Amazon Launches New Voice Authentication Service

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has officially launched its Amazon Connect Voice ID service for contact centers. The feature was previously available in a preview format, but is now Generally Available to customers in Europe, Asia Pacific, and the United States.

The Voice ID feature is an authentication tool that was designed to verify the identities of customers over the phone. The solution needs about 30 seconds of speech to create a voice print. The caller’s voice will then be compared to that registered template the next time they call in, and Voice ID will need five to ten seconds to confirm the match.

Voice ID will assign a risk score to each interaction, giving operators a chance to intervene if the voice in the current session does not seem to match the original template. The solution operates passively in the background, and does not require the use of any keywords or phrases for enrollment or subsequent authentication.

Amazon is not marketing Voice ID as a biometric solution, though it seems to be a biometric voice recognition solution in everything but name. In that regard, Voice ID’s voice prints are based on rhythm, pitch, tone, and other vocal characteristics.

The Voice ID service is being offered on a monthly basis, with Amazon charging $0.025 each time someone is enrolled or verified, and each time it performs a fraud check. However, interested customers can take advantage of a Free Tier that offers 180 Voice ID transactions per month for the duration of the one-year trial period. End users will need to opt-in with a BIPA Consent Acknowledgement form, and can opt out and delete their voiceprints at any time. Amazon itself was hit with a BIPA lawsuit back in 2019, and is clearly taking steps to avoid that kind of legal liability moving forward.

Voice ID is being rolled out alongside an Amazon Connect Wisdom service that transcribes and analyzes calls to optimize performance and reduce the administrative burden on agents. Amazon Connect Voice ID will be competing with voice recognition solutions from other developers, such as the Auraya voice offering built specifically for Amazon Connect. In the meantime, MarketsandMarkets has predicted that the demand for voice authentication solutions will help push the voice biometrics market to $3.9 billion by 2026.

Source: Opus Research

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October 1, 2021 – by Eric Weiss