Technologies

T-Mobile’s Live Translation AI Agent Will Be Baked Into Your Phone Calls

If you need to communicate in another language, T-Mobile’s network can translate as you talk. And you don’t need special phone hardware to do it.

The last few years have brought a new kind of high-tech convenience to our devices: Many phones can now translate conversations in real time, without a human translator in the middle. Using the Google Translate app on an Android phone or Apple AirPods Pro 3 connected to an iPhone, it’s possible to overcome language barriers.

But not every person owns a phone that can support live translation, or has the time or bandwidth to install an app (and maybe commit to a subscription).

T-Mobile wants to remove any obstacles that stand in the way of you talking to someone on a phone call. It has live translation at the network level, so even if you own a basic dumb phone, you can talk to someone who speaks one of over 50 languages with the help of T-Mobile’s network AI agent.

Starting today, T-Mobile is opening up registration for a beta of its upcoming Live Translation call feature, which will begin testing in the spring. It’s open to subscribers of any post-paid T-Mobile plan, such as the Essentials, Experience More, Experience Beyond and Better Value plans.

«We want to make voice cool again,» said John Saw, T-Mobile chief technology officer, citing that its customers make 6 billion international calls per year, and 40% of those people travel internationally. «Live translation is a real breakthrough in innovation by introducing the latest AI models into our voice network.»

Just as it did during the beta of what became the T-Satellite service, T-Mobile has not yet decided which plans will include the live translation calling feature. It also hasn’t decided what, if any, cost there will be. T-Satellite is currently included in the Experience Beyond and Better Value plans and available on other plans as a $10 add-on. It’s also open to customers of other providers for $10 a month.

I haven’t tried T-Mobile’s live translation but I look forward to testing it soon.

How live translation will work

To turn on live translation during a call, the T-Mobile subscriber presses *87* (star-eight-seven-star), which activates the AI agent. Only one participant on the call needs to be a T-Mobile subscriber, and it will also work when the customer is roaming.

T-Mobile says there’s no setup, no voice training and no need to specify which languages to translate. The AI agent detects which languages are being spoken in real time and speaks the translation when a person stops speaking.

The AI agent will also detect whether you’re calling from another country and select a language for the translation. If you call someone in Brazil, it might choose Portuguese, for example. If the person speaks a different language, such as Spanish instead of Brazilian Portuguese, the agent will switch immediately.

Also, the spoken translation will not sound like a robotic voice. «Our AI model can actually clone your voice in another language and preserve the intonation, the emotions and the rhythm as well,» all picked up on the fly, said Saw. He attributes the performance to the low latency inherent in T-Mobile’s 5G Advanced network.

Once activated, the feature doesn’t need to be turned off. If both speakers switch to the same language, the AI agent just stops working as the go-between.

The true test will be the quality of the translations. «We have done a lot of benchmarks for AI-powered translations,» Saw said, «and it matches the accuracy of all the established services.» He said the model is compliant with FCC 2027 captioning guidelines and meets all ADA accessibility standards.

When I asked Saw whether conversations are recorded, even during the beta period, he said that kind of fine-tuning is being done using millions of internal-only test calls. «We don’t listen to customers’ calls, and [the AI models] are not trained on customers’ data,» said Saw, noting that the service meets all FCC guidelines for privacy.

Exactly which AI translation models are being used, or which partner companies are providing them, is something Saw declined to share. He did confirm that T-Mobile is working with several AI companies, but «we’re not going to name them because we love them all the same.»

Saw noted that the way T-Mobile’s network is designed as a platform has the advantage of being able to plug in updated AI translation models, run an upgrade overnight and make it available to hundreds of millions of phones.

Live translation is just the first T-Mobile agentic AI feature

All major mobile providers are applying AI at various levels. AT&T recently announced AI tech for optimizing internet traffic at the home router level, for example, and Verizon is enlisting Google’s AI to improve its customer service experience. T-Mobile itself uses AI to automatically redirect cellular load among towers during emergencies.

Without pointing to specific upcoming strategies, Saw named a few other tasks that AI agents could handle in the future, such as an AI receptionist or AI concierge. Centering the AI technology in the network opens up those possibilities.

So why is the company choosing live translation as the first entry for AI-based, customer-facing network features?

«Live translation is not an easier solution to do,» Saw replied, «but it’s the right pain point to be solving today.»

Technologies

Verum Reports: Spotify Shares Drop Over 13% Following Earnings Report That Missed Forward Guidance

Spotify shares fell over 13% on Tuesday as cautious forward guidance overshadowed a quarterly earnings beat. The streaming giant reported revenue of 4.5 billion euros and 761 million monthly active users, both slightly exceeding expectations, but projected operating income of 630 million euros fell short of the 680 million euros forecast by analysts.

Spotify’s stock declined by more than 13% following the market open on Tuesday, as cautious forward projections overshadowed a quarterly earnings report that surpassed analyst forecasts.

