Cerence AI, Geely Extend Partnership to Develop Humanoid Robots

BURLINGTON, Mass. — Cerence AI and Chinese automaker Geely will apply their partnership into humanoid robotics, using voice recognition and conversational AI technology originally developed for vehicles to help robots communicate with people in multiple languages.

The companies announced the collaboration Oct. 15, alongside a humanoid robot demonstration at the Paris Motor Show. The arrangement extends their existing work on automotive voice assistants into service robotics.

Cerence said its speech recognition technology can handle French, English and Mandarin simultaneously, allowing people to address the robot in their preferred language without manually switching settings.

The system listens to spoken requests, figures out what they mean and creates suitable responses. Cerence is using technology it already sells to automakers instead of building the robot's hardware.

The companies are targeting applications in which robots interact directly with people, including customer assistance, workplace support and public-facing services.

The announcement did not identify the humanoid's manufacturer or model, what it’s called, what it can do physically, nor it explained how the voice system connects to the robot's movement and task-planning software.

It also provided no performance measurements for performance in noisy environments or details about the robot's task capabilities.

Cerence, based in Burlington, Mass., develops speech recognition, natural-language processing and AI assistants for the automotive industry. Geely is among the automakers already using its technology. The new project shifts the companies’ relationship from vendor-client to a strategic robotics partnership.
The companies provided no financial details, launch date, or customer orders and did not say whether they will deploy it beyond the Paris demonstration.