Voice Agents Can Just Do Things — Charlie Guo, OpenAI
Charlie Guo from OpenAI argues that voice assistants don't always need to respond by speaking.
He identifies three modes of voice interaction — speech-to-speech (like old phone systems), event-to-speech (like GPS), and speech-to-action (where the model performs tasks rather than just answering). The most overlooked mode is speech-to-action: you speak and the AI uses tools to actually do something — fill out a government form by talking for five minutes instead of typing for an hour. Developers can easily build this by exposing their app's existing functions as tools that a voice model can call.
Vibekollen prepared this summary with AI from the original publication. The content belongs to AI Engineer.
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