Carriers and voice portals were able to use these speech-activated services to direct consumer calls, conduct transactions, and obtain information.
[3] SpeechWorks technology was uniquely suited for these applications because it was the first software that offered a human-sounding voice that asked callers questions which they could verbally answer, allowed callers to interrupt the software before it concluded reciting a list of options, and could learn from previous calls in order to add new vocabulary to its database.
[5] SpeechWorks' clients were typically in the financial services, telecommunications, and travel industries, and included FedEx, United Airlines, Amtrak, Thrifty car rentals, and others.
SpeechWorks also developed “multi-modal” and text-to-speech technology as early as 2001 that enabled people to use spoken commands to navigate cell phones.
Speechify Solo featured a natural, human-sounding speaking voice that could read text-based information aloud, and personalize messages for individual users.