These execs think voice AI hasn’t reached its ChatGPT moment yet
Industry experts argue that voice AI has not yet reached a transformative 'ChatGPT moment' despite advancements in full-duplex models. The focus is shifting toward improving reasoning speed and emotional intelligence to make AI agents more effective in customer service and professional settings.
Why it matters
As voice AI becomes a primary interface for enterprise and consumer interaction, the ability to mimic human-like reasoning and empathy is critical for widespread adoption.
The theory of voice being the next big interface has picked up strong momentum, with investors pouring billions of dollars into voice AI startups working on areas ranging from model makers to enterprise customer service providers, and from meeting note-takers to AI-powered dictation.
Every week there is a new model or a tool release that claims to sound human and converse like one. However, in reality, that might not be the case. Enterprise voice AI platform PolyAI’s CTO Shawn Wen thinks that despite the release of full-duplex models — which can speak while listening to you — voice AI doesn’t have its “ChatGPT moment” yet.
“We have reached the milestone of developing full-duplex models. The next challenge is to make reasoning very fast, so that the models can fetch answers quickly and the conversation feels natural,” he told me on stage at the HumanX conference last month.
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