hotwirednews Install bot

Week 26

22–28 Jun 20262026-W26 · 12 filings · 12 companies · 5 net-new

The Use layer led the week with 4 of 12 filings, from Krisp, Five9, Ambience and Amazon Connect.

Hearspeech-to-text1

AssemblyAIModel providermodel release2026-06-23

AssemblyAI ships Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime with agent_context

First AssemblyAI realtime SKU that conditions on the agent's own question — 8.9% relative WER drop on vendor agent audio, six weeks before the pre-recorded Universal-3.5 Pro drop.

Details1 source

AssemblyAI released Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime, a streaming STT model that takes the agent's question via agent_context, keeps rolling conversation memory, and covers 18 languages with mid-sentence code-switching at the same $0.45/hr base rate.

Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime

Announcement

Speaktext-to-speech2

VoicesPlatformlaunch2026-06-23net-new

Voices launches Voices for Customer Experience branded AI voices

Treats enterprise CC voice quality as a cast-and-govern supply chain for platforms, not another generic synthetic voice pack — aimed at vendor platforms that resell to brands.

Also Use

Details2 sources

Voices launched Voices for Customer Experience, a casting-to-licence offering that supplies customer-service automation platforms with professionally recorded, brand-specific AI voices plus consent and licensing governance for live support use.

Voices for Customer Experience

Announcementnewswire.com
Fish AudioModel providerpricing2026-06-23

Fish Audio opens S2.1 Pro TTS as a free Fair Use API

Puts a current-generation multilingual TTS model on an uncapped free string for builders — Fair Use and no-SLA caveats apply, so treat it as eval/prototype capacity, not a production meter.

Details1 source

Fish Audio made its S2.1 Pro text-to-speech model available free via the existing Fish API under model string s2.1-pro-free, covering 83 languages with no hard character cap under Fair Use, without SLA or latency guarantees.

S2.1 Pro free API

Announcement

Showavatars, video1

LiveKitPlatformlaunch2026-06-24

LiveKit Agents 1.6.4 adds Protoface avatar plugin

New avatar vendor plugin.

Details1 source

livekit-agents 1.6.4 adds a Protoface avatar plugin.

livekit-agents 1.6.4

Announcement

ThinkLLMs, speech-to-speech2

KotobaModel providerfunding2026-06-24

Kotoba raises $10M seed led by Kindred to expand East Asia voice AI

Dated 2026 funding primary for a new East Asia speech lab on the hunt roster; same week family as the May API alpha.

Also HearSpeak

Details1 source

Kotoba announced an additional $10 million seed round led by Kindred Ventures with Salesforce Ventures and Sony Innovation Fund, bringing total funding to $23 million.

Koto platform

Announcement
GradiumModel providermodel release2026-06-24

Gradium launches stt-translate and s2s-translate for realtime speech translation

Collapses the usual STT→MT→TTS cascade into two Gradium models with voice choice — vendor BLEU/MetricX lead vs Gemini/GPT realtime translate, on a five-language set only.

Also HearSpeak

Details1 source

Gradium released stt-translate, which returns translated text from speech in one step, and s2s-translate, which streams speech-to-speech translation over a single WebSocket with a selectable or cloned target voice across English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Gradium Translate (stt-translate and s2s-translate)

Announcement

Orchestrateframeworks, evals2

TalkdeskPlatformlaunch2026-06-23net-new

Talkdesk launches Agent Builder for pre-deployment AI agent validation

Makes pre-production simulation and instruction debugging a first-class Talkdesk CXA surface, not an after-the-fact QA step once the agent is already on the phone.

Also Use

Details2 sources

Talkdesk announced Agent Builder, a natural-language tool that creates, tests, diagnoses, and validates customer-service AI agents from existing SOPs and policies before any live customer contact, then hands monitoring to the CXA Operations Center.

Agent Builder

Announcementglobenewswire.com
ZoomPlatformlaunch2026-06-22net-new

Zoom Virtual Agent adds Agent Architect and Agent Performance Suite

Puts generative agent build and post-launch measurement inside Zoom's own CCaaS stack on the same day CCW opened — voice and digital agents share one context layer rather than a bolted-on bot SKU.

Also UseConnect

Details2 sources

Zoom shipped Agent Architect, which turns a plain-language prompt into a production-ready voice or digital agent, plus Agent Performance Suite for simulation, quality management, and outcome tracking across Zoom CX.

Zoom Virtual Agent Agent Architect and Agent Performance Suite

Announcementglobenewswire.com

Useagents in market4

KrispPlatformlaunch2026-06-23

Krisp launches Voice Security and Speech Analytics for contact centres

Extends Krisp from live audio enhancement into CC governance — Speech Analytics is GA on day one; Voice Security stays early access, so deepfake coverage is not yet a full GA claim.

Also Hear

Details3 sources

Krisp added Voice Security (real-time deepfake, social-engineering, and agent-voice verification alerts) in early access and Speech Analytics (100% post-call scoring, summaries, compliance flags, dispositions) generally available on its Call Center AI platform.

Voice Security and Speech Analytics

Announcementbusinesswire.comventurebeat.com
Five9Platformlaunch2026-06-23net-new

Five9 relaunches Voice AI Agents on an agentic architecture

Moves Five9's voice self-service off scripted IVR bots onto a native agentic harness inside its carrier-grade switch — CCW-day product, not a partner-only demo.

Also OrchestrateConnect

Details1 source

At CCW, Five9 launched a new Voice AI Agents release on a purpose-built agentic stack with multi-agent orchestration, secure tool calling, AI Agent Studio, and warm handoffs to human agents on its Intelligent CX Platform.

Voice AI Agents

Announcement
AmbiencePlatformlaunch2026-06-23net-new

Ambience ships Ambient Flowsheet Documentation for inpatient nursing

Ambient voice into inpatient nursing flowsheets — not just physician note drafts — with explicit nurse-in-the-loop confirmation.

Also Hear

Details3 sources

Ambience Healthcare expanded its nursing suite with Ambient Flowsheet Documentation, which turns narrated patient assessments into structured EHR flowsheet values that nurses confirm before submit, alongside Nursing Summary.

Ambient Flowsheet Documentation

Announcementambiencehealthcare.comx.com
Amazon ConnectPlatformlaunch2026-06-22

Amazon Connect Customer opens Agentic CX designer and Live Sync in preview

Ties Amazon's CCaaS self-service builder to a voice↔UI sync path — preview on 22 Jun, so treat go-live timing as later than the What's New date.

Also OrchestrateConnect

Details2 sources

Amazon Connect Customer put Agentic CX designer (NLX) in preview: a no-code canvas for voice and digital self-service that mixes agentic and deterministic AI, with Live Sync driving a caller's web or mobile UI in real time during the conversation.

Agentic CX designer (NLX) and Live Sync

Announcementcxtoday.com