14 DAY TRIAL // At his first appearance at D: All Things Digital (D11), Nuance CEO Paul Ricci has confirmed that Apple’s voice-enabled assistant, Siri, is powered by their technology.
Renowned for their Dragon speech software, Nuance has long been rumored to be the driving engine behind some of Siri’s algorithms. At D11 yesterday, the company’s chief executive officer confirmed that to Walt Mossberg, who asked “If Siri doesn’t understand me, is it your fault?
Ricci declined to answer that question specifically, but he did confirm that the Nuance voice recognition software is present in many applications on several platforms.
He explained that some implementations are client-based (local) and others are cloud-based, while Siri blends both.
“It depends on the application. Some smart phones are a hybrid. Cars have to have a local component. On the iPhone, for example, it’s both. Siri is cloud-based, but there’s some embedded bits to it as well,” said Ricci.