What's Up with Tech?
Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!
With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!
What's Up with Tech?
Translation without Limits: AI is revolutionizing how we communicate across languages.
Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com
Imagine picking up your phone, dialing anyone in the world, and speaking in your native language while they hear you perfectly in theirs—no apps, no internet required. This isn't science fiction; it's the revolutionary technology created by OneMeta that's transforming how we communicate across language barriers.
In this fascinating conversation, OneMeta founder and CEO Saúl Leal reveals how their proprietary technology enables real-time translation across 152 languages with military-grade security and near-instantaneous delivery. Unlike many AI companies focusing on flashy demonstrations, OneMeta has built a comprehensive solution addressing the three critical challenges of translation technology: accuracy, latency, and security.
The secret lies in their unique approach combining specialized neural networks (not generative AI), proprietary transmission protocols that achieve one-eighth second latency, and a zero-trust security environment with full regulatory compliance. This enterprise-grade solution is already transforming operations for Fortune 1000 companies, Big Four consulting firms, and even the Vatican, which uses OneMeta to broadcast worldwide events in dozens of languages simultaneously.
What makes this technology particularly valuable is its practical application in critical industries. Healthcare providers can deliver better care without expensive interpreter services. Legal systems can ensure equal access regardless of language. Call centers can optimize staffing while expanding global reach. As 70% of U.S. companies focus on international expansion post-pandemic, OneMeta's technology meets a growing demand that cannot be satisfied by human interpreters alone.
Ready to experience a world where language barriers disappear? Listen now to discover how real-time translation is creating a more understanding global community and transforming how businesses connect with customers worldwide.
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Hey everyone, really fascinating discussion today. We talk about creating a more understanding world through translation and communication. Ai solutions for everyone with Saul from OneMeta Saul. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great. Thanks Evan and thanks Tom. It's a great honor to be here with you guys.
Speaker 1:Well, it's wonderful to have you here, so intrigued by you and your team and your technology. We also have the analyst extraordinaire, tom Brennan. Tom, how are you?
Speaker 3:Very good, Evan Great to see you as well.
Speaker 1:Great to see you again, as always. So let's dive right in. So I'll introduce yourself your mission, the team and the big idea behind OneMeta team and the big idea behind OneMeta Great.
Speaker 2:So my name is Saúl Saúl Leal and I've been the founder and CEO of OneMeta, and the technology behind OneMeta is just fascinating. A lot of people refer to it as very pragmatic and futuristic, especially in this world of all things AI and what we do. Let me just provide a use case. I will call right now anyone no app, no internet. I will dial their phone number, I'll talk to you in Spanish and the other person will hear me in German or Italian, and vice versa. So that's the core of an experience, but there's a lot of technology behind it in terms of security, in terms of intellectual property and speed. We have our own protocols. We do not use TCP IP protocols. We have our own protocols, just like Spotify and other organizations. So that's a little bit about the technology myself and, of course, we're a team, a multilingual team across the world, and we've been doing this for a little bit over two years.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, Tom. Why don't you start us off? What are your takeaways from the time you spent talking to OneMeta and Saul?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think you know when we met last year, it was just so interesting to hear your approach and your passion for this. You know you talk about a more understandable world and you know there's a lot of AI that does a lot of hype. You know there's a lot of hype around stuff and you know sometimes it's not all that useful, but the use cases for this are obvious and then there's some that are less obvious. Could you maybe give an example of something that you're excited about that's maybe kind of fits in either or both categories?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. A very pragmatic use case will be. You know, we have a call center in Poland. They spend about $15 to $22 an hour for those individuals to speak five languages and they're moving the call center down to India, but they're spending a fraction of that on labor. Well, now they put our technology on top of those call centers in India and that individual can speak fluently 152 languages. So we are seeing a lot of labor arbitrage and it's a very pragmatic approach. 2024 was the year where CEOs and COOs from CCaaS, providers and call centers were investing in AI and labs. 2025 is now where they need to show the results. They need to show the ROI and definitely our services provide immediate, pragmatic solution and a real impact on the CX and the ROI.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So real-time translation sounds like science fiction to many. How does the technology actually work under the hood? Give us a peek behind the curtain.
Speaker 2:That's a great point. There's actually three different foundations, if I can express it that way. A lot of people think that AI is the sealer bullet, all-in solution, where in reality it's only a small portion. Honestly, in fact, we do not use generative AI. A lot of the organizations, especially we heard from the research group that about 90% of the POCs for AI in general do not get implemented, mostly because the AI committee, which is recent committees mostly from lawyers on IP rights and other areas. They do not approve generative AI. So this is happening more and more in Fortune 1000 organizations. We do not use generative AI. We actually have more of a machine learning neural network approach to this solution. Now, with that said, ai is a small portion. The real challenge is on the training of the AI in that regard.
