Veritone’s Synthetic Speech Offers Multilingual World Cup Commentary from Alan Smith
Voice AI provider Veritone has cloned sports commentator and former professional soccer (football) player Alan Smith’s voice to bring his real-time insights about the World Cup to fans in multiple languages. Smith’s commentary is reproduced using Opta Voice, a tool created by Veritone and sports tech and data firm Stats Perform.
World Cup Talk
Smith regularly comments on Premier League games for Sky Sports, but only in English. Opta Voice’s AI reproduces how he speaks, but applies the model to translations of what he says so that listeners around the world can hear him in their own tongue. Smith’s multilingual real-time coverage expands his audience for his thoughts on the games before, during, and after the game.
“The ability to reach audiences around the world in their local language opens up a host of new opportunities for broadcasters and provides the best possible experience for the passionate fans,” Smith said. “Providing one voice creates consistency for audiences and it’s a privilege that the selected voice will be the AI version of mine.”
Opta builds on Veritone’s aiWare platform for audio and video transcription, processing, and analysis. The company began investing in synthetic speech with its Marvel.ai platform for streamlining the creation and licensing of digital voices, followed by the acquisition of synthetic speech startup Vocalid. Smith isn’t the first translation and speech recreation combination Veritone has pursued. iHeartMedia and Veritone signed a deal for Veritone to translate the podcasts hosted by the audio content giant into new languages while retaining the original voices. T
“We continue to expand our offerings and capabilities in sport and to help broadcasters and other organizations scale their reach and best engage their audiences,” Veritone president Ryan Steelberg said. “We’re excited to help Alan Smith reach fans around the world with his beloved sports commentary and insights.”
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