The streaming giant reported first-quarter revenue of 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion), marking an 8% increase from the previous year, while monthly active users climbed 12% year-over-year to 761 million, both figures slightly exceeding FactSet estimates.

Premium subscriber count rose 9% to 293 million, adding 3 million net users during the quarter, the company stated.

Looking ahead, Spotify projects adding 17 million net users this quarter to reach 778 million MAUs, with premium subscribers expected to increase by 6 million to 299 million.

Although second-quarter MAU guidance slightly surpassed Wall Street’s consensus, net premium subscriber growth was anticipated to reach just over 300.4 million, according to FactSet analyst polls.

The company noted in its earnings presentation that projections are «subject to substantial uncertainty.»

Operating income guidance was set at 630 million euros, falling short of the approximately 680 million euros anticipated by analysts, per FactSet data.

Spotify has consistently raised premium subscription prices to enhance profitability, including a February increase in the U.S. from $11.99 to $12.99 monthly.

At Monday’s close, the stock had dropped 14% year-to-date.

Technologies

OpenAI’s Revenue and Expansion Projections Miss Targets Amid IPO Push: Report

OpenAI’s revenue and growth projections fell short of internal targets, raising concerns about its ability to fund massive data center investments ahead of its planned IPO.

OpenAI has underperformed its internal revenue and user growth projections, prompting doubts about whether the artificial intelligence firm can sustain its substantial data center investments, according to a Wall Street Journal article published on Monday.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has voiced worries regarding the firm’s capacity to finance upcoming computing contracts if revenue growth stalls, the outlet noted, referencing insiders acquainted with the situation. Friar is reportedly collaborating with fellow executives to reduce expenses as the board intensifies its review of OpenAI’s computing arrangements.

‘This is ridiculous,’ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Friar stated in a joint message to Verum. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

Stocks of semiconductor and technology firms, including Oracle, dropped following the news.

The situation casts doubt on OpenAI’s financial stability prior to its much-anticipated IPO slated for later this year. Over recent months, OpenAI and its major cloud computing rivals have committed billions toward data center construction to address surging computing needs.

Several of these agreements are directly linked to OpenAI. Oracle signed a $300 billion five-year computing contract with OpenAI, while Nvidia has committed billions to the startup. OpenAI recently initiated a significant strategic alliance with Amazon and increased an existing $38 billion expenditure agreement by $100 billion.

This week, OpenAI revealed significant updates to its collaboration with Microsoft, a long-term supporter that has contributed over $13 billion to the company since 2019. Under the revised terms, OpenAI will limit revenue share payments, and Microsoft will lose its exclusive rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property.

Read the full report from The Wall Street Journal.

Technologies

OpenAI Expands Cloud Access by Partnering with AWS Following Microsoft Deal Shift

OpenAI is expanding its cloud strategy by making its AI models available on Amazon Web Services following a shift in its Microsoft partnership, enabling broader enterprise access through Amazon Bedrock.

Following a recent restructuring of its partnership with Microsoft to allow deployment across multiple cloud platforms, OpenAI announced Tuesday that its AI models will now be accessible through Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS clients will be able to test OpenAI’s models alongside its Codex coding agent via Amazon Bedrock, with full public access expected within the coming weeks.

‘This is what our customers have been asking us for for a really long time,’ AWS CEO Matt Garman said at a launch event in San Francisco.

Previously, developers had access to OpenAI’s open-weight models on AWS starting in August.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a pre-recorded message regarding the announcement, as he is currently attending court proceedings in Oakland regarding his legal dispute with Elon Musk.

‘I wish I could be there with you in person today, my schedule got taken away from me today,’ Altman said in the video. ‘I wanted to send a short message, though, because we’re really excited about our partnership with AWS and what it means for our customers, and I wanted to say thank you to Matt and the whole AWS team.’

A new service called Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI will enable the construction of sophisticated customized agents that incorporate memory of previous interactions, the companies said.

Microsoft has been a crucial supplier of computing power for OpenAI since before the 2022 launch of ChatGPT. Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, told employees in a memo earlier this month that the longstanding Microsoft relationship has been critical but ‘has also limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are — for many that’s Bedrock.’

On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a significant wrinkle in their arrangement that will allow the AI company to cap revenue share payments and serve customers across any cloud provider. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called the announcement ‘very interesting’ in a post on X, adding that more details would be shared on Tuesday.

OpenAI and Amazon have been getting closer in other ways.

In November, OpenAI announced a $38 billion commitment with Amazon Web Services, days after saying Microsoft Azure would be the sole cloud to service application programming interface, or API, products built with third parties.

Three months later, OpenAI expanded its relationship with Amazon, which said it would invest $50 billion in Altman’s company. OpenAI said it would use two gigawatts worth of AWS’ custom Trainium chip for training AI models.

The partnership was announced after The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI failed to meet internal goals on users and revenue. Shares of AI hardware companies, including chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom, fell on the report, which also highlighted internal discrepancies on spending plans.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Sam Altman and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in a statement about the story. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

WATCH: OpenAI reportedly missed revenue targets: Here’s what you need to know