Google’s ‘Project Relate’ app lets people with speech impairments create custom transcription models

Project Relate is a Google research effort to “help people with speech impairments communicate more easily with others and interact with the Google Assistant.” It’s actively looking for public English-speaking testers from four countries.

For the past several years, Google has been working to create voice recognition models that better understand people with speech impairments, like ALS, Cerebral Palsy, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, or traumatic brain injury. This was known as Project Euphonia last year when people around the world recorded various phrases.

Google is now opening testing much further with “Project Relate.” This Android app asks early users to record a set of phrases that will be used to create a personalized speech model that excels at understanding that tester’s speech. After training, that model can be used in one of three ways: 

Listen: Through the Listen feature, the Relate app transcribes your speech to text in real-time, so you can copy-paste text into other apps, or let people read what you want to tell them.

Repeat: You can use the Repeat feature to restate what you’ve said using a clear, synthesized voice. We hope this can be especially helpful in face-to-face conversation or even when you want to speak a command to your home assistant device.

Assistant: Speak directly to your Google Assistant from within the Relate app, so you can take care of different tasks, such as turning on the lights or playing a song, with ease.

Google is seeking English-speaking users in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States to test the Project Relate app. Those interested can fill out this form, and access will be granted over the “coming months.”