Five9 Extends its Digital Workforce Solutions with Support for Life-Like Synthetic Voices

Five9, Inc, a leading provider of the intelligent cloud contact center, today announced it is adding a new capability to help businesses reimagine their self-service experiences using life-like conversational AI synthesized from human voices.

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“In our experience, the more life-like an IVA can sound, the better the reception it will receive from the customer who is speaking with it”

The new capability, Five9 Virtual Voiceover, will be available to Five9 Inference Studio 7 users at no additional cost. Studio 7 is currently in controlled availability and will be generally available in early 2022.

By providing access to high-fidelity synthetic voices that are virtually indistinguishable from human voices, Five9 Virtual Voiceover significantly reduces the time and expense of producing custom voice overs for static self-service scripts in the contact center. Examples include: Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) greetings, conversational prompts, and menu options.

Impeccable voice overs on-demand

Traditionally, contact centers have had two options for creating self-service voice prompts. They can use Text-to-Speech (TTS) engines from providers like Google and Amazon. Or businesses that want a custom, “branded” voice can source voice talent, record each prompt in a studio and upload the recording to their contact center platform. Standard rates for IVR voice over talent can range from $50-$200 an hour, according to the Global Voice Acting Academy. The editing and production process adds even more cost – and time – to custom voice over projects.

Now, with Five9 Virtual Voiceover in Studio 7, users can access a menu of synthetic voices, select one that best represents their brand, and type their prompts into an IVA task flow. The audio stream is then rendered in real-time, which significantly reduces the cost of creating custom voice overs. It allows businesses to make changes to their IVA scripts on the fly, as business needs change.

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To make this capability possible, Five9 has extended the growing list of conversational AI engines supported by Studio and added its first Virtual Voiceover partner, WellSaid Labs, a Seattle-based synthetic media company born out of the AIlen Institute for AI incubator. WellSaid Labs has consistently researched and developed tremendous breakthroughs in the quality of text-to-speech systems, and research has shown that the quality of WellSaid’s TTS is almost indistinguishable from the voices of live actors.

The partnership will also allow Five9 customers to create bespoke voice avatars based on their existing voice talent, such as a trusted company spokesperson. With the talent’s permission and a few hours of recording, WellSaid can create the custom avatar and provide guidance on scripting, recording, and audio specs to ensure the highest quality results.

“In our experience, the more life-like an IVA can sound, the better the reception it will receive from the customer who is speaking with it,” said Callan Schebella, EVP, Product Management, Five9. “We’re continually looking for the latest and greatest technologies to enhance the Studio platform, and we are excited to partner with WellSaid to bring this new innovation to our customers.”

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