This tutorial is about the evolution of speech technology from research to a mature industry. Today, spoken language communication with computers is becoming part of everyday life. Thousands of interactive applications using spoken language technology— known also as “conversational machines”—are only phone calls away, allowing millions of users each day to access information, perform transactions, and get help. Speech recognition, language understanding, text-to-speech synthesis, machine learning, and dialog management enabled this revolution after more than 50 years of research. .
