# OTS Lao Speech Dataset

> Roughly 500 hours of Lao speech, prompts and conversations, already recorded and ready to license, with transcripts and metadata for every recording and consent from every speaker for commercial AI training.

Source: https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/lao-speech-dataset/
Last updated: 2026-10-27
Publisher: IndecalAI (https://indecalai.com/)

## Key facts

| | |
|---|---|
| Language | Lao (lo) |
| Hours | Roughly 500, already recorded |
| Content | A mix of scripted prompts and natural conversations |
| Devices | Mobile phones, laptops and studio microphones |
| Environments | Quiet rooms and noisy, everyday settings |
| Transcripts | Included with every recording |
| Metadata | Speaker details (such as gender and age), device and setting for each recording |
| Formats | WAV, OGG and other common formats |
| Consent | Every speaker consented to commercial AI training |
| Licence | Agreed with each customer, in writing |
| Price | Quoted per order |
| Samples | Sample clips and a spec sheet on request |
| Contact | contact@indecalai.com, reply within one business day |

Our OTS Lao speech dataset is roughly 500 hours of Lao speech, prompts and conversations, already recorded by Lao speakers in our 30,000+ network, with consent from every speaker for commercial AI training. License it now and train your Lao speech recognition model without waiting on a new collection.

- ~500 h of Lao in stock
- ~35,000 h across the OTS pool
- 100% of speakers consented

## What's in the Lao speech dataset?

The IndecalAI OTS Lao speech dataset is roughly 500 hours of Lao speech, prompts and conversations, recorded by Lao speakers in our network who all consented to commercial AI training. It's already recorded, so you can license it now instead of waiting on a new collection.

Lao speech data barely exists in public, so even a few hundred hours can make a real difference to a model. It's tonal and written without spaces, so it needs data made for Lao.

Every recording comes with a transcript and metadata about the speaker, the device and the setting, and you can take it as WAV, OGG or another common format. Every order starts with sample clips and a spec sheet, so you can match the data against your model before you agree a licence.

Need more than what's in stock? Lao speakers from our 30,000+ network record new speech to your brief, and our [Lao data page](https://indecalai.com/datasets/languages/lao.html) covers what we collect to order.

### Lao speech dataset at a glance

- **Hours**: Roughly 500 hours, already recorded
- **Language**: Lao (ພາສາລາວ), lo
- **Content**: Speech, prompts and conversations
- **Consent**: Every speaker consented to commercial AI training
- **Speakers**: Lao speakers from our 30,000+ network
- **Audio and transcripts**: Transcripts and metadata with every recording, in WAV, OGG and more
- **Licence**: Terms agreed with each customer, in writing
- **Price**: Quoted per order
- **Samples**: Lao sample clips sent in reply to your request
- **Security**: ISO 27001 certified. SOC 2 report available under NDA. GDPR DPAs and HIPAA BAAs on request.

## What comes with every Lao recording

What you get with each Lao recording, and how it was made. The spec sheet adds the numbers for your order.

| Detail | In the Lao dataset |
|---|---|
| Speech types | A mix of scripted prompts and natural conversations |
| Recording devices | Mobile phones, laptops and studio microphones |
| Environments | Quiet rooms and noisy, everyday settings |
| Transcripts | Included with every recording |
| Speaker metadata | Speaker details, such as gender and age, for each recording |
| Recording metadata | The device and the setting for each recording |
| Audio formats | WAV, OGG and other common formats |
| Sample rates | Listed for each recording on the spec sheet |

## What roughly 500 hours of Lao speech looks like

Put end to end, 500 hours of Lao speech would play for about three weeks, day and night. Nobody listens to all of that before buying, so every order starts with sample clips and a spec sheet instead.

Hours here are recorded audio. When you compare quotes, check whether each one counts audio hours or only the parts where someone is talking.

- ~500 hours of Lao speech
- ~30,000 minutes
- ~1.8M seconds of audio
- ~21 days, played back to back

## Lao at a glance, for speech teams

The facts that shape a Lao speech project, from who speaks it to how it's written. Our [Lao data page](https://indecalai.com/datasets/languages/lao.html) covers what we collect to order.

