26 Mar 2025 – This company is using AI to give people American-sounding accents

by Emma Roth, The Verge
Mar 26, 2025, 11:20 PM GMT+8

Krisp, the company best known for its noise cancellation app, is launching a new AI tool that’s supposed to convert a speaker’s accent to American English in real time. The tool comes bundled in Krisp’s existing desktop app and acts as a virtual microphone to modify the sound of someone’s voice across video conferencing apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex.

Krisp says AI Accent Conversion can convert someone’s accent with a 200ms latency, which it calls “an imperceptible delay in conversations,” all while preserving their natural speaking voice. In the demo shared by the company, the tool seems to do a decent job at making someone sound American, but the speech sounded a bit robotic.

The tool currently supports more than 17 Indian dialects, but Krisp says it plans to add other English accents in the future, such as Filipino.

Krisp first rolled out the tool to call center agencies before its broader release. “As someone with an accent, I’ve often noticed that people struggle to understand me, even when my English is fluent,” Arto Minasyan, the co-founder and president of Krisp, says in the press release. “This isn’t about bias — it’s simply a reality of communication. In fast-paced meetings, even small misunderstandings can slow down decisions, cause repetition, and reduce overall efficiency.”

AI Accent Conversion is launching in beta, and free users can use it for up to 60 minutes per day. There’s also a $15 / month business plan for unlimited use.

Krisp isn’t the only company using AI in an attempt to change someone’s accent. The call center company Teleperformance SE has already started rolling out an AI-powered tool that “softens” Indian workers’ accents, according to Bloomberg. But AI has a murky track record when it comes to dealing with race and ethnicity, and AI voice generation is a risk on its own.