This fall, a little-known event is starting to make waves. As COVID dominates the headlines, an event called “Voice Launch” is pulling together an impressive roster of start-ups and voice tech companies intending to uncover the next big ideas and start-ups in voice.

While voice tech has been around for a while, as the accuracy of speech recognition improves, it moves into its prime. “As speech recognition moves from 85% to 95% accuracy, who will use a keyboard anymore?” says Voice Launch organizer Eric Sauve. “And that new, more natural way to interact with our devices will usher in a series of technological advances,” he added.

Voice technology is something that has been dreamt of and worked on for decades all over the world. Why? Well, the answer is very straightforward. Voice recognition allows consumers to multitask by merely speaking to their Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Siri, etc. Digital voice recording works by recording a voice sample of a person’s speech and quickly converting it into written texts using machine language and sophisticated algorithms. Voice input is just the more efficient form of computing, says Mary Meeker in her ‘Annual Internet Trends Report.’ As a matter of fact, according to ComScore, 50% of all searches will be done by voice by 2020, and 30% of searches will be done without even a screen, according to Gartner. As voice becomes a part of things we use every day like our cars, phones, etc. it will become the new “norm.”

The event includes a number of inspiration sessions meant to help start-ups and founders pick the best strategies. Companies presenting here include industry leaders like Google and Amazon and less known hyper-growth voice tech companies like Deepgram and Balto and VCs like OMERS Ventures and Techstars.

But the focus of the event is the voice tech start-ups themselves, and this year’s event has some interesting participants. Start-ups will pitch their ideas, and the audience will vote to select the winners. The event is a cross between a standard pitchfest and Britain’s Got Talent.