Google launches improved voicemail transcriptions for Google Voice and Project Fi

Google has announced today that its voicemail transcription service is getting a much-needed update. Hoping to leave behind the days of hilariously bad voicemail transcriptions, Google asked some users for access to their voicemail. Now, the fruit coming thanks to those kind souls who trusted the company with their precious information has been officially announced.

Here’s the word:

So, we asked users if they would kindly share some of their voicemails for research and system improvements. Thanks to those who participated, we are happy to announce an improved voicemail system in Google Voice and Project Fi that delivers more accurate transcriptions. Using a (deep breath) long short-term memory deep recurrent neural network (whew!), we cut our transcription errors by 49%.

According to Google, errors have been cut by 49% post-update. And, good news for those who might not even see this post nor Google’s announcement, you don’t have to do anything at all to reap the benefits of these changes. Just keep using Google Voice and Project Fi as you always have, and you should notice that your voicemail transcriptions are suddenly less horrid.