Case study: A game-changing multimedia processing platform for national defense and commercial innovation
SRI’s Open Language Interface for Voice Exploitation has become a critical tool for both government customers and next-generation AI startups.
“One of the compelling things about working on speech technology today is that, for all the incredible capabilities that have emerged in the past decade, we know there’s so much more we can do. As AI and machine learning continue to become more precise and efficient, the OLIVE platform will only grow more powerful and effective.”
– Aaron Lawson,
Assistant Director, Speech Technology and Research Laboratory
CHALLENGE
While commercial software solutions focus on clean recordings and highly controlled environments, speech processing in defense, intelligence, and law enforcement often requires accommodating degraded speech signals from highly variable and uncontrolled environments. Commercial customers, too, are continually seeking more refined tools to process speech (including degraded speech), whether to improve customer service or enable AI-powered detection of synthetic and manipulated media.
SOLUTION
SRI’s Speech Technology and Research Lab began developing new AI-driven approaches to real-world, operational speech processing under DARPA’s Robust Automatic Transcription of Speech (RATS) program.
After further maturing the technologies developed via the RATS program, SRI transitioned them to the federal government through the Open Language Interface for Voice Exploitation (OLIVE), an SRI-operated platform that provides customers in the defense community, the intelligence community, and federal law enforcement with numerous mission-critical speech processing capabilities. Leveraging technology developed through subsequent DARPA programs like Semantic Forensics and Media Forensics, OLIVE also provides image/video analysis, face biometrics, and synthetic/manipulated media detection capabilities critical to federal law enforcement activities..
IMPACT
For federal customers, the OLIVE platform offers both real-time and post-mission speech processing for multiple mission types. It operates across languages of high operational interest, often with little available resource and no commercial support, providing capabilities including robust dialect identification, voice biometrics and speaker tracking, and language-independent keyword detection.
Beyond supporting government customers, OLIVE has delivered cutting-edge speech processing capabilities to multiple commercial startups, including Pienso (an interactive AI-driven data platform) and Kasisto (agentic AI for banking).
OUR EXPERTS
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Aaron Lawson
Assistant Laboratory Director, Speech Technology and Research Laboratory