Speechify is primarily a tool that helps you listen to articles, PDFs, and documents. The company is currently adding voice detection features to its Chrome extensions, including voice input and voice assistants that answer questions.
The past 12 months have seen a proliferation of voice detection tools, thanks to improvements in the overall quality of voice recognition models. Speechify has hitched a wagon to this train and is launching its own dictation tool to support English. Like other dictation tools, Speechify’s dictation corrects errors and removes filler words.
In my short test of just over a day, I felt like Speechify’s tools had a lot of room for improvement. For example, the tool works well with Gmail and Google Docs, but I’ve had trouble getting voice dictation up and running on sites like WordPress. The company said it is gradually adding optimizations to popular sites.
In terms of accuracy, the word error rate was higher than other tools such as Wispr Flow, Willow, and Monologue. Speechify noted that the more you use it, the faster the model will learn and the error rate will gradually decrease.
The startup also launches a conversational voice assistant that resides in your browser’s sidebar. You can ask questions about the website, such as “What are the three big ideas?” or “Please explain in simpler terms.”
ChatGPT and Gemini have conversation modes, but Speechify’s argument is that they are treated as an afterthought within the app, with the startup’s own tools putting voice front and center.
“We believe that with ChatGPT and Gemini, chat will always be the default user experience when you open an app. That’s what users expect. “We know there is a large segment of the market that includes users who want voice as their primary default setting every time they speak,” said Rohan Pavuluri of the company. Chief Business Officer told TechCrunch via email.
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One notable issue with this is that Speechify’s assistant currently doesn’t work in browsers with built-in sidebar assistants, such as OpenAI’s Atlas, Perplexity’s Comet, and Dia. The startup isn’t too worried about that, as the extension is primarily aimed at Chrome and its large user base.
Speechify said it plans to gradually bring both voice typing and voice assistants to all of its desktop and mobile apps.
The startup also hopes to develop agents that complete tasks on behalf of users. The startup didn’t reveal its full roadmap, but cited one example: making calls to a company’s customer support to schedule or put them on hold. Other companies such as Truecaller and Cloacked are chasing similar targets.
