SoundHound Expands Reach of Conversational AI Offering With Amelia Acquisition

SoundHound AI acquired enterprise artificial intelligence company Amelia, saying the move will expand its conversational AI capabilities to new verticals and hundreds of enterprise brands.

The combined company will offer AI-powered customer service support to a range of businesses, as it already serves nearly 200 companies, according to a Thursday (Aug. 8) press release.

Amelia brings to SoundHound AI partner relationships built over 25 years, additional AI expertise, new intellectual property and a range of integrations with enterprise software, the release said.

In addition to scaling SoundHound AI’s customer service offering, the acquisition will also accelerate SoundHound’s efforts to offer other voice-enabled conversational AI products to the industries served by Amelia, including healthcare, financial and retail, according to the release.

These products include those that enable voice transactions, per the release.

“SoundHound AI has emerged as a leader in bringing voice-enabled conversational AI to products and services,” SoundHound CEO and co-founder AI Keyvan Mohajer said in the release. “Now with more businesses choosing voice AI technology for customer service — and more consumers expecting a seamless, AI-powered service — this acquisition positions SoundHound as a strong force with range, scale and world-class technology.”

Lanham Napier, president of Amelia and co-founder of BuildGroup, said in the release that adding Amelia’s experience and relationships to SoundHound AI will form “a new category leader” in the AI customer service space.

“With impressive penetration into a range of vertical industries, proprietary technology and decades of combined AI experience, SoundHound is well positioned to take advantage of burgeoning interest in conversational AI customer support,” Napier said in the release.

The news came less than two months after SoundHound AI said it acquired key assets from online food ordering platform Allset.

The company said the deal brought Allset’s nearly 7,000 restaurant partners and engineering talent under SoundHound’s umbrella and positioned the company to accelerate its development of voice-enabled food ordering systems for cars, TVs and smart devices.

In December, SoundHound acquired SYNQ3, a company that provides restaurants with voice AI, and said that deal “will make SoundHound the preeminent U.S. provider of voice AI for restaurants.”

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