Talking and Listening To The Conversant(R) 1 Voice System
01 January 1987
Machines that talk and listen to people: The idea is simple enough, but formidable technical problems have blocked their practical development. Now, AT&T's CONVERSANT(R) 1 Voice System is a commercial reality. It incorporated the latest advances in speech technology to code, synthesize, recognize, and verify speech. Initial applications include routing incoming phone calls, scheduling and placing outgoing calls, handling routine information requests, processing voice mail, making access secure by voice, home shopping and order entry, college registration, and financial services. This article describes the system, how it operates, and how it can automate many of the database-inquiry and data-entry jobs done by pools of telephone attendants.