Speaker 2:But there are other two foundational aspects. One is the transmission protocols, the architecture. If we all have a GPU right next to us, this will be fantastic. Well, let me break the news. That's not the case. People are all over the world and the infrastructure on content delivery networks remains the same. That's why we approach the problem from a transmission protocol approach, meaning we do not use TCP IP protocols. If we use TCP IP protocols. The latency is over 300 milliseconds, you know, half a second or more. So we create our own transmission protocols and we do it in less than 200 milliseconds. Actually, we do one eighth of a second, which is 0.125 of a second. That is immediate. So as I'm pronouncing the words, you'll see it and hear it in another language immediately with high level of accuracy.
Speaker 2:Now on the training side, we have our own data sets. We are model agnostic, so we work with different models, but we put our own data sets, taking the quality from Czech, for instance, czech English, which is about 60%, all the way to 92, 95% Spanish English, it's usually about 84, 87% to 92, 95%. So we have our own data sets, we have our own transmission protocols and probably the most important aspect is IP rights. It's a security. We are a zero-trust environment, so that's more of a military term. But what it does we are HIPAA compliant, soc2 compliant, gdpr. You know is fascinating.
Speaker 2:I can talk a little more about, you know, spending a lot of time with the Vatican and having a multilingual environment. They've been a client for over two years. But we also have HIPAA, soc 2, iso 27001, and GDPR, among other certifications. But the key is intellectual property. We have a multi-tenant architecture, meaning that if Coca-Cola is our client and Pepsi, they will not be using the technology from the same model. They have particular models and the intellectual property is completely different. That is one of the number one items that the Fortune 1000 looked into and that's why they're choosing one meta. That's crazy.
Speaker 3:You teased the Vatican story, so I'm not going to let you get off without telling us that one. Talk a little bit about how you got engaged with him and what you did for him. And did you meet the Pope? Did you meet?
Speaker 1:So I'm not going to let you get off without telling us that one Talk a little bit about how you got engaged with him and what you did for him, and did you meet the Pope? Did you meet the Pope? That's the main question.
Speaker 2:I wasn't. I was really looking forward, but we're going back and forth in doing the worldwide mass in multiple languages. That's every Sunday at 11 am local time. Wow, we'll see. I mean I don't want to tease too much, but the opportunity that we got with them was we got engaged to an event at CES. The CTO was there. He looked at the technology, could not believe it.
Speaker 2:We engaged in several meetings. At one point there was a call a call, I remember, with about 15 people 15, 16 people. Every person spoke several languages. It felt like a turkish market. We have our own um video conference product, so every person was talking their own language and consuming the content in their native language. Yet there were over 30 languages because every person spoke like two or three, four, seven languages. It was one of the greatest experiences, most satisfactory experience.
Speaker 2:Later after that, we've done large events with them. We've done worldwide events in 56, 62 languages all across the world and locally. One of my favorite pictures I'll find it if we have time I'll share it is when you have the main podium event at the Vatican. There's several hundred people sitting there and then on the top you see all the booths where the interpreters are and it's empty Because those interpreters are now focusing on high-value conversations that they didn't have time before. Now those interpreters can focus on the individual one-to-one and provide a better white-glove experience. While the technology opens, you know, increases the chart, the pie chart of the opportunity, and it's dealing with the everyday, in this case, conference events.
Speaker 1:Amazing, so tell us across the continuum. You have transcription, translation and voice synthesis. What do customers really get excited about Is the translation, but you have other capabilities built into your stack as well. What are they deploying?
Speaker 2:Good question. So the basics of it is a speech to text, which is transcription, text to text, which is translation, and then text to speech, which is synthesization of voice. There's a new layer that we have created, which is speech to speech interpretation. So we don't go to the written translation, we just go directly from voice to voice. That technology really helps with the latency. Again, latency is something that is key for the user experience. A lot of organizations they show you this shiny objects with AI and the wrap of everything with AI, but they're not really looking at the security aspect, the charge of property and not even the UX. They're starting to mature into that space. We've been to mature into that space. We've been there for over two years. So the latency is really key.
Speaker 2:On that speech-to-speech interpretation, again, at the very beginning, evan, I really appreciate it. It means a lot. You mentioned the mission of the company. We create a more understanding world. One thing is translation, one thing is interpretation, but we focus on tools that create understanding and we started with languages. But when you focus on the understanding, that's the ultimate CX experience. You want to make sure that individuals understand and provide sufficient cognitive touch points in that interaction. That's what we do.
