Microsoft India on Tuesday announced the addition of English (India) and Hindi to its Neural Text to Speech (Neural TTS) service language set.
The Neural TTS service is part of the Azure Cognitive Services. The AI-enabled service helps convert “ text to lifelike speech for a more natural interface.”
“The two Indian languages are among the 15 new dialects added to the service enabled with state-of-the-art AI audio quality. Neural TTS is a part of the and converts. The service also provides customizable voices, fine-tuned auto control, and flexible deployment from cloud to edge,” Microsoft said in its official release.
Neural TTS helps users interact with AI systems such as voice assistants by adding natural-sounding speech.
The service can be sued by organizations to build AI solutions for customer interactions. India’s online business-to-business (B2B) marketplace Udaan is currently using Azure’s Text to Speech to develop conversational interfaces for their voice assistants, Microsoft said..
Sundar Srinivasan, General Manager, Microsoft India (R&D) Pvt. Ltd., said, “Through the inclusion of English (India) and Hindi in Neural TTS, we are demonstrating our continued commitment to refining speech and voice-based services for personal and business use in India. We will continue to drive further advancements in speech services to empower people wherever they are to access information easily.”
The other new languages introduced to the service are Arabic (Egypt and Saudi Arabia), Danish, Finnish, Catalan, Polish, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Thai, Swedish, and Chinese (Cantonese Traditional and Taiwanese Mandarin). Overall, Microsoft TTS supports 110 voices and over 45 languages and variants, it said.