Microsoft’s Intelligent Speakers Showcase Vision of The Meeting Room of the Future

Microsoft showed off some prototype hardware a few years back that promised some pretty futuristic meeting rooms that featured automatic speaker identification, transcription, and translation. Now, Microsoft is claiming that it’s delivered. The company’s new Intelligent Speakers are small devices that resemble a hockey puck. They can identify up to 10 different individual voices taking part in a Microsoft Teams meeting.

These new Microsoft speakers can even automatically generate transcripts during a meeting. Transcripts that provide individual identification of those that are speaking. That’s awesome. They can also help remote attendees follow along in the meeting by providing these transcripts in real-time. Microsoft has partnered with Yealink and Epos to create the hardware. The system also supports translation.

Microsoft first showed this concept at Build back in 2018.

Microsoft has not said anything about pricing or availability yet. It is important to note, however, that Microsoft’s Surface Hub is certified as an ‘Intelligent Speaker capable’ device.