Truecaller's digital assistant can now screen calls with owner's voice

Truecaller digital assistant's new feature is powered by Microsoft's Azure Artificial Intelligence (AI) Speech technology.

In mid-2022, Truecaller introduced in-app digitial assistant to screen phone calls. It greatly helps the phone owner to know who called them and decide to answer or hang up the call.

Now, the company has announced a new feature that enables Truecaller Assistant speak in owner's voice. It is powered by Microsoft's Azure Artificial Intelligence (AI) Speech technology.

"Personal Voice lets you create a digital version of your own voice to use with the Truecaller Assistant. This means when someone calls you, they’ll hear your voice instead of a regular digital assistant. This is possible through a partnership with Microsoft to utilize the new Personal Voice technology from Microsoft Azure AI Speech," said Agnes Lindberg, Truecaller spokesperson.

Here's how to add personal voice to Truecaller Assistant:

It should be noted that the Truecaller Assistant is available for premium subscribers only.

Step 1: Open Truecaller >> Settings

Step 2: Then, go to Assistant settings and tap set up 'Personal Voice'

Step 3: It will ask for voice samples. It will display several phrases for the user to say it loud to record the different tones of the voice.

This ensures Truecaller Assistant speaks just like the owner when answering calls on the phone.

Here's how Truecaller Assistant works:

When the user declines or doesn't answer the call, it gets forwarded to Truecaller Assistant. The latter will speak with the caller and ask for the purpose of the call. At the same time, all the voice-based interaction between the caller and the Truecaller Assistant is converted to texts and this will be visible on the phone's screen. With this information, the phone owner can know who has called and decide to answer it or just ignore the call.

Truecaller Assistant feature.

In India, Truecaller premium subscription with Assistant option costs Rs 149 per month (Rs 1,499/year) and there is also a family plan (four members max) for Rs 299 per month (Rs 2999/year).

Apple also offers a similar personal voice feature on the iPhone but for a different reason. Called Personal Voice, it allows users to record their voice and enable iPhone to speak in their voice through the Live Speech feature.

It comes in handy for people who are on the verge of losing their voice due to ailments such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).

Amazon also has plans to offer a similar feature for Alexa on Echo smart speakers. During, the global AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Machine Learning (ML) conference re:MARS 2022, Amazon revealed that it would allow users to train Alexa to mimic the voices of people and when they die, the voice can be used by the loved ones.

The company said that the new feature may not completely reduce pain of people grieving over the death of a loved one but may help in offering human-like empathy and keeping warm memories alive for a long time.

While some people were curious and excited to try the new feature, several others called it creepy.

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