About the Author
William Meisel is a seasoned expert in artificial intelligence with over 30 years of experience in advanced speech natural language interpretation technology, and related markets. Since 1991, he has worked as an independent consultant and author.
Early Career & Entrepreneurship
Early in his career, while he was a professor at USC, he wrote the first technical book on machine learning (computer pattern recognition). He then went on to lead the computer science division of a defense company for a decade and founded and ran his own speech recognition company, Speech Systems Incorporated, for another ten years.
Experience
William's most recent books are The Lost History of “Talking to Computers” (2025) and Evolution Continues: A Human-Computer Partnership (2022).
As president, William provided consulting and organized conferences focused on speech recognition.
William founded SSI to develop a continuous speech recognition system. As chairman of the board and president, he led the company in developing and selling systems for general applications, including a turnkey radiology reporting system. SSI was the first company to develop a large-vocabulary continuous speech recognition system based on phonetic modeling, which was trademarked as the Phonetic Engine. The company was in business for 20 years.
As manager of the Computer Sciences Division at this defense firm, William helped the company grow from five to over 200 employees before it was sold to Westinghouse.
As a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, William helped establish the Computer Science Department.
Education
- Ph.D., Electrical Engineering (1967): University of Southern California, with honors
- M.S., Electrical Engineering (1966): University of Southern California, with honors
- B.S., Engineering (1964): California Institute of Technology (Caltech), with honors
Get in Touch
For media inquiries, speaking engagements, or professional consulting on AI, speech recognition, and computing power, please get in touch.