Configure IBM Cloud

![IMPORTANT] The instructions below reflect the general steps needed to set up AI services on IBM Cloud. As cloud service providers redesign their user interfaces, the specific steps you need to perform may vary.

There are two AI services you can set up on IBM Cloud:

1. IBM Watson Text to Speech
2. IBM Watson Speech to Text

![NOTE] In the past, TJBot used the IBM Watson Visual Recognition service to perform computer vision tasks. This service was shut down at the end of 2021 and can no longer be used.

Sign up for IBM Cloud

To create your own instances of these services, you first need to sign up for an IBM Cloud account if you do not have one already. Visit IBM Cloud and click "Create an account" to create a new account. You may also sign in with your existing Google account.

![NOTE] As part of the sign up process, you may be asked to enter credit card information for billing. IBM Cloud offers trial versions of many services, including Text to Speech and Speech to Text, so you should be able to try these services with your TJBot at no cost.

Create instance of IBM Watson Text to Speech

TBD

Create instance of IBM Watson Speech to Text

TBD

Obtain authentication credentials

TBD

Configure TJBot to use IBM Cloud services

To enable IBM Cloud's AI services, update the following settings in your tjbot.toml file:

[listen.backend]
type = 'ibm-watson-stt'

[speak.backend]
type = 'ibm-watson-tts'

If you wish to store your credentials file in an alternative location, simply update your tjbot.toml configuration to specify that location. The relevant keys to update are:

[speak.backend.ibm-watson-tts]
credentialsPath = "<path to your ibm-credentials.env file>"

[listen.backend.ibm-watson-stt]
credentialsPath = "<path to your ibm-credentials.env file>"

IBM Cloud-specific settings

Each IBM Cloud AI service has a number of service-specific settings you can configure, such as the voice used for Text-to-Speech and confidence thresholds for computer vision tasks. Please review tjbot.toml to learn more about these settings.