In November SoundHound made its Music Recognition technology available to license on request, via its Houndify voice AI platform.
The move allows brands and developers to license the music search tech for use within their software interfaces.
At that stage, brand partners identified by SoundHound included car manufacturers and telecommunications firms such as Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Peugeot, Citroën, DS, Opel, Vauxhall, Nvidia (cars), Samsung (IoT platforms), and Motorola.
It was only a matter of time before a music streaming platform made use of the access granted by SoundHound to its proprietary voice recognition technology.
Pandora has become the first one to do so.
Pandora has revealed that it has partnered with Houndify to use its voice and conversational AI platform to launch a new, native smart assistant that allows listeners to control Pandora’s mobile app using voice commands.
Starting today (January 15), Pandora will roll out access to Voice Mode to select listeners on iOS and Android, with general availability for all mobile users coming soon.
Voice Mode uses Houndify’s proprietary ‘Speech-to-Meaning’ and ‘Deep Meaning Understanding’ technologies to respond to a wide range of requests by saying the ‘wake’ phrase “Hey Pandora” followed by a request.
The voice commands can be used to change stations, control volume, skip or pause music, and other basic navigation commands.
It can also be used to request specific artists, songs, stations, podcasts or playlists in addition to track identification with requests such as ‘what song is this?’
According to Pandora, its predictive understanding of individual listener preferences is powered by its Music Genome Project, which it describes as ‘the richest dataset of music-listening information in the world’.
“With Voice Mode, we are introducing an even more natural and conversational way for listeners to discover new music and enhance their experience directly in the Pandora mobile app.”
Chris Phillips, Pandora
“Pandora is the leader in personalized audio entertainment, and millions of our listeners are already loving the experience we’ve created on smart speakers and other voice-enabled connected devices,” said Chris Phillips, Chief Product Officer, Pandora.
“With Voice Mode, we are introducing an even more natural and conversational way for listeners to discover new music and enhance their experience directly in the Pandora mobile app, like getting recommendations from a friend who really knows you.”
“By enabling access to..our Houndify platform, we offer our partners a killer feature for their own products and user experience.”
James Hom, SoundHound, speaking in november
Speaking in November, SoundHound co-founder and VP of Products James Hom said: “SoundHound has been at the forefront of building music recognition technologies for over a decade.
“By enabling access to it through our Houndify platform, we offer our partners a killer feature for their own products and user experience.”
Music Business Worldwide
