5 Reasons Facebook Is Driving For Speech Recognition Dominance

Facebook is determinedly driving to place itself at the forefront of speech recognition, a target made ever clearer following its latest acquisition.

Following the announcement that it is buying California-based start-up Wit.ai, Facebook is likely getting into action on developing a new experience based on voice recognition, and there are at least five opportunities that are thought to have motivated the purchase.

Wit.ai, while only a 16-month-old start-up, is a fast-growing company that has created a platform already used by over 6,000 developers globally. Its technology is used to integrate speech recognition into a vast array of apps, robots and Internet-connected home and business devices (including thermostats, refrigerators, lighting and beyond).

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but Facebook eagerly describes the new platform as “incredible yet simple”. The technology allows developers to “turn speech and text into actionable data”, the company says in a statement.

Five Real Opportunities

The Wit.ai technology offers a wide variety of options to Facebook, even if plans are not publicly outlined. Here are five key applications it the social media giant may seek:

1. The integration possibilities are endless. With the growth of the Internet of Things , direct integration with devices, or even the potential placement as a vendor providing complete speech recognition packages to those device manufacturers, presents billions of dollars of opportunity and a wealth of data. Colin Sebastian, senior research analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co., tells the Wall Street Journal: “There are lots of different devices in the home and in the car. If they [Facebook] can control a layer that can actually talk or speak literally to each of these devices, that would allow Facebook to gather more data.”

2. An obvious application within Facebook, for the 1.4 billion active users, is search, in which speech recognition could allow mobile and computer users to simply say out loud what they want to find. This can be everything from definitive search terms, right through to Graph Search in which users can ask to find places or things their friends like.

3. Then there is site or app navigation. A conceivable usage for the technology is dictation-led navigation between or through Facebook’s pages, even if this is not on the immediate horizon.

4. On this note, voice commands could also be applied throughout Facebook. Speech recognition technology would allow Facebook users to ‘Like’ or comment simply by speaking. If further integrated into computer or mobile operating systems, it would allow selection and uploading of photos and videos, as well as dictation of statuses (to be converted to text or heard).

5. Beyond this, the  products affected are those acquired or expanded through acquisition by Facebook. The company’s acquisition of WhatsApp, the text and media messaging service on mobile, presents an opportunity for integrated dictation of messages and other commands. There is also similar potential in Facebook’s self-developed mobile messaging service, Messenger. And how about Oculus, now its virtual reality company? Integration could allow speech recognition in VR devices used in the home, for gaming and in business.