Building a Speech AI Platform for Human Communication
A speech AI platform now sits at the core of enterprise communication. Shawn Zhang, co-founder and CTO of Sanas, joins Alan Shimel on Techstrong TV. Furthermore, they explore how his team turned a Stanford dorm project into a working speech AI platform. It now serves contact centers and voice channels across many industries.
About Shawn Zhang
Shawn co-founded Sanas in 2020 as a Stanford student. Meanwhile, he studied computer science and specialized in AI. His origin story starts with a friend in a Nicaraguan contact center. Callers judged his friend on his accent, not on his skill.
Inside the speech AI platform
Sanas began with real time accent translation for contact center agents. As a result, agents sound like themselves and still get heard. Meanwhile, the team expanded the platform far beyond accents. Consequently, it now covers speech enhancement, language translation and speech intelligence.
Shawn calls speech the most emotional medium of communication. Therefore, he pushes human centered AI over pure automation. In addition, he uses an ATM analogy. Simple L1 and L2 calls fit machines. However, high empathy L3 and L4 calls stay with a person.
Why this matters now
Voice interfaces, deep fakes and synthetic audio reshape trust on every call. Consequently, Shawn argues that telcos need defensive tools and clear warnings on suspicious voice traffic. Furthermore, a modern speech AI platform must bake responsible AI into the network layer. In short, the carrier can act like a spam filter for voice.
Explore more artificial intelligence coverage and the latest Techstrong TV interviews. Furthermore, Shawn shares where speech AI heads next. In addition, he names where automation should stop and empathy should start on enterprise voice channels. Along the way, he explains why speech carries identity, tone and intent that flat text simply cannot match, and why teams that respect that reality build stronger customer relationships over time.
For more information please visit sanas.ai
