BBC developing its own assistant known as Beeb

Smart speakers are these days becoming more popular these days due to the ease of their usage and the presence of the Artificial Intelligence technology. However, there is an issue that holds them back as the voice assistants still have problems while understanding accents. Such a problem is particularly faced in Britain, despite the fact that is has a small geographic size that has a broad range of accents. But the problem is tackled by the BBC which is preparing to launch its own voice assistant.

Reports say that BBC has pledged that its upcoming assistant will be able to understand regional British accents. The new assistant is known as Beeb and will not come with its own hardware like an Amazon Echo or a Google Home device. This will be additional feature for the BBC website and the iPlayer app. The software can also be made available for the hardware manufacturers who want to include it in their products.

In order to train the Beeb, BBC has made use of its own staff while asking the employees from across the country to test the software. The broadcaster has also addressed the public’s concerns about the commercial voice assistants that targets the advertising and security. A spokesperson while talking to a leading daily said, “People know and trust the BBC. so it will use its role as public service innovator in technology to ensure everyone –- not just the tech-elite –- can benefit from accessing content and new experiences in this new way.”

A report has mentioned that there is a significant market for smartspeakers and around 20 percent of the British households own such a device. At the same time the relationship between the BBC and smartspeaker manufacturers has strained. BBC requires that the users sign in to their accounts while accessing such content like radio streams on the third party devices, so that it can collect data about the listening habits of the users.

Photo Credits: The Verge