Microsoft introduces AI-enabled noise cancellation feature into Skype desktop app

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Microsoft has updated the Skype Desktop app with a new feature that would augment its voice and video call experience.

Microsoft has introduced an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled noise cancellation feature into the Skype desktop app for both Windows and Mac machines. This feature is not available on Skype’s mobile and web version yet.

To activate the bakground noise suppression feature, users should click on ‘Settings’ and select the audio tab. The noise cancellation feature shows up, with the options auto, low, and high.

In a blog post, Skype mentioned that this noise cancellation technology was originally made for Microsoft Teams.

The blog post reads: “We are pleased to announce the release of our latest background noise suppression feature in the Skype desktop app. Originally developed for Microsoft Teams, this new feature is designed to silence just about everything except for your voice when you’re meeting on Skype.”

Elaborating on the technology, the blog post explains how the new noise cancellation feature works. It states that the noise cancellation technology analyses audio feed; it then uses deep neural networks to cut out the noise without affecting the speaker’s voice.

“This technology relies on machine learning (ML) to learn the difference between clean speech and noise and is frequently referred to as artificial intelligence (AI). A representative dataset is used to train the ML model to work in most of the situations our Skype users experience. There needs to be enough diversity in the dataset in terms of the clean speech, noise types, and the environments from which our users are joining online calls,” the post reads.