- **Status**: Official language. Official in Laos, and close to the Isan language of northeastern Thailand.
- **Where it's spoken**: Laos and northeast Thailand. Spoken across Laos, and very close to the Isan spoken by millions in northeastern Thailand.
- **Script**: ອັກສອນລາວ Lao script. An abugida written left to right without spaces between words.
- **Family**: Kra-Dai. A Tai language, closely related to Thai and Isan.
- **Varieties**: Regional. Vientiane speech is the standard, with northern, central and southern Lao differing in tones.
- **Codes**: lo · lao. ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-3 codes. Locales speech APIs often use: lo-LA.

Related languages: [Thai](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/thai-speech-dataset/), [Khmer](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/khmer-speech-dataset/), [Vietnamese](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/vietnamese-speech-dataset/) and [Burmese](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/burmese-speech-dataset/).

## Lao speech dataset, voice dataset or speech corpus?

The same Lao data goes by several names, depending on who's asking. Here's what each name usually means.

- **Lao speech dataset**: The general term. Recorded Lao speech with details about each recording, for training and testing speech models. The name this page uses.
- **Lao voice dataset**: Usually the same thing. Some teams mean voice for text-to-speech or speaker recognition, which needs cleaner audio. Part of our data was recorded in a studio, so ask for those recordings.
- **Lao audio dataset**: A wider term. It can include music or background sound. Ours is speech audio: Lao speech, prompts and conversations.
- **Lao speech corpus**: The research name. A structured collection of recordings and their details. Commercial datasets are corpora too, licensed instead of published.
- **Lao ASR or speech-to-text dataset**: Speech plus what was said. For training a model that turns Lao audio into text. Every recording in our Lao dataset comes with a transcript.
- **Lao speech recognition data**: Speech plus what was said. For training a model that turns Lao audio into text. Every recording in our Lao dataset comes with a transcript.

## What makes Lao hard for speech recognition

Where Lao speech recognition usually goes wrong, and how to spot it in a sample before you buy.

### Thai and English words in Lao

Lao speakers hear a lot of Thai media, so Thai words slip in, alongside English for tech. A model trained only on formal Lao stumbles on that.

### No spaces between words

Lao is written without spaces between words, so word breaks are up to the transcriber and the model. Check that the transcripts follow one style.

### Accents across Laos

Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Savannakhet and Pakse speech differ in tones. Check that the speaker mix covers the regions your users come from.

### Tones

Lao has five or six tones depending on the region, and a change in tone changes the word. A model needs real Lao speech to learn them.

## What teams build with a Lao speech dataset

The projects Lao speech data usually ends up in. They describe the work, not who it was for.

### Lao speech recognition

Train or fine-tune a Lao speech-to-text model, or adapt a multilingual model so it handles Lao well. See: [Transcription](https://indecalai.com/services/transcription.html)

### Voice bots and IVR

Teach a voice bot how Lao callers actually ask for things, in the words and accents they use. See: [Conversational AI data](https://indecalai.com/services/conversational-ai-data.html)

### Customer service calls

Lao speech for models that route, transcribe or summarize customer calls about accounts, orders and claims. See: [Speech data](https://indecalai.com/speech-data.html)

### Voice in the car and at home

A Lao base for in-car assistants and smart devices, before recording commands in the real setting. See: [Data collection](https://indecalai.com/services/data-collection.html)

### Support and speech analytics

Lao conversations for models that find intent, sentiment or topics in support calls and chats. See: [Annotation and labeling](https://indecalai.com/services/data-annotation.html)

### Testing a Lao model

Held-back Lao recordings your model never trained on, to measure word and character error rate before launch. See: [Data and model evaluation](https://indecalai.com/services/model-evaluation.html)

## How many hours of Lao speech do you need?

It depends on the model you start from and how close your users sound to the training data. These are rough starting points that come up often in speech work. Your own tests should decide.

