Le origini di SyncWords, l’AI e il futuro

Intervista del 2021 tra il cofondatore di SyncWords Ashish Shah e Maree Moscatti, CEO di CopyTalk: 

Nel 2021 il cofondatore e direttore della strategia di SyncWords parlò con Maree Moscatti, CEO di CopyTalk per discutere la collaborazione allora attiva e ripercorrere la storia di SyncWords nel settore della sottotitolazione e localizzazione. In quel periodo CopyTalk trascriveva i file multimediali dei clienti e SyncWords generava sottotitoli e traduzioni per la distribuzione online secondo i protocolli di sicurezza concordati. La descrizione è storica e non implica un rapporto commerciale attuale.

Maree:Citazione originale: You co-founded SyncWords in 2012 after a successful career first in equity research and then as head of business development for a technology and design company focused on web applications. Can you tell me a little bit about your journey towards co-founding SyncWords, including how your background in these fields worked together to fuel your interests in starting this new enterprise?

Ashish:Citazione originale: They say life prepares you for the challenges ahead. It was my good fortune that I met some incredible people who became business partners as we co-founded SyncWords, and created a company culture of innovation, inclusion, and open communication. My experience in equity research taught me putting customers first, as well as business analysis, which are important aspects as we continue to grow SyncWords and use its technology in meaningful ways for a diverse range of customers, including accessibility for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. We are using our core technologies and AI for localization through subtitling and automated dubbing via voice synthesis.

Citazione originale: Further, having a team with a background in developing web applications has served SyncWords really well as we create awesomely designed applications that use our artificial intelligence and machine learning expertise.

Maree:Citazione originale: What first drew you to the field of subtitling and closed captioning?

Ashish:Citazione originale: From the onset, all the partners had a deep commitment to accessibility. In fact, we had already been working on media accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing since 2000. And beyond that we considered language translation via foreign language subtitles to be the way forward to make video content globally accessible. This coupled with the growing supply of video and streaming services, like Netflix and Hulu, powered the significant growth of SyncWords in the last decade.


Citazione originale: We realized that the old way of closed captioning and subtitling was based on human-intensive effort, and arcane and pricey desktop tools. The captioning process took a long time, and the prices of producing captions and subtitles were very high, thus leaving out mainstream video producers from using these services, so solving that problem became a priority for SyncWords.

Maree:Citazione originale: Artificial intelligence and automation are evolving all the time. What are some ways that advancements in this technology have changed SyncWords’ business model over the past two decades, including the services that you provide to clients?

Ashish: Citazione originale: SyncWords’ core technologies are powered using its proprietary Machine Learning technology and infrastructure. Using Artificial Intelligence in combination with our automation and tools has reduced the time to generate captions and subtitles from a few days to just a few minutes. This hybrid approach of “automation plus tools” has helped our customers immensely and increased their output of captions in a significant way. Our automation and AI were built around processes and stringent quality requirements demanded by the broadcast industry, which enabled SyncWords to set itself apart from other providers.

Citazione originale: While we develop several core components of AI within SyncWords, we also believe in using best-of-breed machine learning where it’s applicable and produces a useful end product. We have integrated SyncWords with the leading AI providers like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft in certain areas.

Citazione originale: SyncWords’ services are a perfect extension for Copytalk’s customers who are requiring global communications, security, and quality. Copytalk’s transcription workflow is integrated with SyncWords’ captioning platform to offer its customers high quality captions and subtitles.

Maree:Citazione originale: Finally, what is your proudest achievement to date as co-founder of SyncWords?

Ashish:Citazione originale: While we are proud of many achievements at SyncWords, some notable ones include launching the first human-like dubbing platform called Vocalics. This was our moonshot idea. Hearing people speak in a new language with the same style and emotions is powerful, and we think it heralds a new age in communications. With its patent-pending technology, Vocalics is going to be a huge disruptor, so stay tuned!