Emotionally Intelligent AI Voices with Hume & OpenAI

Little bit of a special email today as something got showcased yesterday that I thought you should all know about.

Short version is, it’s an AI that is emotionally intelligent.

And it’s better than 99% of humans.

Meet EVI by Hume.

X (Twitter) went crazy recently when Hume released their latest product, Evi.

Evi stands for ‘Empathic Voice Interface’ and what Evi allows you to do is bring emotional intelligence to any app or site your building.

One you start speaking with Evi, it will not only understand what you are saying but also how you are saying it!

Excited and happy? Evi will notice that and respond with a happy tone in response.

On the flip side of that, if you’re down and feeling sad, Evi can take that into account in it’s response.

This seems like something simple but has been very much lacking until now.

Absolutely crazy.

Let’s imagine we have an idea for a product that is an assistant in some form. It could be emotional, medical or even motivational. You wouldn’t want it to respond with the same deadpan tone every time would you.

This is where Evi shines.

If we get into some of the more technical parts now, Evi is an API powered by Humes empathic language model (eLLM) and it allows for highly optimised human-AI interacton.

Heres’s a few of it’s features:

• Universal voice interface - a single API for transcription, frontier LLMs, and text-to-speech.

• End-of-turn detection - uses your tone of voice for state-of-the-art end-of-turn detection, eliminating awkward overlaps.

• Interruptibility - stops speaking when interrupted and starts listening, just like a human.

• Responds to expression - understands the natural ups and downs in pitch & tone used to convey meaning beyond words.

• Expressive TTS - generates the right tone of voice to respond with natural, expressive speech.

• Aligned with your application - learns from users' reactions to self-improve by optimizing for happiness and satisfaction.

Here’s another thing to consider Tweeted by Alan the founder of Hume.

In absolutely no time at all, the apps you use and websites you visit will be tailored in real time depending on your reaction to what you are seeing and reading.

Each time you visit they will get even more tailored according to your preferences.

You’ll see exactly what you want, how you want to see it.

A fully custom experience for every user.

If you want to try EVI you do that right now, by clicking here.

OpenAI Tease Voice Engine

Off the back of the Hume release OpenAI today posted some of the samples that they have been working on…

Guess what…

It’s also ridiculously good.

The kicker? They said they’ve had this since 2022.

It’s not clear if this works the same way as the voice tech for Hume works but if you want to check it out you can do here.

Ideas

On the off chance you are sat there with your jaw on the floor right now, here a are a few things you could build with the EVI API.

1. AI Research / Services

2. Social Networks

3. Call Center Analytics

4. Robotics

5. Brand / Financial Analysis

6. Creative Tools

7. Digital Assistants

8. UX / CX Research

9. Gaming

10. Education / Coaching

11. Research Labs

12. Sales / Meeting Analytics

13. Health & Wellness

These are to name a few.

If you are planning to build something on top of Hume EVI, please do drop me an email either in reply to this or to [email protected] as we’d love to invest.

p.s Hume are currently hiring too so if you want to join a rocket ship on the back of 50m USD of fresh funding, here is your chance.

Database Additions

• Hume - Company

• Alan Cowen - Person