Tomato.aia startup co-founded by CEO Ofer Ronen and CTO James Fan, has unveiled a zero-shot machine learning model designed to melt accents for call center agents in real time. The company, which recently Raised $10 million in fundingand has now received an extension to its seed funding of over $2.1 million from existing investors Cardumen Capital and Recursive Ventures, in addition to latest investor Gainangels, bringing their total funding to over $12 million and positioning them well for further growth and development.
“Tomato.ai is about facilitating communication world wide by reducing the accent that the listener hears within the content of the conversation,” Ronen explained in an interview with VentureBeat. “The goal is twofold. First, to enhance the power to grasp what’s being said. Second, to extend trust.”
The Accent softening The technology solves a critical pain point for a lot of offshore call centers in countries like India, the Philippines and Pakistan. These centers often struggle to attain the identical performance metrics as their onshore counterparts, leading to lower customer satisfaction scores and difficulty winning latest business.
Empowering human agents through AI
Ronen, who previously worked on contact center AI at Google, saw a chance to make use of AI to help human agents slightly than simply automate their work. “We saw that there was a chance to make use of AI to assist people and provides them superpowers,” he said. “And that the voice AI part wasn't quite being offered at that scale yet. And that with that background, we were well-equipped to do it.”
Tomato.ai's solution is designed to be easy to implement, installing on low-end PCs in only five minutes with no integration required. This smooth onboarding process was a top priority for Ronen, as he desired to avoid the complex integrations he often faced at Google.
Zero-shot learning and ethical considerations
The technology also has zero-shot learning capabilities, meaning it may possibly adapt to latest speakers with out a warm-up period. “When you begin speaking, it just does the correct thing with no need a warm-up period,” Ronen noted.
While accent mitigation technology has the potential to significantly improve call center performance, it also raises ethical questions on cultural sensitivity and potential bias. Ronen stressed that Tomato.ai is committed to preserving speakers' identities and offers different levels of accent mitigation to provide users more control.
“We have different versions of our models with different levels of attenuation,” he explained. “We consider in giving people options. And if one model is likely to be higher suited to a use case or an individual, that person might need a more American accent or more of a combination of their original and American.”
A turning point for offshore call centers
From a business perspective, Tomato.ai's technology could prove to be a game-changer for offshore call centers. By enabling agents to speak with customers more effectively, these centers could close the performance gap with their onshore competitors and win more business.
The global call center market is anticipated 496 billion US dollars by 2027due partly to the increasing use of AI and automation technologies. With its modern accent mitigation solution, Tomato.ai is well positioned to capture a major share of this growing market.
However, the corporate must rigorously navigate the moral complexities of accent modification. As AI continues to remodel the decision center industry, finding the correct balance between efficiency and cultural sensitivity is critical to long-term success.