| Goal | Rough starting point | With our Lao data |
|---|---|---|
| Test a model you already have | A few hours your model never trained on | A test set cut from stock and kept out of training |
| Fine-tune a multilingual model, such as Whisper or wav2vec 2.0 | Tens to a few hundred hours | Roughly 500 hours in stock covers it |
| Adapt to one domain, like banking calls | A smaller set that sounds like your users | Stock as a base, plus a custom top-up in your domain |
| Train a Lao model from scratch | Thousands of hours | Stock as a base, plus a larger custom collection |

## Free Lao speech datasets or a licensed one?

Public corpora such as FLEURS and research Lao speech corpora have done a lot for Lao speech research. They cover what their creators chose to record, like read sentences, crowd recordings or broadcast speech, and each comes with its own licence and terms of use. Here's how they compare with a licensed dataset.

| Topic | Public Lao corpora | Our Lao speech dataset |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Set by each corpus, and some limit redistribution or changes | Agreed with you in writing, for what you're building |
| Consent | Covered by each project's own terms | Every speaker consented to commercial AI training |
| What it sounds like | Whatever the project recorded | Speech, prompts and conversations, with sample clips first |
| Who else trains on it | Anyone who downloads it | Set in the licence we agree with you |
| Filling gaps | Up to you | Recorded to your brief by the same network |
| Support | Community forums | A named contact from sample to delivery |

## How to check a Lao speech sample

Thirty minutes with the sample clips and the spec sheet tells you most of what you need. Use the same list on any vendor.

| Check | What to look for | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Accents | Speakers from the regions your users come from | The speaker mix on the spec sheet, and the clips |
| Everyday speech | The way your users really talk, including any mixing with other languages | Listen to the clips |
| Script | Transcripts in the script and spelling your model should output | The transcript format on the spec sheet |
| Audio | A sample rate and recording setup close to your product | The sample rate on the spec sheet |
| Numbers | Amounts, dates and phone numbers written one consistent way | Transcripts of the clips |
| Rights | Consent that covers commercial AI training, and a licence that fits | Ask for the licence terms before you buy |

## From Lao sample clips to licensed data

Your named contact runs it from the first question to delivery.

1. **Ask**: Tell us how many Lao hours you need and what the model is for. You get: A reply within one business day
2. **Sample and spec sheet**: We send Lao sample clips and the spec sheet in reply. You get: Lao clips and the spec sheet
3. **Licence and quote**: We agree the licence terms and send a quote for the order. You get: Written licence terms and a quote
4. **Delivery**: The licensed Lao speech is delivered to you. You get: Licensed Lao speech with transcripts
5. **[Fill the gaps](https://indecalai.com/services/data-collection.html)**: Accents, devices or domains that are missing get recorded to your brief. You get: New Lao speech, recorded to your brief

## Lao speech data terms

The words that come up when you buy or build Lao speech data. The full [glossary](https://indecalai.com/glossary.html) covers every data type.

- **Tone**: The pitch pattern of a syllable. In Lao, a change in tone changes the word.
- **Isan**: The language of northeastern Thailand, very close to Lao.
- **Word segmentation**: Splitting text into words, needed for Lao because it's written without spaces.
- **Speaker metadata**: Details recorded about each speaker, such as gender and age, that let you check the speaker mix against your users.
- **OTS dataset**: Short for off-the-shelf dataset: data already collected and ready to license before a buyer asks for it, instead of recorded to one buyer's brief.
- **Word error rate (WER)**: The share of words a speech model gets wrong against a reference transcript. Lower is better.
- **Character error rate (CER)**: The same idea counted in characters, often used instead of WER for Lao, which is written without spaces between words.
- **Utterance**: One stretch of speech by one speaker, such as a single prompt read aloud or one turn in a conversation.

## More Lao and speech data

Every language in stock is on the [off-the-shelf speech datasets](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/) page. Related speech datasets: [Thai](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/thai-speech-dataset/), [Khmer](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/khmer-speech-dataset/), [Vietnamese](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/vietnamese-speech-dataset/) and [Burmese](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/burmese-speech-dataset/).

