Call centers drive voice recognition boomlet

Convergence is in the air. With the call center market exploding, a number of voice biometrics companies are positioning themselves as the best solution to a number of privacy laws now coming on line in the United States, all of which require strong levels of authentication. At the same time, time is money in the call center business — the idea being to rush the complaining customer off the phone as quickly as possible — so any biometric system such as a home iris scanner is likely to take too long to be economical. As an alternative, many call centers are now considering voice biometrics. According to Frost & Sullivan, the segment known as “transactional authentication” is expected to reach $169.2 million revenue in 2011, while the world voice verification biometrics market generated $31.6 million in 2004 and is expected to amount to $533.7 million in 2011. One other good sign: product quality, as measures by false positive and false acceptance rates, are improving rapidly.