A GIF showing how DeepMind’s WaveNet model has improved over the years. This method has gotten pretty good over the years, but it still sounds stilted.
Most voice synthesizers (including Apple’s Siri) use what’s called concatenative synthesis, in which a program stores individual syllables - sounds such as “ba,” “sht,” and “oo” - and pieces them together on the fly to form words and sentences. Second, DeepMind’s AI voice synthesis tech is some of the most advanced and realistic in the business. But, directly integrating WaveNet into its cloud service is arguably more significant, especially as Google tries to win cloud business away from Amazon and Microsoft, presenting its AI skills as its differentiating factor.
So far, this has meant using DeepMind’s algorithms to reduce electricity costs for cooling in Google’s data centers by 40 percent and DeepMind’s forays into health care. First, ever since Google bought DeepMind in 2014, it’s been exploring ways to turn the company’s AI talent into tangible products. Google doesn’t want DeepMind’s AI talent to go to waste
