SoundHound, one of the leading innovators in voice-enabled AI and conversational intelligence technologies, announced a partnership with Kia Motors India to bring a custom voice interface to Kia’s latest SUV in the Indian market, the Seltos. Powered by SoundHound’s Houndify voice AI platform, Kia Seltos drivers can speak queries and control various aspects of the car simply by using their natural voices.

The Kia Seltos SUV launches with support for understanding English, specifically Indian-English accents, with support for additional languages across the Indian region coming later. The Houndify-powered Kia Seltos began shipping in India earlier this month.

SoundHound claims that with Houndify’s conversational voice interface, Kia Seltos drivers will not need to remember specific voice commands or phrases to control the various aspects of their car. Example queries include: “Please tell me today’s weather,” “I feel hot,” “Change the temperature to 22 degrees celsius,” “Would you please turn on the AC?” and “Turn the fan speed to Max.”

Keyvan Mohajer, co-founder and CEO of SoundHound said,“The Houndify platform is the perfect fit for automotive brands wanting to deliver an innovative, conversational, and personalised voice experience to their drivers. We’re thrilled to continue expanding Houndify’s global presence by partnering with Kia and enhancing the in-car driving experience for their Indian customers.”

Manohar Bhat, vice president and head of sales and market at Kia Motors India said,“Kia Motors’ association with SoundHound is a fine example of our efforts to deliver the best of technology that adds comfort and elevates the driving experience. Since the inception of the Kia brand in India, we are committed to offering a product that is tailored according to our Indian customer needs and with Houndify technology in Seltos, our customers will have the convenience of giving voice commands to their cars without any tone modulation. We are also exploring the possibility of providing regional language support to offer additional convenience and a true Indian experience to our customers. With this association, we will set new benchmarks for in-car voice command technology in the Indian automobile industry.”

SoundHound’s patented ‘Speech-to-Meaning’ and ‘Deep Meaning Understanding’ technologies claim to deliver unprecedented speed and accuracy in voice recognition and responses, and an ability to understand context, such as the user's location or previous queries, to support natural interactions. Another key advantage of Houndify is its architecture for collaborative intelligence called ‘Collective AI,’ a powerful mechanism that facilitates collaboration among developers by enabling them to extend the functionality of existing knowledge domains. This results in a global AI with comprehensive knowledge that is always learning, is crowdsourced to domain experts, and is larger than the sum of its parts.

Also read: SoundHound powers Hyundai Venue's voice command system

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