ARMONK, N.Y. and SAN FRANCISCO — February 24, 2026 — IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Deepgram today announced a collaboration to integrate Deepgram’s industry-leading speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities into IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate generative AI solution.
To address client needs for highly performant, enterprise-grade transcription and real-time captioning, IBM will embed Deepgram’s capabilities into watsonx Orchestrate. This collaboration makes Deepgram IBM’s first voice partner, bringing voice AI technology that helps enterprises automate their operations and meet the growing demand for conversational AI technology, including advanced speech-to-text voice recognition so users can interact with digital agents using natural speech.
IBM x Deepgram Billboard in San Francisco
Many organizations are adopting AI-powered speech-to-text systems to automate transcription while handling real-world audio conditions, including background noise, diverse accents, and real-life dialog. This integration addresses these challenges by offering a wider range of languages and dialects, including dozens of Arabic and Indian variants, along with voices that reflect regional accents. It also adds options for custom tuning, real-time captioning and natural-sounding speech.
These technologies open new possibilities for enhanced automated customer care and support, call analysis, and voice-driven data entry in fields like healthcare and finance.
“Voice is rapidly becoming the default interface between humans and technology, and enterprise deployments require a real-time platform that is accurate, low latency, and reliable at scale,” said Scott Stephenson, CEO and Co-Founder, Deepgram. “By embedding Deepgram inside watsonx Orchestrate Agent Builder, IBM clients can build voice agents and voice-enabled workflows on top of a real-time foundation that has been developed and refined over more than a decade.” “Our watsonx Orchestrate integration powered by Deepgram APIs introduces new speech recognition and transcription capabilities to IBM clients, refining and modernizing their operations,” said Nick Holda, Vice President of AI Technology Partnerships at IBM. “This collaboration aims to help enterprise organizations accelerate their AI initiatives and reinforces IBM’s open ecosystem, bringing choice and cutting-edge voice technology to partners and customers.” Voice interfaces are quickly becoming essential for enterprise AI, and this collaboration strengthens IBM’s role in delivering modern, flexible solutions to its clients. For Deepgram, it expands access to new customers through a trusted enterprise partner and reinforces its position as a reliable, real-time voice platform built for large-scale use.
About Deepgram
Deepgram is the real-time API platform underpinning the Voice AI economy.Its Voice AI platform offers speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS), and full speech-to-speech (STS) capabilities–all powered by its enterprise-grade runtime. 200,000+ developers build with Deepgram’s voice-native foundational models – accessed through cloud APIs or as self-hosted / on-premises APIs – due to its unmatched accuracy, low latency, and pricing. Customers include technology ISVs building voice products or platforms, co-sell partners working with large enterprises, and enterprises solving internal use cases. Having processed over 50,000 years of audio and transcribed over 1 trillion words, there is no organization in the world that understands voice better than Deepgram. To learn more, please visit www.deepgram.com, read its developer docs, or follow @DeepgramAI on X and LinkedIn.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.
Statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.