A Vancouver-based artificial intelligence company recently ranked among the world’s best for speech-to-text technology.
Streaming speech-to-text technology converts live human speech into information AI systems can understand and act on, allowing people to interact with systems in real time.
Alebex AI cracked the top 10 of Artificial Analysis’ AA-WER Streaming Index.
The index, unveiled this month, is an independent international benchmark that compares how accurately streaming speech systems transcribe spoken language.
Competing against hundreds of models, Vancouver’s Alebex ranked 8th, ahead of models from tech titans like Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Amazon.
“For us, the significance goes beyond the 8th-place ranking,” says chief executive officer Eric Zhao.
“The result demonstrates that a Canadian team can develop core AI technology that performs competitively in an international benchmark while building technical expertise, intellectual property, and commercial capability at home,” he remarked.
“It also points toward something larger,” Zhao added: “The opportunity for Canadian-built voice infrastructure to become a platform that companies, developers, and institutions can build on across industries.”
Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0, developed by Elon Musk’s X, ranked first. Alebex’s model demonstrated a word error rate of just under 4%, while Grok performed with an error rate below 3%.
Alebex’s achievement “is a great example of the depth of AI talent and innovation we have here in British Columbia,” according to Rob Goehring, who functions as Executive Director of the AI Network of BC.
“A Vancouver team building core AI infrastructure that can compete alongside some of the largest technology companies in the world demonstrates what is possible in our ecosystem,” he commented.
“Successes like this strengthen our entire ecosystem and reinforce British Columbia’s ability to build globally competitive AI companies,” Goehring stated.
Zhao says Alebex AI is committed to keeping their models, as well as the data processed through their services, stored in Canada, and supported by best practices around privacy.
And developers can access Alebex’s speech-to-text model through a public API to build applications on top of it.
Artificial Analysis was founded in 2023 in San Francisco.
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