SoundHound to debut its voice AI platform in India with the Hyundai Venue

SoundHound Inc., the leading innovator in voice-enabled AI and conversational intelligence technologies, has announced a partnership with Hyundai Motor Group to bring the first voice-enabled, smart-connected SUV to the Indian market.

Powered by SoundHound Inc.’s Houndify voice AI platform, the Hyundai Venue SUV enables drivers to speak queries and control various aspects of the car simply by pushing a button on the steering wheel and talking using their natural voices. The Hyundai Venue launches with support for understanding English, specifically Indian-English accents, with support for additional languages across the Indian region coming later. The Houndify-powered Hyundai Venue began shipping in India this month.

Houndify is integrated into the Hyundai Venue shipping in India through the automotive company’s BlueLink Connected Car platform. With Houndify, drivers are able to use their voices to search in real-time for points of interests; ask about the weather, date, and time; make a phone call; and control the car’s media, navigation, and more.

“Hyundai is a pioneering partner of SoundHound Inc. and we are thrilled to be part of this major milestone for both the auto and tech industries in the Indian market,” said Keyvan Mohajer, Co-Founder & CEO of SoundHound Inc. “Our mission to Houndify everything, by enabling brands to own and customise their voice experiences by leveraging our world-class technology, continues to expand globally as we deliver a robust, conversational and personalised in-car voice experience for Hyundai drivers.”

“We are proud to be at the forefront in bringing smart-connected vehicles to the Indian market,” said Paul Choo, Vice President at Hyundai Motor Company. “Choosing SoundHound Inc. and Houndify as our partner to voice-enable the Hyundai Venue SUV ensures that we have the best technology possible to provide an exceptional experience to our customers.”

Houndify technologies represent more than a decade of R&D and innovation by SoundHound Inc., resulting in unique advantages, making it the smartest and most accurate voice AI platform in the market. SoundHound Inc.’s patented Speech-to-Meaning and Deep Meaning Understanding technologies 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.