The real purpose of Sogou's AI voice recorder layout: a single product breakthrough or a strategic idle move?

At the Sogou Dictation Service Opening and AI Innovation Alliance Conference, Wang Xiaochuan was the first person to try out the "recorder". After Sogou recently opened its dictation service, recording for one hour and producing a transcript in five minutes is no longer a dream. What are the considerations behind Sogou's layout of the AI ​​recorder and the real purpose behind it make people think deeply.

AI voice recorders are designed to disrupt the market

In the entire Chinese market, the sales volume of voice recorders in 2015 was 4.25 million units, 4.31 million units in 2016, and 4.32 million units in 2017. These steady figures indicate that the innovation and transformation of the entire voice recorder industry is imminent.

The AI ​​innovation alliance formed by Sogou and several leading companies in the voice recorder industry is a major disruption and upgrade to the business model of the voice recorder industry.

Before opening the "Sogou Dictation" service and establishing the AI ​​Innovation Alliance, Sogou conducted a detailed evaluation of the Sogou Smart Voice Recorder C1, which was launched in March. Relevant data showed that users have significantly improved in different aspects after using the Sogou Smart Voice Recorder C1.

The success of Sogou Smart Voice Recorder C1 is not only the result of Sogou's deep cultivation in the industry for many years, but also highlights its outstanding ability to control the changes in the voice recorder industry.

With 600 million visits per day, Sogou's transcription technology has been widely recognized by the market. Its 95% accuracy rate means that partners can get a set of mature and "experienced" speech recognition technology.

Based on Sogou Dictation Service, users can simultaneously record and transcribe text for editing, whether on PC, Android or iOS. In addition, the transcribed text can automatically distinguish between speakers A, B, C, and D, with clear character distinction and no segmentation.

By using cloud storage services, users' recordings and transcribed documents can be preserved for a long time and accessed at any time, just like photos, videos and other files.

Sogou Dictation + AI Innovation Alliance aims to gain a firm foothold

Recently, Sogou opened its core technology capability "Sogou Dictation" service and established an AI Innovation Alliance with four leading companies in the voice recorder industry: Patriot, Newmine, Sony Voice Recorder, and Wancheng Group.

The opening of the "Sogou Dictation" service + the establishment of the AI ​​Innovation Alliance means that Sogou is on the road to turning all voice recorders into AI voice recorders.

Sogou has decided to open up its dictation service system to promote AI transformation of the entire voice recorder industry. This is also an effective attempt by Sogou to implement its AI strategy, which may enable the traditional voice recorder industry to shift from a model that relies solely on hardware sales to a business model of hardware + software dual services.

 The establishment of the AI ​​Innovation Alliance will have two important impacts:

1. Based on the introduction of AI technology and Internet thinking, the company's business model has been transformed and upgraded from the simple hardware sales in the past to "hardware + service".

2. Under the premise of oversupply in the market and serious product homogeneity, the industrial development model should be transformed and upgraded from the past focus on quantity and output to "technology + innovation + quality".

It is foreseeable that with the opening of Sogou's dictation service and the access and use of it by more and more manufacturers, the user experience of voice recorder products will be comprehensively improved, and the voice recorder industry, which has shown signs of decline, will regain its vitality and glory and return to the mainstream camp of electronic products.

Through the innovation of AI voice recorders, the opening of Sogou's voice transcription service, and the establishment of an AI Innovation Alliance, Sogou has opened up the three-level chain of voice recorders: product, technology, and industry, and is expected to push the voice recorder industry into the AI ​​era.

Sogou AI strategy implementation main line

1. Based on the combination of language, software and hardware and in-depth industry development, after forming an advantage in the field of language AI, we will move into more AI fields.

2. Natural language processing is also the most basic technology of AI. As long as Sogou can do a good job in language AI, it will have basically no technical difficulty to enter other AI fields in the future.

Third, deepening our presence in the language market is also laying the foundation for Sogou AI to expand into more industries in the future.

After focusing on AI, the results exceeded expectations

Scenario demands drive technological development, and technological development helps expand scenarios. In the practical application of AI technology and the future growth of the company, Sogou focuses on the language track, and around core areas such as voice, vision, translation, and question and answer, it promotes future technological breakthroughs and application exploration, laying the foundation for Sogou's continued development in the future intelligent era.

Sogou emphasized its development strategy: an artificial intelligence strategy with language as the core. From the previously popular travel translator and the newly launched recording translation pen, we can also see Sogou's AI strategy implementation ideas.

In addition to core search and input methods, Sogou has achieved fruitful results in technology and application, establishing Sogou's leading position in multiple fields such as voice, computer vision, machine translation and question-and-answer, laying a solid foundation for future growth.

From breakthroughs in AI technology to the development of application scenarios, Sogou has been following the AI ​​strategy of natural interaction and knowledge computing, deeply cultivating the language-centric AI field, and broadening its path to the future intelligent era.

Sogou continues to explore application scenarios by focusing on the B-end vertical fields and the C-end general fields. This is also the only way for Sogou to achieve future growth.

Sogou's AI layout is not easy to go

Sogou Hardware's goal is not to bring more financial profits, but to enhance Sogou's brand influence. Therefore, it can be said that its success or failure may not have as great an impact on Sogou's AI layout as imagined.

On the other hand, Sogou's business can be said to be quite monotonous: input method and search are the two core components, among which search and related advertising business are the main sources of revenue, accounting for nearly 90%.

Sogou's R&D investment was US$131 million in 2015, US$138 million in 2016, and US$172.8 million in 2017.

Baidu's annual R&D investment exceeds 2016, and its R&D revenue in 2017 increased by 27% over 2016 to 12.9 billion yuan (about 2 billion US dollars), even far exceeding Sogou's full-year revenue in 2017 ($908.4 million).

In fact, Sogou's AI products have not been well implemented. Sogou wants to use voice to enter the hardware field, such as car and home hardware, but there are only a few smart hardware related to Sogou products.

In contrast, its competitor Baidu has already entered the products of many partners through DuerOS and Apollo, covering smart speakers, smart refrigerators, smart TVs and smart cars.

end

Through a series of actions, Sogou has precisely reflected its self-evolution as an artificial intelligence company. On the one hand, it uses AI to enhance Sogou's traditional core business, and on the other hand, it explores and realizes innovative applications of AI, accelerates the commercialization process, and finally leverages the rapid transformation of the industry.