Typically, as evidenced by the home automation industry’s active use of voice recognition for the consumer space, the consumer application of technologies, like virtual reality or augmented reality, leads towards logistics artificial intelligence applications in logistics and supply chain, which includes the use of voice recognition.

No less exciting than space travel or driverless cars is the rapid development of natural voice recognition technology. Automated call center and foundational smartphone software that can follow verbal instructions has already come to pass. However, recent developments in this space promise to revolutionize the shipping and logistics industries too, making times in transit faster and the entire process of moving and shipping products more flexible.

Software systems that engage in voice recognition and logistics artificial intelligence attempt to translate spoken words into a form that machines can parse. Current solutions are already sophisticated enough to find widespread use for both personal and business purposes. Innovations, such as the ability to filter out ambient noise and adjust for personal speech idiosyncrasies, are coming on the scene that will make voice processing even more useful in the future.

The Home Automation Industry is Taking Voice Recognition Technology to the Next Level

The home automation industry has been active in pushing voice recognition technology to its limits. With millions of consumers eager to control their household devices merely by speaking to them, we’ve seen breakthrough anchor products, like Amazon’s Echo, eagerly snapped up by a hungry consumer public. Though initial releases of Google’s Cortana –  even Apple’s Siri –  left a lot to be desired, later versions of these sophisticated chatbot programs have begun to respond to users’ voice input with a surprising degree of accuracy.

While natural language processing for “smart homes” has been positioned by the media as being at the forefront of this inventive terrain, there are just as many industrial applications for computerized speech recognition software. A significant fraction of the resources spent in order fulfillment are consumed in warehouses. With voice recognition systems, workers don’t have to carry around printed labels, handheld devices or lists of items to pick. They can simply talk into a microphone to request data and confirm orders while listening to instructions sent via headset. This improves efficiency and accuracy as personnel don’t have to put boxes down or look away from what they’re doing to interact with the warehouse’s IT infrastructure.

Applying This Technology to Warehouse IT Infrastructure

After goods have been loaded onto trucks for shipment, vehicular speech recognition systems allow the driver to get directions or update the status of the shipment without taking his or her eyes off the road or hands off the wheel. In the future, it may become prevalent for pieces of expensive equipment to be keyed to respond to only certain individuals’ voices. This will prevent problems related to unauthorized access and theft.

Advances in logistics artificial intelligence are crucial to the success of the speech recognition field because it’s important to capture not only the actual words being used but also the intent behind them. Someone who says the word “apple” could be talking about fruit or could be referring to the Cupertino-based tech firm. It’s even possible that the user is asking about Apple Records, the label started by the Beatles in 1968. There are no hard-and-fast rules to follow when trying to interpret speech, so deep learning algorithms are necessary. They allow computerized voice processing software to learn and improve over time.

Logistics Artificial Intelligence is Here But Still Has Room To Grow

Logistics artificial intelligence has long been an area of frustration for developers because everyone’s voice is a bit different, and people don’t tend to speak as carefully or precisely as they write or type. Indeed, the fact that there are still human audio transcribers and manually generated closed captions on movies indicates that previous solutions have been inadequate. Today’s systems are still far from perfect, and thick accents and noisy settings often lead to failure.

Professionals in the transportation, logistics and manufacturing fields would do well to stay on top of the latest news regarding voice recognition. People were speaking long before they learned to write or type, so voice is the communication method with which we’re most comfortable. By leveraging the natural tendencies of their employees, companies can bolster productivity, decrease the likelihood of mistakes and improve worker morale.

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