hotwirednews Install bot

Week 33

10–16 Aug 20262026-W33 · 7 filings · 7 companies · 3 net-new

The Use layer led the week with 4 of 7 filings, from Hippocratic AI, Currys, Assort Health and Kotoba.

Speaktext-to-speech2

DeepgramModel providerlaunch2026-08-12

Deepgram launches Flux TTS for conversation agents

STT, TTS, and Agent API from one vendor. Promo ended 12 Sep; standard pricing from 13 Sep. Users cited: Decagon, Sierra, Vapi, and Granola.

Details2 sources · 1 X post

Deepgram launched Flux TTS, a conversation TTS for enterprise voice agents, generally available, with a free promo through 12 Sep 2026 and standard pricing from 13 Sep.

Flux TTS

Today, we're launching Flux TTS: expressive voices built for live conversation. We asked our very own Lauren O’Connor to put Flux TTS to the test. Most TTS handles one line at a time. Flux TTS carries context across the whole conversation.

https://x.com/DeepgramAI/status/2087539784289849423
SonioxModel providermodel release2026-08-11

Soniox ships TTS v2 with audio tags across 60+ languages

Puts Soniox on the TTS side of the stack at a published $0.70/hour price, after the roster already tracked it mainly as an STT name.

Details1 source

Soniox released TTS v2 (`tts-rt-v2`) for realtime synthesis with programmable audio tags, voice cloning from short clips, character-level timestamps, and coverage across more than 60 languages at $0.70 per generated hour.

Soniox TTS v2

Orchestrateframeworks, evals1

LiveKitPlatformlaunch2026-08-12

LiveKit expressive mode: one `expressive` flag, provider-specific TTS markup

Emotion tags stop being a per-vendor prompt hack on those four TTS backends and become a flag on the agent runtime.

Also Speak

Details1 source · 1 X post

LiveKit announced a single `expressive` flag on AgentSession that injects provider-specific TTS markup so agents can match emotional register, working with Fish Audio, Inworld, Cartesia, and SpaceXAI Inference TTS at launch.

expressive mode

1/ Today we're launching Expressive mode in LiveKit Agents. Most voice agents deliver every sentence in that same, upbeat register we all know and hate (including bad news). Expressive mode makes your agent sound like it registers what the caller is actually feeling.

https://x.com/livekit/status/2087610892456546495

Useagents in market4

Hippocratic AIPlatformlaunch2026-08-13net-new

Hippocratic AI ships Agentic Orchestrators for multi-agent clinical outcomes

Frames healthcare voice AI as supervised multi-agent programmes tied to population metrics, not one-off task bots for scheduling alone.

Also Orchestrate

Details2 sources

Hippocratic AI launched Agentic Orchestrators that coordinate teams of conversational voice agents around outcomes such as readmission reduction, Star Ratings/HEDIS, chronic care, and trial enrolment.

Agentic Orchestrators

CurrysEnterpriselaunch2026-08-12net-new

Currys unifies voice, email, and social on NiCE CXone with Concentrix

Named UK retailer + Concentrix enabler wire on CXone (~6M interactions/year, ~80% FCR) — platform migration with transcription, not a standalone AI voice-agent SKU.

Also Connect

Details1 source

UK retailer Currys moved customer service onto NiCE CXone with Concentrix, covering voice, email, and social across purchase, delivery, repair, and support for nearly 6 million interactions a year.

NiCE CXone (with Concentrix) · vendor NiCE · delivered by Concentrix

Assort HealthPlatformlaunch2026-08-12net-new

Assort Health launches Referrals voice-and-omnichannel AI agent

Puts outbound voice on the critical path of specialty referral leakage, with EHR booking in the same conversation rather than a separate dialler.

Details2 sources

Assort Health generally available Referrals, an AI agent that processes inbound referrals, matches providers, then reaches patients by voice, text, or email and books in the EHR.

Referrals

KotobaModel providerpartnership2026-08-10

Kotoba's Koto powers Japanese Agentforce Voice on Salesforce

Named enterprise telephony deployment for Koto after the May API alpha and June seed; Salesforce is vendor, Kotoba remains the primary actor.

Also HearSpeak

Details1 source

Kotoba said its Koto speech foundation model was selected to power Japanese-language conversations in Salesforce Agentforce Voice after the product became available in Japan on 7 August 2026.

Koto for Agentforce Voice · vendor Salesforce