Speaker 1:Amazing and, tom, you're an expert on the market landscape here. What industries do you anticipate seeing most demand from this technology? I mean you've got enterprise contact center, healthcare, education, all the above. What do you see driving the adoption of this kind of tech, tom?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think that there's certainly the general contact center, just in a multilingual environment. But what I've seen back from my consulting days actually was, you know, there are enormous challenges in things like healthcare and because, you know, you've got very, very smart doctors and nurses, but but, uh, you know, um, it can get very expensive to have translators brought in, it can get very cumbersome to do that. So healthcare is a, um, a big area for sure, um, uh, my father was in the legal profession and he used to talk about the challenges they had where, you know, uh, courthouses are required to have translators for anybody that walks in. So, you know, trying to to have those skillsets available again, it can be complex, it can be a difficult, um, and and particularly as we, as we just go to a more global world, you know, um, and and more global interaction, you know, I think just, even general contact centers that are engaging in a global world, to be able to provide, not have to have, well, we have a center in the US for English, we have a, you know, center in France for French-speaking countries, and you know, et cetera, you know, to be able to handle all those out of you know one center, especially in an after-hours scenario where it's harder to get resources.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, just off the top of my head. I think there's some use cases. Am I right, saul? You're into this every day. How did I do?
Speaker 2:You're exactly right. You positioned it very well. That's some of the use cases Insurance in the medical space. We actually have a client in the non-emergency medical transportations. They use the technology every day for hours. We have other organizations in the financial aspect, organizations like the money grants, the Western Unions of the world. We are seeing now large enterprise like the Big Four using user-centered technology and once again, they care a lot about the user experience, they care a lot about security and they care a lot about easiness of integration. We live in such a fragmented world that the question is how is this going to integrate to my legacy system that I spent millions of dollars in, and these legacy systems are honestly really having a hard time to sprinkle AI and make it work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. Let's talk about that. I mean, tom, you've seen all of the solutions out there for language understanding. There's so many LLMs now targeting this space voice and beyond translation, this technology in particular, you know, position versus all those other technologies, including big tech. You know we've got Lava from Facebook. Is this, you know? Is this one of many technologies that's going to try to bring us together for communications purposes?
Speaker 2:That's a good point. Let me create a quick analogy Hopefully it makes sense as I make it on the fly, but a lot of people address it the similar way, especially in competition, and for me it's like, okay, you are selling sushi, do you worry about the markets that are selling basmati rice from India? And it's like, yes, but no. First, our type of customers are very specific and the solution that we provide is a very high value offering for that specific use case. So do we worry about Bashmati and those big corporate rise as a commodity? Yes, but again, it's about the added value.
Speaker 2:Now let me see if I can, um, you know, no pun intended translate the analogy um, so we, we do have um companies like samsung. For instance, samsung came out about last year with a, a phone that uh does uh interpretation on the fly. Uh, it's not enterprise, it it's not HIPAA, it's Google-based. And the first year they don't charge. After the second year they charge, and it all works from phone on the latest model to the phone on the latest model. Wow, I see.
Speaker 2:So, yes, it's a beautiful intention, because it basically starts showing the commodity and the benefits of AI, but in reality, for a Fortune 500, for a Big Four. They're not able to use that at scale right, especially with security settings. We provide all of that and we package all of that at the highest level. I'm yet to see companies that provide all of the features bundled into the phone system, agnostic to any carrier. But once again, I can dial any phone number in the world, I can speak in Spanish and the other person will hear me in English or any other language, in 150 languages, no carrier specific, it's agnostic. No internet and no app. It's just over the audio channel. That is one of the greatest value proposition that our innovation team has provided. Evan, did I answer your question?
Speaker 1:You did and just to follow on there, tell us about your go-to-market. I mean, you're not selling directly to consumers like Samsung, obviously, so I assume you're working with enterprises directly, but integrators and VARs and managed services providers or telcos, or how are you deploying this technology out to customers? You?
Speaker 2:know I'm very humbled to express that my go-to-market strategy, because we are following the strategy and the strategy is working and as sophisticated that we're seeing language models, organic training, synthetic training, tcpip protocols, and it sounds very sophisticated, very elaborate and it is, don't get me wrong, it is very sophisticated. I will say, at a very similar level, is our go-to-market strategy, get it. I will say, at a very similar level, is our gold market strategy.
