Guardian

GUARDIAN SELECTS SPEECHWORKS BY ALTECH TO PROTOTYPE THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY’S FIRST

SPEECH-ACTIVATED APPLICATION

ALTech’s Rapid Prototyping Center Helps Guardian

Quickly Realize New Opportunities for Customer Support Services

Boston, MA – (November 17, 1998) Applied Language Technologies, Inc. (ALTech), the leading provider of conversational speech recognition technology and products for over-the-telephone solutions, today announced that The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian), a mutual insurer and one of the country’s largest providers of employee benefits, is developing a prototype of a speech-activated financial services management application using SpeechWorksTM software by ALTech. The prototype is being developed initially in ALTech’s Rapid Prototyping Center, enabling Guardian to explore the capabilities of speech technology quickly and cost-effectively.

“Speech recognition provides an exciting new channel for self-service transactions in the insurance industry,” stated Bob de Boer, Assistant Vice President of Emerging Technologies at Guardian. “We selected SpeechWorks because we wanted to move quickly to validate our concept called V.I.C. (Virtual Insurance Company) and introduce the technology to our internal business customers.”

In this application, employees can use conversational speech commands to request 401(k) information and manage their accounts. To change funds, for example, a caller simply says, “update my savings strategy.”

The prototype is being developed in the SpeechWorks Rapid Prototyping Center, which was launched in March of this year. Through the prototyping center, companies can take advantage of ALTech’s experience in user interface design and application development, while moving very rapidly to get a version of an application up and running for testing and evaluation. The prototyping center is working closely with Guardian’s Emerging Technologies team to develop the prototype and facilitate knowledge transfer to Guardian.

“We are delighted to be prototyping the first speech-enabled insurance application,” stated Stuart R. Patterson, ALTech CEO. “We see many interesting opportunities for speech in insurance, yielding cost-saving benefits to companies and improved customer service to callers. We look forward to exploring them with Guardian.”

Guardian’s application will run on InterVoice’s OneVoiceÒ multi-application interactive self-service platform and is being developed using InVisionÔ , InterVoice’s graphical user interface (GUI)-based call flow development tool. SpeechWorks DialogModulesÔ , building blocks for speech application development, are tightly integrated as icons on InVision’s palette, enabling them to be quickly and easy assembled to create the call flows.

Based in New York City, Guardian is one of the nation’s oldest and largest mutual insurers. The company provides financial products and services including individual life and disability income insurance, group insurance, pensions, 401(k) plans, variable annuities, variable life insurance and mutual funds to its customers. It employs over 5,000 people nationwide in its New York home office and four regional offices in Bethlehem, PA, Appleton, WI, Spokane, WA, and Norwell, MA. In addition, over 2,000 Guardian agents distribute Guardian products nationwide. As of September 30, 1998, Guardian had consolidated assets of $27.4 billion.

SpeechWorks by ALTech enables people to talk to computers over the telephone in a natural way. The company’s award-winning solution is based on technology licensed from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and incorporates several technologies patented by ALTech. SpeechWorks simplifies and speeds the development of speech-activated services for information delivery and e-commerce through its patent-pending DialogModules. The company provides comprehensive system integration and support services to clients, and distributes its solution through an unparalleled network of resellers and integrators worldwide. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, ALTech is a privately held corporation with financing from venture capital firms and Intel Corporation. For additional information, visit http://www.altech.com.
Lauren Richman Peter Gorman Carol Cramer
ALTech Schwartz Communications The Guardian Life Insurance Co.
617.428.4444 781.684.0770 212.598.1390