AI voice startup WellSaid Labs is doubling down on its area of interest of enterprise clients and controlled industries — hoping {that a} extra considered, behind-the-scenes method will repay for its enterprise in the long term whilst flashier rivals draw widespread consideration and controversy.
The corporate, primarily based in Bellevue, Wash., launched a brand new model of its text-to-speech AI voice platform Monday with redesigned Studio software program and its next-generation Caruso voice mannequin, promising higher workflows, improved audio high quality, and fine-tuned controls, amongst different options.
Not like open voice-generation fashions that scrape public information, WellSaid’s system is educated solely on licensed voice actor recordings, a closed-model method that it says respects mental property and appeals to sectors comparable to healthcare, authorized, and finance.
WellSaid’s newest launch is a pivotal second for the corporate — the results of years of inner analysis now coming to market in a type that refines its concentrate on enterprise and institutional customers, stated Chris Johnson, WellSaid’s chief product and expertise officer, in an interview.
“We put our stake within the floor in being the perfect resolution for enterprises out there,” Johnson stated. “Quite a lot of these improvements accrue to creating {that a} actuality for us.”
WellSaid, which spun out of Seattle’s AI2 Incubator in 2019, works with giant enterprise clients together with LinkedIn, T-Cellular, ServiceNow, and Accenture.
The corporate made an impression on the general public in 2023 when NPR’s Planet Cash used WellSaid’s technology to create an artificial model of former host Robert Smith’s voice — a near-perfect duplicate that shocked listeners and confirmed each the promise and potential challenges of practical AI audio.
However WellSaid has struggled at instances to interrupt into the bigger trade dialog. The problem was underscored by its absence from a CB Insights market map of main voice-AI startups — topped by buzzy ElevenLabs, which has been on the middle of controversy over using its expertise to make pretend AI voices of public figures and others.
WellSaid executives say they’re hoping to appropriate that particular oversight, however the problem displays a broader sample amongst enterprise AI firms, significantly these within the Seattle area — which regularly emphasize belief, governance, and regulatory eventualities in a tech tradition nonetheless captivated by headline-generating Silicon Valley experiments and shopper apps.
The corporate employs about 70 folks, down barely from a yr in the past, according to LinkedIn data.
WellSaid has seen some turnover in its government suite, together with three CEOs in lower than two years — beginning with founder Matt Hocking, then Brian Cook dinner, and now Benjamin Dorr, who succeeded Cook dinner earlier this yr after serving as chief monetary officer.
“Each voice is related to an actual individual, and that individual receives royalties from the income that’s generated on WellSaid,” Dorr stated on a recent episode of the Grasp Transfer podcast. “I feel the issues we do proper by our voice actors permit us to do proper by the enterprises that select us, and I don’t suppose everybody else can say that.”
