How Anker soundcore Uses Azure AI Speech for Seamless Multilingual Communication
“We’re excited to be part of Microsoft Build and to demonstrate what’s possible when AI meets every day tech. Built on deep technical integration and shared innovation goals, we’re able to deliver smarter, more intuitive, and responsive audio products for users around the world.”
— Dongping Zhao, President of Anker Innovations
Imagine talking to anyone, no matter the language.
soundcore, Anker Innovations' audio brand, has incorporated Microsoft Azure AI Speech services into its new devices to eliminate language barriers. These wireless earbuds now offer real-time speech translation and voice interactions, showcasing how cloud-based AI speech technologies can create immersive, multilingual experiences on consumer devices.
Anker’s Mission and Challenges
Anker Innovations is a global smart hardware technology company known for its breakthroughs in charging, portable power, and consumer electronics. Its product portfolio encompasses premium audio equipment, mobile accessories, and smart home solutions. soundcore, established in 2014 as Anker's dedicated audio brand, has rapidly ascended to become one of the top three audio brands globally in terms of wireless headphone shipment volume. Today, soundcore counts over 52 million users worldwide who enjoy its headphones, earbuds, and speakers.
With cross-cultural and multilingual communication becoming increasingly prevalent, whether during international travel or business meetings, users encounter growing challenges in bridging language gaps. Today's users are looking for intelligent, multi-functional tools capable of adapting to diverse scenarios. People seek more than just audio; they desire utility, versatility, and smart interactions.
To meet these needs, Anker partners with Microsoft Azure AI. By integrating voice AI technology directly into Anker’s soundcore earbuds, Anker succeeds in delivering a more natural, intelligent, and efficient multilingual experience.
Speech-to-Speech Translation in the soundcore Aerofit 2 Earbuds
The soundcore Aerofit 2 wireless earbuds, originally launched last year, added AI Speech Translation capabilities in March 2025. These earbuds come with built-in speech translation features driven by Azure AI Speech, allowing users to communicate across languages in real time. Take face-to-face translation as an example: Two people can carry on a conversation while each wears an earbud and speaks their native language. The connected smartphone app uses Azure AI Speech's translation feature to translate each person’s speech, then voices the translation through the other person’s earbud using Azure AI Speech's text-to-speech capability. This happens in near real-time, enabling a natural back-and-forth conversation.
Early user feedback has been very positive – the experience is like having a human translator whispering in one’s ear, except it’s all done by AI. Given the strong response, soundcore anticipates a surge in demand for the Aerofit 2, highlighting the value users see in breaking language barriers.
Innovative Solution
At the core of this innovation is Azure AI Speech Translation, a cloud service that enables real-time, multilingual translation of speech. This service can listen to a speaker and automatically identify the spoken language – eliminating the need to manually select an input language. It supports over 100 languages and dialects, providing broad global coverage. Even if speakers switch languages during a conversation, Azure AI Speech adapts on the fly to keep the dialogue flowing.
Translations are delivered almost instantly – allowing two people to converse naturally with minimal lag. The end result is a seamless, face-to-face style conversation across languages – powered entirely by AI in the cloud.
Leveraging the capabilities of real-time voice conversations and live speech translation, these advancements are all aimed at achieving one singular goal: enabling interactions with technology to be as seamless and natural as speaking with a friend.
At //Build 2025: Embrace the Future of Voice Agents
Anker is exploring deeper integration of Azure AI to enable conversational voice assistants in future soundcore devices. This vision revolves around Azure’s new Voice Live API, just announced at //Build 2025, which can be used to simplify creating voice agents with fluent and natural speech to speech conversational experiences.
In the future, soundcore's users will not only get translation, but also the ability to engage in natural spoken conversations with an AI assistant, all through the earbuds. Imagine asking a voice assistant, powered by Azure AI, to summarize the latest emails, schedule a meeting, or even have a casual Q&A, and hear thoughtful spoken responses in return – all through the earbuds!
Technically, the Voice Live API orchestrates multiple Azure AI components in one workflow: it uses speech recognition to understand end user request; then a natively supported foundation model acts on the request with specialized tools; finally, Azure’s text-to-speech converts the result into a natural voice response. All of this happens in real time via the cloud. The audio experience is enhanced with features like echo cancellation, noise suppression, interruption handling, and end-of-turn detection for more natural conversations.
soundcore's upcoming earbuds, featuring Azure's conversational AI capabilities, aim to let people interact with AI anywhere. In the future, a customer could ask their earbuds for weather updates or translation help during a jog and get a seamless response without lifting a finger.
