Trellis has launched a game-changing integration of its advanced speech capabilities — Echo. Photo: Katrina Condie.
A Canberra-based technology company has taken its leading AI to the bleeding edge of innovation, with an invention that could change the game for everyone from first responders to customer service representatives.
Echo is the latest product from Trellis Data, an integration of the company’s advanced speech technologies that enhances existing communication systems, including digital mobile radios and headsets, with intelligent AI capabilities.
Designed to empower industries, from customer service call centres to emergency first responders, Echo identifies critical keywords and emotional cues that can then become actionable events in a customer’s management system.
“Monitoring dozens of active conversations is a huge challenge for many organisations,” Trellis Data Head of Communications Tim McLaren says.
“Missed details and information can cost money, impact service or even endanger lives. Echo turns audio into actionable intelligence so organisations can act fast when it matters most.
“Our goal with Echo is to empower teams with real-time awareness that can help them respond quickly in critical moments and get a clear picture of the well-being of their personnel. Echo also helps to build a powerful dataset from the audio, which opens possibilities for searching and report creation.”
One of the key features of the new Echo platform is its ability to listen for critical keywords and monitor for signs of stress that may indicate the need for action. Echo can then trigger an alert or event in a customer’s existing management system.
“For example, in the case of a firefighting team, a critical phrase might be ‘red, red, red’, meaning there is an active fire. Echo would see those words and trigger an alert that would push key information such as the location, the type of emergency and the transcript directly from the radio into an event management system,” Tim says.
Traditionally, organisations have needed middleware, additional hardware or layers of software to connect digital radios to this kind of technology — all of which add cost but can also slow things down or make them less stable.
“We’ve cracked the code of quick connection, and then at the other end, there’s the ability to push this out to virtually any system.”
Tim McLaren (left) says the technology is a game-changer. Photo: Thorson Photography.
It’s not just about speed. Echo enriches audio in ways that were previously out of reach. Every stream of speech can be paired with Trellis’s cutting-edge translators for multilingual transcription and near real-time translation, ensuring that nothing gets lost across languages.
Beyond language, Echo also analyses both text and audio sentiment, capturing tone, stress points and context that are often invisible in plain transcripts. These insights add a crucial layer of understanding – not just what was said, but how it was said.
“Echo is valuable for any organisation that needs to quickly capture what is happening across their operation,” Tim says.
“For example, conversations between police and their suspects could now be rapidly and accurately transcribed. These transcripts can then be turned into incident reports using our AI, giving officers a huge head start on paperwork.”
Importantly, all this is delivered with security at its core. Unlike many AI-driven platforms, Trellis doesn’t mine customer data for any reason.
“Practically speaking, there are many applications for Echo. For example, it could help to improve staff training, assist in monitoring the well-being of employees and speed up incident reporting or response times for emergency services,” Tim says.
“We’re very excited about Echo and looking forward to seeing how organisations will benefit from the technology in ways we haven’t even imagined yet.”
For more information, contact Trellis Data.
