Microsoft has confirmed some important changes to the way it processes voice recordings. Now, users of corporate voice services like Cortana can decide whether or not the company stores and analyzes their audio recordings to improve speech recognition. “If customers choose to sign up, users can view these voice clips to improve the performance of Microsoft AI systems across a variety of people, speaking styles, accents, dialects, and acoustics,” explained John Roach, executive digital architect at Microsoft Transformation Services “The goal is to make Microsoft speech recognition technologies more inclusive, making them easier and more natural to interact with…Customers who do not choose to share their voice clips to people review them will be able to use all Microsoft voice command products and services." While people who opt in to Microsoft's new policy will be able to see their actual listening recordings, even those who opt out won't have their fully protected privacy. Microsoft will still be able to access transcripts automatically generated by AI algorithms during audio interactions, for example.