Hami Voice takes voice-first inspection reporting to the water sector

Field inspectors working on pipelines and plant still record much of what they find on clipboards or tablets. Inese Pritchard, managing director of IPGN Solutions, believes they should be able to simply talk.

“When your hands are dirty and you’re hanging off the ropes, it’s really quite difficult to use the clipboard or type in a tablet,” she told The Stratawire at the IWA World Water Congress in Glasgow.

Her company’s app, Hami Voice, lets inspectors dictate what they find as they work. It records the conversation and turns it into a structured report, with photos, videos, measurements and pins dropped on isometric drawings. Pritchard said the idea came from thinking about how reliant young people are on their phones, while inspection work was still being done on paper and tablets.

Not every job suits voice. The team looks at each inspection template, and some users still prefer to tick a simple checklist on paper. But for mixed templates that combine checks, written descriptions and measurements, “Hami Voice by far supersedes anything that’s out there,” she said.

Most changes to the product have come from inspectors themselves. Pipeline integrity teams, for example, used to carry paper drawings into the field to mark up. The app now lets them mark the drawing on a phone or tablet while still dictating their findings.

Water next

Energy remains IPGN’s largest market and the one where it has the most domain knowledge, Pritchard said. “Water utilities is the sector we are going in now, and we’re dipping our toes in,” she said. “That’s why we’re attending IWA.”

Its first customers have moved from pilots to paying contracts, she said. The company is now in talks with several companies in Houston about pilots that would make them its first international customers.

Fear of AI

At Gastech in Bangkok, the team found many companies still unsure how to use AI. “It’s a fear of AI,” Pritchard said. “The companies know they need to do something with AI.” Her advice is to start with one clearly defined problem rather than jumping in at the deep end: “Don’t eat the whole elephant, bite the bits.”

Data and connectivity

Voice recordings are kept for 28 days because of EU rules, so a report can be checked against what was actually said. “For inspection, the data and integrity is absolutely paramount,” she said. The app also works offline: inspectors keep talking, and their recordings and photos are turned into reports once the device reconnects. A connection is still needed to send them. Larger and regulated organisations connect through APIs and webhooks, set up “one at a time” with each customer’s own team.

Her advice to organisations considering a trial: “The quality of information that goes in is the quality of information that goes out.” Speaking a report is different from filling in a form, she added, so teams should use the switch to rethink how they work rather than copy the paper form.

Interview recorded with consent on 5 October 2026 at IWA Glasgow.

Disclosure: Bill Gray, who conducted this interview, is Head of AI at IPGN Solutions, the company behind Hami Voice.

Written with AI assistance from the reporter’s recording. Every quotation was checked against the recording; filler words and repetitions were removed. Approved for publication by Bill Gray.