Block unveils Dessa, an AI voice that listens and talks at the same time and runs on a laptop
Redacción IvokaOct 26, 12:00 PM 3 min
It's a research preview: there's a waitlist and recorded demos, not yet a product you can use.
On October 23, the AI lab at Block (the company behind Square and Cash App) announced Dessa, a speech-to-speech model that, according to the company, was trained from scratch only on human conversation.
What it promises
- It's "full-duplex": it listens and talks at the same time, like a real conversation.
- It learned when to cut in and when to say "yeah" or "got it" to show it's following you.
- According to Block, it hears and speaks emotions such as sarcasm, laughter, a frustrated sigh or a cracking voice.
- It runs faster than real time, so there are no awkward waits.
- It runs locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max or better, according to Block's page.
What state it's in
Block released demo recordings and opened a public waitlist, with early access for a small group of AI safety researchers. In other words, it isn't a product yet, and there's no price or launch date. An analysis from MindStudio notes that Block shared a general diagram but no detailed technical paper, so how it works can't be independently verified.
Why it matters if you serve customers
AI voices that answer calls often give themselves away with the pause before they reply. A model that listens and speaks at once points toward removing that pause. It's too early to plan around it, but worth following.
In the meantime, for voiceovers on your videos you can use Estudio de voz, and to practice conversation in another language, Tutor de idiomas.
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