Speaker 2:We have chosen the top three seed cash providers based on a research group, the NYCX1, the 5.9, the Genesis of the world, and we have close agreements and, in some cases, oem agreements with them and this is public information. You'll be able to see the press releases from these organizations and from us, and we are the ones behind implementing these strategies. So, all of a sudden, you get 5.9, with about 9 billion minutes per year on communication and with one touch of a button they now can speak. Every agent that has hired their services can speak 100 future languages. Or you have the nice CX1, with 1.5 million agents be able to use that technology, over 25,000 clients. They'd be able to use our technology as we OEM with them.
Speaker 2:So that technology, that strategy, is working and it's ever growing. I mean, as you can imagine, we're talking with some of the largest organizations in the world, and then you have the largest BPOs. I mentioned some of the big fours. Interestingly enough, I came to know that some of those are BPOs. They really are, and it's fantastic to see an organization with 700,000 employees working with our technology.
Speaker 1:Brilliant and Tom. This is a big challenge in contact centers of all sizes, scopes and locations globally. How big is this market, do you think? I mean, it strikes me as a multi-billion dollar problem meeting, solving.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I I think, from my perspective too, it's just about getting over that trust threshold. You know it's like, okay, we have the technology and it, it scales up, it scales down. You know, and it, it, you know anyone that ever deals with any anybody in the public. You know, I think it's uh, it's kind of a no-brainer. But there's the trust issue. You know it's that. You know we're putting our reputation on the line.
Speaker 3:In some cases there are uh you know regulated, you know industries and, and it's one thing to be HIPAA compliant, but it's another thing to make sure it's accurate, you know, and and to be able to audit that stuff, to be able to, uh, to show, to be able to show and demonstrate. I mean, I'm sure it's one of your challenges, sol is demonstrating the accuracy.
Speaker 3:But you know, for outside of, you know very specific use cases, you know, yeah, it's a massive opportunity, and it's one of those, too, that I think people just aren't even aware of as possible yet. So it's getting over that hump and then for them to think, wow, maybe we're missing opportunities because we know we can't support all these different languages.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. And, sal, where do you see yourself in this space going over the next three or five years? Are we going to have this technology embedded in all of our products our headphones, our AirPods, our know a Star Trek communicator when I travel to Spain and need real-time translation? This is a much bigger opportunity than even just the call center, contact center market.
Speaker 2:We live in unprecedented times, even to follow with the technology. I mean, every day there's really something new and it's an exponential growth. So, yes, I will expect that this technology more and more becomes a commodity in the user B2C world. I think that that will amplify the pie chart and the use cases, because after the pandemic we realized that about 70 percent of the companies in the United States have put in their focus to expand internationally and we're seeing that one more there's not enough interpreters in the world, so this comes right right into that great demand. But, as you go, enterprise security has some challenges. Cx provides some challenges and that's where we're positioning ourselves in this new category. We're positioning ourselves as the category king.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. And, tom, you're a gadget fanatic. I have my meta glasses here.
Speaker 3:I was just thinking about that.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you put them on because I was getting ready to ask you and real-time translation and even image recognition AI is coming or is beta already. The voice interface is a huge opportunity across so many industries on the consumer side. Where are we going to be in a couple of years?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I think you kind of hit on it right there. I mean, the technology exists, you know, and now we have an interface that can capture in real time and play back in real time. So it's just a matter of meta getting with one meta to put that capability in every pair of Ray-Bans they sell. I think that's the easy answer there.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So, Saul, what are you up to the next few weeks and months? Where can folks meet you or see you? We're past the busy event season, but you have a lot going on. What's on your radar?
Speaker 2:So we'll certainly be going to some of the events in Vegas here in June. We're working very close with some of the top CCaaS providers and top BPOs and big four in the world. We also see a good relationship now with language service providers, as they're seeing the competitive advantage of humans and co-piloting with AI, even in human interpretation, and how they can leverage their time and be more focused and efficient. So, yeah, you will see me quite a bit in a few words. We're very heavy investing and we just announced our NASDAQ. So, despite the market, despite the market once it gets a stable, we look forward to it.
Speaker 1:Let's cross fingers there. Tom, what about you? Where can people see you, meet you or learn more about your services?
Speaker 3:Yeah, just I guess the next. I got a couple of events in June. I'll be over in Milan with some of my consulting colleagues, so looking forward to that, nice interactions. Of course, the later part of it, that's probably one of the places that one met will be, but I'll be out there and three or four other things, and then the fall gets bananas again.
Speaker 1:But right now.
Speaker 3:It's kind of nice being home for a little bit.
Speaker 1:So yeah, well, it is nice the summer is arriving and thanks so much, guys for sharing your insights. Really good chat.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Evan, Excellent, and thanks everyone for listening and watching.
Speaker 1:Take care.