005 - Leveraging AI for Next-Generation Hearing Enhancement: Knowles and Chatable Partnership

In recent surveys, up to 60% of hearables users said they would find conversational enhancement desirable. Such large percentages mean people who do not measure as having hearing loss also wish to hear others better in noisy situations. Meeting this need calls for AI-based speech enhancement, but until the present time it has not been possible to incorporate effective, low-latency algorithms directly into hearables. Then came twin announcements from Chatable and Knowles describing that such a system has been developed for Knowles' AISonic audio processor chip and incorporated into their new TWS developers platform. In this segment, Dave Kemp discusses the implications of this development with Giles Tongue, CEO of Chatable, and Andy Bellavia, Director of Market Development for Knowles Corp. They describe how their companies' partnership revolutionizes transparency mode in hearables to enhance hearing for everyone, and how such a system could further improve understanding in noise when incorporated into hearing aids. They also share how other features of the TWS developers kit enable hearables designers to meet popular use cases such as premium sound, hands-free voice assistant access, and more. It all adds up to a future where hearables become an increasingly useful tool in daily life.