Tomato.ai Inc., an artificial intelligence startup that’s using generative AI to improve voice communications, said today it has closed a $2.1 million seed funding round.

The investment was led by existing investors Cardumen Capital and Recursive Ventures, and saw participation from new investor Gaingels. The announcement of the funding coincides with the launch of Tomato.ai’s first two products – a first-of-its-kind, AI-powered “accent softening” tool, and a more traditional noise cancellation feature.

Aimed at call center agents, Tomato.ai Accent Softening is described as the company’s flagship product. Installed locally on a personal computer or device and designed to integrate with popular communications apps like Zoom, Teams and Meet, it’s said to retain the characteristics of each accent while prioritizing the need for effective communication.

It’s based on proprietary AI models that have been trained to generate less accented speech in real time, without completely removing the speaker’s accent from their voice, so as to not compromise the integrity of unique voices. In other words, the speakers will still sound like themselves, only less accented. Tomato.ai says it works instantly for any speaker, and the company believes it will soon become a new standard in the communications industry, similar to how noise reduction technologies have already become ubiquitous.

In addition, the startup announced a more traditional Noise Cancellation tool that uses generative AI to recreate the speaker’s voice while entirely eliminating any background noise from the equation. It’s available through the same PC application, and the startup claims it has been measured as more effective than other, software-based denoisers and denoising headsets.

“It also works exceptionally well at removing other voices and music for customers on the other end — even if the sound to remove is right next to the main speaker,” Tomato.ai co-founder and Chief Executive Ofer Ronen wrote in a blog post. “Even without any linguistic barriers, providing a great customer experience can be extremely stressful. Clarity is essential in these environments and accents can present obstacles, especially during critical or stressful moments.”

The startup said its tools will help to boost the performance of call center agents, improve customer satisfaction and retention rates, and result in better interactions overall. Agents will be empowered to achieve higher rates.

For enterprises, Tomato.ai says its tools are especially promising as they’ll be able to bridge the performance gap between onshore and offshore call center agents, easing the frustrations of customers.

The startup said it will deploy its accent softening tools in partnership with multiple global call centers in the Philippines, India and Pakistan, while its noise cancellation tools will be deployed more broadly in call centers globally.

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said accent softening is one of the more innovative new use cases enabled by generative AI, having the potential to facilitate easier interactions.

“By eliminating heavy accents, spoken English becomes much clearer and this results in more empathy and customer intimacy,” the analyst said. “If a call center agent can mimic the caller’s accent on the fly, it would enable them to build up more rapport and ease the resolution process, eliminating frustrations that come from a lack of clarity. Tomato.ai is providing a generative AI solution for a real problem, and we’ll soon see if it goes down well with customers or not.”

Photo: Tomato.ai