Microsoft demonstrate AI technology which can enhance voice and remove background noise from videos

One of Microsoft’s missions is to infuse AI into all of their products, and at Ignite 2019 the company found a way to put AI-based technology to good use to enhance voice in their Microsoft Stream product.

Microsoft Streams is their video hosting service for businesses, available 181 markets and 44 languages to Office 365 Enterprise customers.  The service also includes speech-to-text detection that automatically transcribes videos uploaded to Stream and “industry-leading” encryption to ensure video uploads are only viewable to the intended members of a company. Microsoft Stream also integrates with Azure Active Directory and Office Groups, and companies using Microsoft Teams are also able to take advantage of the service thanks to the built-in integration.

At Ignite 2019 Microsoft showed of a new technology which will be able to mute just the background noise in a video, leaving the voice loud and clear.

Voice Enhance in Microsoft Stream eliminates distracting background noise, allowing viewers to concentrate and focus on the person speaking, not what’s happening around them. Focus disrupters are common in workplace video, including online meetings, training or other communications. With the new voice enhance in Microsoft Stream, you can easily silence background noise with just one click.

Voice enhance was developed in collaboration with Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) with the vision of helping employees better focus on what’s most important to them in the workplace.

The feature is expected to hit Microsoft Streams in Q2 2020.