According to the "Time Battlefield" theory, time has become a scarce resource that companies compete for. How to make full use of the two hours people spend in their cars every day? Business opportunities are often hidden in the interactive experience in mobile scenes.
In-depth interaction is inseparable from the observation of users’ needs, and the language barrier naturally becomes the first hurdle to be overcome. In terms of in-vehicle interaction, Iflytek has carried out multilingual project cooperation with many domestic marine car providers such as SAIC, Changan and Chery, covering dozens of languages such as English, Japanese, Thai, Spanish and Italian.
On February 23, 2023, at the 2023 China Auto and Parts Summit Forum hosted by Gai Shi Automobile, Zhang Ruizhi, deputy director of Iflytek Intelligent Interactive Product Line, introduced that Iflytek’s multilingual voice interaction scheme has three characteristics: modularity, interactive localization and feature enrichment. Modularity can help car companies configure voice assistants in a weak network or even no network environment; Localization means that the phonetic corpus is all provided by native speakers to ensure the user experience; Enrichment means that there are enough functional modules and phonetic features to support different functional realization.
Zhang Ruizhi | Deputy Director of Iflytek Intelligent Interactive Product Line
The following is the content of the speech:
As a well-known artificial intelligence enterprise, Iflytek has been deeply involved in the automobile industry for more than 20 years, with profound product technology and customer accumulation. At present, in addition to helping domestic vehicle intelligent schemes and solutions to upgrade, the pace of internationalization of Iflytek has never stopped. At the earliest, we established cooperation with well-known universities and laboratories abroad, then discussed standards with well-known foreign institutions in the industry, and now, we are cooperating with many car companies to do overseas multilingual intelligent voice system projects.
At present, in the process of internationalization, we have achieved the landing and mass production of many products. Today, I want to share with you the theme of Iflytek Intelligent Vehicle Multilingual Interactive System, which helps Chinese cars go to sea.
User-experience-centered closed-loop voice interaction
The first part will be used as an introduction to substitute everyone into the closed-loop scene of voice interaction centered on user experience. At present, time has become a scarce resource that companies compete for. In our daily life, on average, we spend about two hours in the car every day. What can we do in these two hours? Is such a long time a happiness or a burden for us? At present, the intelligent network has covered the whole scene of life in the car, and both the car companies and the suppliers’ colleagues are making efforts in the field of intelligent cockpit.
In recent years, the development and breakthrough of artificial intelligence technology has realized the landing of many scenes, and at the same time, the landing of scenes has also brought about the improvement of vehicle intelligence and personalization. Nowadays, the concept of car has evolved into an intelligent mobile space. In this process, we will expect the car to become our partner, so it is very important for the car to understand us and communicate with us.
At present, the main entrance of intelligent interaction scene is voice, so it is very important to make voice understandable, but it is not easy to do this. In order to make human-computer interaction smoother, more natural and safer, we must first create a closed-loop technology, and Iflytek has achieved a closed-loop technology in voice technology. On this basis, we have also done a lot of in-depth interactive experience thinking in the automobile scene.
What kind of interaction is what we want? I think, first of all, it is simple, and what can be solved in one sentence goes without saying two words, and then it is intelligent, safe and humanized.
Image source: Iflytek
Under this framework, the overall solution of Iflytek voice is also developing gradually. At first, we need to activate the voice function by pressing keys or voice wake-up. Later, it evolved into direct command and interaction, and then developed to the present "visible and spoken". Voice interaction has become more and more important in the process of intelligent cockpit and vehicle intelligence, and the voice interaction mode has been evolving.
Using multilingual products as boosters to help national cars go to sea.
There are many weapons and bright spots for Chinese cars to go out to sea, and intelligence is bound to be one of the sharp weapons for Chinese cars to go out to sea at present. At present, the "killing" in the domestic market is already fierce. Under such circumstances, we hope to open up overseas markets by virtue of the intelligent advantages of domestic vehicles.
Voice is playing an increasingly important role in automobile intelligence, and intelligent voice system has gradually become the standard of smart cars. At present, Iflytek adopts the latest generation of overseas "cloud+terminal" automotive intelligent interaction solution, and has actually deployed many cloud sites overseas, which can connect with more information sources, thus enhancing the overseas automotive voice interaction experience.
If our overall plan is summed up in three phrases, it is
Scheme modularization, interactive localization and feature enrichment
.
The scheme is modular, that is, it can provide the overall solution of cloud+terminal, and can also be disassembled flexibly according to customer’s needs, thus ensuring that the car also has intelligent voice interaction function in foreign weak network and no network environment.
Secondly, interaction localization, all the phonetic materials in our scheme are provided by native speakers, so as to ensure that the overall experience and design of phonetic interaction conform to local language habits.
Third, the speech features are rich. Although the speech seems to be a small module, in fact, the speech module alone contains modules such as recognition, awakening and synthesis. In fact, there are different phonetic features under each module, and only enough phonetic features can support the upper layer to create more interactive experiences.
As an artificial intelligence company, Iflytek has accumulated enough experience and technology in related fields, especially under the advantage of our voice function, and has made many achievements. In terms of overseas multilingualism, Iflytek has won the first prize in international multilingual related competitions for many times in the past two years.
In terms of technology, we insist on independent research and development. At present, Iflytek Group reserves as many as 60+ overseas languages, covering nearly 100 countries and regions around the world. At present, Iflytek has the ability of 10+ overseas mainstream languages in the automobile field, which can cover countries and regions where the current automobile factories go to sea, such as Europe, the Middle East, South America, Southeast Asia, etc., and it is expected to reach 30+ languages within three years.
We have rich practical production experience overseas. At present, Iflytek has cooperated with many car companies such as SAIC, Chery, Chang ‘an and Great Wall. Many overseas best-selling models have been equipped with Xunfei voice, and mass production has been realized in Europe, South America and the Middle East, so that the world can hear the voice from China.
Iflytek hopes to join hands with eco-partners in the industry to create a high-quality intelligent travel experience.
(The above content comes from the keynote speech "Intelligent Vehicle Multilingual Voice Interaction System Helps Independent Brands Go to Sea" delivered by Zhang Ruizhi, Deputy Director of Iflytek Intelligent Interactive Product Line at the 2023 China Automobile and Parts Summit Forum hosted by Gaspar on February 23rd, 2023. )
