In the wider context of the acquisition, Liv’s 20-member team will be part of Flipkart’s team currently working on voice solutions, which will aid hasten an end-to-end conversational shopping experience for users.
Liv.ai has developed a technology that can convert speech to text in nine regional dialects, including Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam. This development proves to be useful as ecommerce companies in India have shifted their focus to the next 200-300 million online shoppers.
The barrier of language occurs, since 54 million users stopped online transaction after their first purchase in 2017, according to a research conducted by Google, Bain & Company, and Omidyar Network. These internet users from lower income groups are more comfortable with vernacular languages than with English, the research finds.
Taking into account the complexity of typing on vernacular keyboards, voice is regarded as a preferred interface for new shoppers, according to the CEO of Flipkart, which was recently acquired by US retail company Walmart for USD 16 billion.
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