriptions to users who are not looking at their screens, for example, for those driving cars or listening while doing other activities and not able to look at a screen.
High-quality voice will be important to growing our share of listening.
What is interesting to think about is what the future holds for Sonantic's existing operations, which are focused more on B2B. When the company last announced funding, we noted that it had 10 R&D partnerships in place with AAA gaming studios, and that it is a regular presence at events such as the Game Developers Conference.
As far as Sonantic's business relationships are concerned, it's business as usual.
It's an interesting piece of tech that could be used in a lot of other applications.
There is potential for using what Sonantic has built to develop tools that creators could use, either to make or produce music.
The idea of continuing Sonantic's relationships with gaming and entertainment studios is a new front for the company in how it diversifies its own business with more enterprise-facing, B2B products.
The co- founders of Sonantic say they are looking forward to joining the streaming service. We believe in the power voice and know we can be better than ever on the largest audio platform.
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