Word Error Rate (WER) is a Dead Metric for Enterprise Voice AI
Evaluating a modern conversational system purely through the lens of Word Error Rate is like judging an engine’s performance solely by how much fuel it consumes—it tracks a raw variable while ignoring the actual output. When a minor phonetic slip skips a business-critical variable, a lab-validated 95% accuracy score can still result in a 0% transaction success rate. This post breaks down the mechanics of the “Error Cascade” in live acoustic environments and explores the transition toward Intent Capture Rates (ICR) and NER-Weighted metrics that protect enterprise ROI.









