Signpost: When a boardroom learns to speak two languages

Choosing a seat in a boardroom may soon be based on the language in which you choose to hear a presentation. Logitech for Business demonstrated the possibility in a recording screened at its Logitech Rise event in Cairo earlier this month: a single speaker system played English to one side of a room and French to the other, simultaneously.

The demo was part of what the computer accessories company called its biggest enterprise product launch ever. It featured among new conferencing equipment, as a technology called Sound Shape, which directs sound to specific areas of a room. Speakers using the system are due for release in mid-2027.

Anyone who has struggled through a business presentation in their second or third language will appreciate the prospect. Understanding the subject can be demanding enough. Translating it in your head is a private obstacle course.

For a South African company training employees from different language backgrounds, this could mean people sharing a room while following the material in a preferred language. A business bringing together teams from across Africa could make an English and French session possible in the same space.

While the demo used separate language feeds, AI can allow automatic translation of an original feed. According to Jawad Jabalane, the Africa head of Logitech for Business, the company is working with Microsoft and Zoom on bringing customers AI options in its speakers. It is also working with Google.

“The job of Logitech is to ensure that anything provided and created, or advanced AI provided by those alliances, are fully embedded into Logitech hardware,” he told Gadget.

Jawad Jabalane, the Africa head of Logitech for Business, at the Logitech Rise conference in Egypt. Photo: JASON BANNIER.

Sound Shape’s immediate business proposition addresses a more common irritation: not hearing the person addressing the meeting. In a large room, increasing the volume for those at the back can punish everyone at the front, while additional speakers bring added installation demands.

Karthik Rajagopal, vice-president of engineering at Logitech for Business, has seen the challenge first-hand: “You’re pulling cable, cutting into ceilings, working around lights, sprinklers, HVAC (aircon), and every room is different. Installation takes longer, costs more, and becomes much harder to standardise.”

For companies fitting out several offices, each room’s peculiarities can create another installation project. That is just the start, if sound quality is taken seriously.

“Now you have to put the room offline, run tests, make calls, tweak it in order to make this particular room sound right. It works, but then you have to do it all over again in the next room, and suddenly every large room becomes its own custom project.”

Logitech’s proposed remedy puts the sound source at the front. The Rally Speaker 2 Pro uses 32 small speaker drivers to control where the audio goes, with coverage extending to 14 metres. A Max model uses 64 drivers and extends coverage to 20 metres.

Rajagopal summed it up neatly: “Traditional speakers are like a light bulb, spreading energy in every direction. These new Rally speakers are like a flashlight, focusing sound energy precisely where it is needed.”

The same control could help in offices with rooms separated by movable partitions. Rajagopal described independent audio zones that could reduce sound leakage across a partition, and areas deliberately excluded from coverage. This would work well for a business dividing a large training space into smaller rooms. The attraction for an employer is consistent audibility across a training room, with fewer speakers to install and connect.

The Logitech Rise event included the launch of a conferencing device called the Rally Bar 2, which provides occupancy detection, and can help businesses assess how they use office space.

But Sound Shape offers a more practical prospect: equipment that could help people share that space across languages.

South African customers will want to hear it for themselves, Jabalane told Gadget. As a result, Logitech is preparing its Johannesburg office to demonstrate its equipment to customers and partners.

He has a refreshing assessment of local buyers: “They know what they are speaking about. They know what they want. There is a very important (impact) from technology and pricing, but those are artificial. Trust is the most important thing between end users and vendors.”

Jabalane is upbeat about the reception of the range in this country.

“It’s a developed market, as Morocco is, as Egypt is, compared to some others. South Africa is one of the easiest markets to work with and to work in.”

* Arthur Goldstuck is CEO of World Wide Worx, editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za, and author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI – The African Edge.

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