You’re a fairly savvy investor. You enjoy watching the performance of your stocks and other holdings. And you like the idea of making trades on your own — it’s convenient and you save on sales fees. You’ve tried the internet-based trading options but found that sometimes you just don’t have the time to dial in. You’ve also tried the automated touchtone systems, but have found it frustrating to listen to prompts that are slower than you’d like, and confusing to push all those buttons in response to the prompts. The easiest method for trading is to call your broker and speak real-time, in-person. But then you get hit with high sales fees and commissions — and that offsets your gains.

THE SOLUTION

The Software a self-service solution that enables you to talk to your brokerage firm’s computer over any phone in your natural speaking voice. Designed for use in the brokerage, travel, banking, and telecommunications markets, SpeechWorks puts advanced automated speech recognition (ASR) to work — providing easy access to account information, quotes, and trading. You can follow step-by-step prompts or use full sentence commands. For example, after getting a quote for Infosys stock, you can say, "buy 250 shares at today’s price." And you can barge-in over the prompts at any time to immediately change your commands.

Brokerage firms are facing increased price competition on basic transactions. And speech recognition provides an easier, more intimate interface than touchtone. "Technology leadership has become an important differentiator among brokerage firms," stated Keith Aufhauser, AFS co-founder. "End users want up-to-date market information and the ability to conduct complex trading transactions anytime and anywhere."