Accenture and CereProc Introduce and Open Source the World's First Comprehensive Non-Binary Voice Solution
Accenture (NYSE: ACN) 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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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.