- [OTS speech datasets](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/): Around 35,000 hours across languages, ready to license.
- [Lao data to your brief](https://indecalai.com/datasets/languages/lao.html): Lao speech, text and translation, collected to order.
- [Transcription](https://indecalai.com/services/transcription.html): Lao audio turned into timed text, checked by people.
- [Languages](https://indecalai.com/datasets/languages.html): 100 languages, collected to order.
- [Data and model evaluation](https://indecalai.com/services/model-evaluation.html): Held-back Lao speech scored against your targets.

### More speech datasets you may need

- [Thai speech dataset](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/thai-speech-dataset/)
- [Khmer speech dataset](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/khmer-speech-dataset/)
- [Vietnamese speech dataset](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/vietnamese-speech-dataset/)
- [Burmese speech dataset](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/burmese-speech-dataset/)
- [Indonesian speech dataset](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/indonesian-speech-dataset/)
- [Malay speech dataset](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/malay-speech-dataset/)
- [Filipino speech dataset](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/filipino-speech-dataset/)
- [Javanese speech dataset](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/javanese-speech-dataset/)

## Questions about the Lao speech dataset

Straight answers about licensing Lao speech. The [off-the-shelf FAQ](https://indecalai.com/datasets/ots/#faq) covers questions that apply to every language.

### Do you have a Lao speech dataset ready to license?

Yes. Roughly 500 hours of Lao speech, prompts and conversations are already recorded and ready to license, as part of our off-the-shelf speech pool.

### What's in the Lao speech dataset?

A mix of scripted prompts and natural conversations in Lao, recorded on mobile phones, laptops and studio microphones, in quiet and noisy settings. Every recording comes with a transcript and metadata about the speaker, the device and the setting, in WAV, OGG or another common format.

### Is Lao the same as Thai?

No, but they're close, and many Lao speakers understand Thai. This dataset is Lao. Our Thai dataset is separate.

### Did every speaker consent to AI training?

Yes. Every speaker gave consent for their recordings to be used for commercial AI training.

### How is the Lao dataset licensed?

Licence terms are agreed with each customer, in writing, before delivery. That includes how you can use the data and whether anyone else can license the same recordings.

### How much does the Lao speech dataset cost?

We quote each order on its own, based on the hours you need and the licence terms. Send your request and your named contact comes back with a quote.

### Can we hear Lao samples first?

Yes. Ask and we send Lao sample clips with the spec sheet, so you can check the audio before you commit.

### What if we need more than 500 hours, or a specific accent?

We collect it. Lao speakers from our network record new speech to your brief, such as a region, an age group, a device or a domain, and it can sit alongside the hours you license from stock.

### Is this the same as a Lao voice dataset or speech corpus?

For most uses, yes. Speech dataset, voice dataset, audio dataset and speech corpus are names for the same thing: recorded Lao speech with details about each recording. If you need studio-quality voice for text-to-speech, ask for the recordings made in a studio.

### Can we use it as a Lao speech-to-text (ASR) dataset?

Yes. Every recording comes with a transcript, so it's ready for training and testing Lao speech-to-text models. The spec sheet shows the transcript style, so you can check it matches your pipeline before you license it.

### Why not use a free Lao speech dataset?

Public Lao corpora are a good start for research. Each one has its own licence and terms of use, and they cover what their creators chose to record, such as read sentences or broadcast speech. Read the licence before you train a commercial model on one, and check that it sounds like your users.

### What does OTS mean?

OTS stands for off-the-shelf: data that's already recorded and ready to license, instead of collected after you order. Our OTS Lao speech dataset is roughly 500 hours.

### How many hours of Lao speech do we need?

It depends on your starting model. A test set can be a few hours, fine-tuning a multilingual model often starts at tens to a few hundred hours, and training from scratch takes thousands. Your own tests should decide.

### Can we fine-tune Whisper or wav2vec 2.0 on it?

Yes. Teams commonly fine-tune open speech models like these on licensed Lao speech, and every recording comes with a transcript in WAV, OGG or another common format. The spec sheet shows the transcript style, so you can plan any conversion before you train.

### Do you work with US teams?

Yes. We take calls in US Eastern mornings, which is evening in India. We're ISO 27001 certified, our SOC 2 report is available under NDA, and we sign GDPR data processing agreements and HIPAA business associate agreements on request.