Speech recognition company Voiceitt has announced it's integrating its technology into Webex Meetings. Building on Webex's existing live translations, Voiceitt's AI establishes and transcribes what people with non-standard speech are saying on calls. Its machine learning technology works by familiarizing itself with a person's speech patterns to better understand what they want to communicate, predicting phrases and elaborating on user-chosen shortcuts. Voiceitt is available as a standalone app, but the new partnership means Webex Meetings will have a chat bar pop up with live transcriptions. "The integration with Webex is game-changing because it creates more independence for users with disabilities, while increasing the potential for more collaborative, inclusive work environments," Sara Smolley, co-founder and vice president of strategic partnerships at Voiceitt, said in a statement.

Cisco this afternoon announced its intent to acquire speech technology startup BabbleLabs. BabbleLabs, founded in 2017, today focuses on improving meeting quality through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. BabbleLabs offers noise suppression and speech enhancement technology, called Clear Edge, that is able to distinguish human voices and quickly mute out all of the non-voice background noise. A couple of examples that most people are likely familiar with are the loud typist and the potato-chip eater. Both are annoying and highly disruptive to meetings.