When Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) become an early-stage investor in Melbourne-based Sonnant, Which-50.com Surprisingly, Sonnant CEO Tony Simmons responded by offering a demonstration to explain how it all worked. Sonnant styles itself as a "transformational artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) company that provides content discovery for the spoken word". Simmons explained that the key to Sonnant's success was their initial decision to train the AI to understand the Australian accent in phase one. Anyone who's tried to make a booking at a restaurant while in America will know what I mean." Australian English is most associated with monophthongs (single vowels), where there are approximately 20 distinct sounds compared to American English, with only 16 sounds. Also difficult for the AI are Australian diphthongs, the timing between two vowel sounds and the tendency for a falling second sound. An accurate transcript of an analogue recording is necessary to map the ...

SCA has become an early-stage investor in Melbourne-based Sonnant Pty Ltd, a transformational artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) company that provides content discovery for the spoken word. According to the GfK Australian Share of Audio 2019, consumption of digital audio is growing in Australia and is expected to reach 80% of the population by 2024 and SCA's recent launch of LiSTNR is designed to be a best in class consumer digital audio experience. SCA's in-house technical capability will be enhanced by Sonnant's AI intelligence, providing an in-depth of understanding of SCA content that allows for rich meta data and exciting new user experiences. Sonnant allows SCA to enhance the key product pillars of LiSTNR delivering a personalised experience to each user based on the topics they most enjoy listening to. SCA Head of Digital and Innovation, Chris Johnson, says "SCA is a proud supporter of the Australian entrepreneurial ecosystem, so when we found a company of Sonnant's calibre in Melbourne, we knew that an investment partnership would provide significant long term value to both parties. "We were delighted when Sonnant's tech outperformed several'off the shelf' products we pitted it against in testing.