about a year, el Kaliouby says. The company hired Taniya Mishra last year to be its lead speech scientist. She previously worked at Franklin, MA-based Interactions, which develops virtual assistants that can handle customer service requests.
Affectiva’s new offering is an application programming interface (API) that other companies can integrate in their devices and other software-based products. Affectiva will charge customers licensing fees to use the software, or perhaps set up revenue-sharing agreements, el Kaliouby says.
The API is a beta version that can be used to analyze speech recordings. The plan is to release a version of the software in the next few months that can analyze speech in real time, making calculations on the device rather than in the cloud, el Kaliouby says.
Part of the idea with the initial rollout is that early adopters of the software will share data with Affectiva so it can improve the technology, she says.
“Data is really critical because it allows us to improve the accuracy but also customize [the technology] for certain use cases,” she says.
