250M people around the world with non-standard speech find it difficult to communicate and be easily understood.

And unfortunately, even standard speech recognition models don’t work very well for people with non-standard speech.

Each person’s speech patterns are very different, which makes it difficult for algorithms to understand and interpret them.

So, following years of research, Google decided to create Project Relate - an app that’s custom trained to unique speech patterns of people with non-standard speech.

Many people take for granted that when they speak, they will be heard and understood. But this isn’t true for the 250M people worldwide who have non-standard speech. For them, communicating with others and being easily understood can be difficult.

And the reality is that while India has a population of over a billion people, there are only about 4000 registered speech-language pathologists, audiologists, and scientists.

That’s a big opportunity for speech technology.

Unfortunately, standard speech recognition models don’t work very well for people with non-standard speech.

Each person’s speech patterns are very different, which makes it difficult for algorithms to understand and interpret them.

So, following years of research, Project Relate was created - an app that’s custom trained to unique speech patterns of people with non-standard speech.

Through this project, Google hopes to help non-standard speech users be better understood on a daily basis and make products that rely on speech recognition technology, like Google Assistant, more accessible to everyone.

The app has been piloted with English users in India and will be expanded to Hindi users in 2023.

Following years of research, Project Relate was created - an app that’s custom trained to unique speech patterns of people with non-standard speech.

Made possible by over a million speech samples recorded by participants of our research effort. Users can record prompted speech samples, which are used in training personalized speech models that are unique to the individuals, and remain on the device of the person.

The Relate app has 3 built-in features: Listen, Repeat, and Assistant

“Listen” transcribes speech in real-time.

“Repeat” repeats what the speaker has said in a clear, computerized voice.

“Assistant” allows users to speak directly to their Google Assistant from within the Relate app.

Through this project, Google hopes to help non-standard speech users be better understood on a daily basis and make products that rely on speech recognition technology, like Google Assistant, more accessible to everyone.

The app has been piloted with English users in India and will be expanding this pilot to Hindi users in 2023.

Through this project, Google hopes to help non-standard speech users be better understood on a daily basis and make products that rely on speech recognition technology, like Google Assistant, more accessible to everyone.

The app has been piloted with English users in India, and will be expanding this pilot to Hindi users in 2023.