You'll never get a busy signal when you call Detroit's Original Chicken Shack.
Of course, it won't be the employees who take your order. They're too busy serving other customers and cooking all that chicken.
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No, that friendly voice on the other end of the line is not human: it is artificial intelligence.
Specifically, this is the work of SoundHound ai (SOUND) a speech recognition and artificial intelligence company, and the folks at Chicken Shack say they couldn't be happier.
Executives, employees and even a customer appeared in a video posted on the Santa Clara, California, company's website to talk about how the Smart Ordering system made their lives much easier.
Everyone is talking about voice recognition technology, which is not surprising given that the market for this particular type of technology is expected to reach $50 billion by the end of the decade.
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SoundHound CEO says 'we've gotten stronger'
SoundHound is well positioned to take a piece of this market. NVIDIA (NVDA) the reigning ai heavyweight champion, invested in the company, causing SoundHound stock to hit a high note earlier this year.
The company was founded in 2005 by Keyvan Mohajer, an Iranian-Canadian computer scientist who is also the company's CEO.
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Ten years later, SoundHound became the first in-car music recognition service, in partnership with Hyundai, on the Genesis model.
In 2018, SoundHound announced partnerships with Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz (DAIF) and sling (HMC) to provide voice interaction for its products using its Houndify voice ai platform.
SoundHound went public in 2022 via a SPAC merger and went through some tough times, where it laid off 10% of its staff that year and about 50% of its staff in January 2023.
Shortly after, SoundHound raised $25 million in equity investments.
The company released first-quarter results on Thursday, reporting an adjusted loss of 7 cents per share on sales of $11.6 million.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected a loss of 9 cents per share on $10.1 million in revenue. A year ago, SoundHound reported an adjusted 8 cents per share on sales of $6.7 million.
“Just a few days ago we reached the milestone of being a public company for two years,” Mohajer said during the company meeting. ai-inc-nasdaqsoun-q1-2024-earnings-call-transcript-1300855/#q-and-a-session”>analysts call. “While the harsh external conditions of the last two or three years have weakened or eliminated many organizations, we have become stronger.”
The company has nearly tripled its first-quarter revenue in just two years, while making better use of expenses and more than doubling its cash position to a record of approximately $225 million on the balance sheet.
SoundHound analyst sees 'big step in right direction'
Mohajer noted that with Smart Ordering, “we handle millions of calls per month and power national brands like Chipotle, Casey's, Firehouse, Noodles and Five Guys.”
“We own our technology,” he said. “We have big data from real interactions and almost 20 years of experience. That's why we're winning.”
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Last year, the company introduced SoundHound Chat ai, which combines the power of large language models with its artificial intelligence assistant, and signed up automotive brands such as Opel, Peugeot, Vauxhall, Alfa Romeo and Lancia.
“We also started production with Stellantis vehicles in Japan,” Mohajer said, adding that with Stellantis, SoundHound became the first company to launch a voice assistant integrated with OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot in vehicles.
In a research note to institutional investors, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said Soundhound delivered “a strong quarter with ai momentum front and center.”
Ives said SoundHound “saw strength across its partnership ecosystem” highlighted by Nvidia, “where the company will deliver voice-enabled generative ai responses in the vehicle that do not require connectivity” with large language models running on the Nvidia Drive computing platform “As the company's new products are generating increased demand across multiple industries.”
The analyst, who maintained his Outperform rating and $9 price target, said SoundHound raised the low end of its full-year revenue guidance to $65 million to $77 million, with the midpoint slightly above the estimate from Wall Street of $69.5 million. However, it reaffirmed its 2025 revenue forecast of more than $100 million.
“The company is well positioned to capitalize on demand for ai chatbots with a strong focus on partnerships and providing more use cases while expanding its voice-enabled ecosystem to accelerate growth and margin,” Ives said.
“Overall, we think this was an important step in the right direction for SOUN's story,” he said.
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