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Kakao begins personalised AI speaker beta test

South Korean chat giant Kakao has begun beta testing for its AI speaker's personalised service, where it would recognise the speaker.
Written by Cho Mu-Hyun, Contributing Writer

South Korean chat giant Kakao has begun beta testing a personalised service for its artificial intelligence (AI) speaker, the company has announced.

The service, called Voice Profile, will allow Kakao Mini, the firm's AI speaker, to recognise the speaker and fine tune its services to his or her taste.

Users can download the Hey Kakao app, which controls the speaker, and register their profile and voices. The speaker's voice will be registered by answering a line of questions.

Kakao Mini will be able to name the person talking through voice recognition when asked.

Kakao said the focus in the beginning is "small talk", but that it will later use the service for personalised music recommendations and other customisations. The speaker will also remember past conversations with people to reference them later, the company said.

Compatriot Samsung has also said it has plans to roll out personalised voice recognition for its AI platform Bixby.

AI speakers are a crowded field in South Korea; Telco KT and search giant Naver also have their own platforms.

Earlier this week, SK Telecom announced that it will use software company Hancom's translation solution on its AI platform NUGU.

In July, KT then announced that it is applying its AI voice service in a Seoul hotel with English support to help foreigners.

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