tech
Smallest.ai raises $13M to build ultra-fast voice AI that sounds genuinely human
The startup is building voice models designed to make AI phone calls pass the Turing test.
TL;DR
- Smallest.ai is developing small, specialized voice models to make AI conversations indistinguishable from human ones.
- The startup raised $13 million in Series A funding, bringing its total to over $21 million.
- Their model is designed to mimic human simultaneous processing of listening, thinking, and speaking.
- For topics outside its knowledge base, Smallest.ai hands off queries to a larger foundational model, simulating a human "research" pause.
- The company focuses on voice-specific nuances like accents, languages, and noisy environments, differentiating from broad LLMs.
- Smallest.ai's goal is for their models to pass the Turing test, meaning users cannot tell if they are speaking to an AI or a human.