Dead AI voice products.

Voice assistants and synthesis. The category Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all owned and could not quite figure out what to do with. Cortana retired for Copilot. Tay killed in sixteen hours. Sonantic absorbed into Spotify. Lyrebird absorbed into Descript. The dead products in this category are not failures of voice technology. They are products that voice technology could not save.

• Microsoft Cortana

  2014 - 2023

  Microsoft's voice assistant for Windows, phones, and smart speakers, retired in favor of Copilot.

  Undisclosed raised · 9 years alive

• Sonantic

  2018 - 2022

  A London voice-AI startup that synthesized emotional, human-sounding speech for games and film.

  $7M raised · 4 years alive

• Lyrebird

  2017 - 2019

  A Montreal voice-cloning startup that recreated a speaker's voice from a one-minute sample.

  Undisclosed raised · 2 years alive