A new Seattle-based startup, Hearvana, is making waves in the audio technology industry. Founded by University of Washington computer science professor Shyam Gollakota and PhD student Malek Itani, Hearvana is developing superhuman hearing capabilities for everyday devices. These advancements are poised to be integrated into billions of earbuds, hearing aids, and smartphones, according to GeekWire.
The company is being incubated by the AI2 Incubator, part of the Allen Institute for AI, which was founded by Microsoft MSFT co-founder Paul Allen. The incubator was launched by AI2’s founding CEO Oren Etzioni to support early-stage AI startups, according to the institute’s website. The company aims to use artificial intelligence to make hearing seamless, personalized, and radically more powerful for billions of users, GeekWire reports.
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Gollakota told GeekWire that Hearvana is “creating AI breakthroughs that are shaping the future of sound,” adding that their “AI algorithms enable on-device superhuman hearing capabilities and will be part of billions of earbuds, hearing aids, and smartphones.”
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A Sound Bubble That Lets You Choose What You Hear
Hearvana’s technology focuses on real-time audio filtering, letting users choose what they want to hear while blocking out everything else. According to GeekWire, the company’s AI can locate sound sources, understand their distance, and build what Gollakota and his team describe as a “sound bubble.”
This innovation solves a pain point nearly everyone experiences, trying to follow a conversation in a noisy restaurant or crowded event. The algorithms run directly on a device, meaning no data needs to be sent to the cloud, GeekWire reports.
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Hearvana’s early research, published in November by Gollakota and Itani, demonstrated headphones that adjust dynamically to noise and user focus. The team believes this approach could soon set the standard in next-generation audio technology, aligning with the broader professional audiovisual market, which is projected to reach $422 billion globally by 2029, according to AVIXA’s 2024 Industry Outlook and Trends Analysis.
Google, Meta, And AI2: A Deep Bench Of Innovation
Hearvana’s founding team blends academic excellence with real-world traction. Gollakota is no stranger to startup success. According to GeekWire, he previously co-founded Sound Life Sciences, which developed smartphone-based breathing detection and was acquired by Google in 2022. He also co-founded Wavely Diagnostics, a smartphone app that detects ear infections.
The startup’s team brings together expertise from academia and industry. Itani, who previously interned at Meta META, worked on smart glasses during his time at the tech giant, GeekWire reports. The team’s work has already drawn support from Oren Etzioni, technical director at AI2 Incubator.
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“Hearvana is my favorite kind of startup,” Etzioni told GeekWire. “It addresses a familiar pain point — we all struggle to hear in noisy settings like a restaurant or a party — with deep AI technology.”
Hearvana is also actively hiring as it gears up to scale its impact. In a recent LinkedIn post, Gollakota announced the company is looking for passionate candidates to help shape “the future of sound.” The startup is currently recruiting for two key roles: a founding deep learning engineer and a founding acoustic simulation engineer.
As Hearvana continues to develop its technology, the company may make significant contributions to the field of audio processing. By combining cutting-edge AI with practical applications, Hearvana aims to enhance the auditory experience for users worldwide.
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