iFlytek’s voice recognition technology is everywhere in China, and that’s what’s making it smarter every day. When Gang Xu, a 46-year-old Beijing resident, needs to communicate with his Canadian tenant about rent payments or electricity bills, he opens an app called iFlytek Input in his smartphone and taps an icon that looks like a microphone, and then begins talking. The software turns his Chinese verbal messages into English text messages, and sends them to the Canadian tenant. It also translates the tenant’s English text messages into Chinese ones, creating a seamless cycle of bilingual conversation. In China, over 500 million people use iFlytek Input to overcome obstacles in communication such as the one Xu faces. Some also use it to send text messages through voice commands while driving, or to communicate with a speaker of another Chinese dialect.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608841/why-500-million-people-in-china-are-talking-to-this-ai/?trk=article_share_wechat&from=timeline&isappinstalled=0