Microsoft expands TTS Azure AI speech services with English (Indian) and Hindi voices

Microsoft is making significant strides in enhancing its text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities through Azure AI services by introducing a variety of AI-generated voices for users in India. The latest announcement marks a notable expansion for Indian customers.

According to a blog post from Microsoft, the company has rolled out 11 new AI voices in both English (India) and Hindi, featuring both female and male options available across all Azure regions. Specifically, users can now access six new voices in English (India) and five in Hindi (India), each boasting distinct vocal characteristics.

Additionally, Microsoft has refined its previously introduced default voices for English (Indian) and Hindi AI, enhancing their naturalness and expressiveness. This improvement is attributed to an innovative feature called Styles, with Microsoft stating:

You can now make the voices sound ‘Empathetic’, ‘Newscast’ and ‘Cheerful’, aligning the emotional tone with specific requirements. These updates add a more dynamic quality to the existing Default voices.

Furthermore, Microsoft is expanding its support for Indian languages, introducing three new locales: Assamese, Punjabi, and Oriya. This brings the total to 13 different Indian languages available through Azure AI voices, effectively catering to over 90 percent of the Indian market.

Microsoft has also shared some technical insights into how these new Indian AI voices have been integrated for Azure customers.

• Styles in Neerja and Swara: Beyond the existing Default style, we have introduced style inputs and training data to create speech in three additional styles: Cheerful, Newscast, and Empathetic, which can be utilized based on specific business needs.
• New bilingual en-IN and hi-IN voices: Employing advanced bilingual lexicon and acoustic modeling techniques, we enabled seamless integration of English and Hindi words, resulting in unique new voices.
• New Indian locales: We utilized high-quality data for each of these locales to develop TTS voices, employing the latest modeling technological advancements, such as DelightfulTTS2 and MuLanTTS.

This introduction of new Indian AI voices is part of Microsoft’s broader commitment throughout this year to expand its global TTS voice offerings for Azure users. With this effort, the company now boasts over 400 TTS voices supporting more than 140 languages and locales worldwide.

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