Using AI to take calls?

Truecaller, a caller ID company that identifies and blocks spam calls, has partnered with Microsoft’s new Personal Voice technology from Azure AI Speech (announced this week at the Microsoft Build conference) to allow users to create a digital clone of their voice to answer incoming calls.

The new feature will be available to all paid users in the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, India, Sweden, and Chile, with availability coming for other countries over the coming months.

Details of the partnership

Truecaller has an AI Assistant, that they launched in 2022, that can answer and record calls, take messages, and speak to callers to establish the purpose of their call, giving users the option to either answer the call themselves or choose from seven pre-set digital voices and block unwanted SPAM calls.

Now they’ve partnered with Microsoft, they can use its Personal Voice technology to allow users to “create a completely digital version of their own voice to use inside the AI Assistant.”

The Personal Voice technology will learn from a recorded clip of the user's voice and generate an AI version.  

Concerns over voice cloning technology

While this new feature is a step forward for voice cloning technology and allows users to benefit from an advanced level of personalization, it has raised concerns over potential misuse.

Cases of voice cloning to complete fraudulent activities, such as scamming people out of money, are rapidly increasing.

To address this, Microsoft has clarified that it automatically adds watermarks to voices generated by its Personal Voice technology, and has also required Truecaller to get the full consent of people being recorded.

Truecaller has also prevented users from creating a customized greeting when using the new feature, to make sure that callers are aware that they are iterating with AI, not the real person.