Cisco has agreed to acquire privately held BabbleLabs, headquartered in Campbell, CA, as part of the plan to enhance revenue from communications and conferencing business.
BabbleLabs uses advanced AI (Artificial Intelligence) techniques to distinguish human speech from unwanted noise, enhancing the quality of communications and conferencing applications.
98 percent of workers say they experience frustration from distractions during video meetings when working from home. Two of the top 5 frustrations called out are about background noise — either from other participants or their own side of the call, according to a Cisco global survey focused on the future of work.
Cisco will bring native noise removal capability to its entire Collaboration portfolio with the addition of BabbleLabs. Initially, Cisco will focus on integrating BabbleLabs to deliver a best-in-class audio experience to Webex Meetings users in a conference room or mobile device.
BabbleLabs complements Cisco’s focus on secure and private collaboration by processing noise removal 100 percent at the source where the noise happens (on the client side).
“BabbleLabs’ technology is going to provide our customers with yet another important innovation – automatically removing unwanted noise – to continue enabling exceptional Webex meeting experiences,” Jeetu Patel, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Security and Applications Business Unit, said.
Chris Rowen, CEO and co-founder of BabbleLabs, said: “Cisco’s Collaboration platform will enable us to quickly scale our exceptional speech enhancement technology for the hundreds of millions of Webex users.”
BabbleLabs team will join the Cisco Collaboration Group, led by Javed Khan, senior vice president and general manager, which is part of the Cisco Security and Applications Business, led by Jeetu Patel.
