Startup Smallest.ai raised $13M in a Series A led by Seligman Ventures for voice AI models indistinguishable from humans. A two-model architecture — a fast voice model plus a larger LLM — aims to cut conversation latency to near zero.
Anthropic opened Claude's voice mode to Opus and Sonnet models — previously it ran only on Haiku. The update rolls out in beta across all platforms, with integrations for Gmail, Slack and Notion.
OpenAI launched GPT-Live-1 and GPT-Live-1 mini on July 8 — a new generation of voice models built on full-duplex architecture. The models replace Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT and are the first to listen and speak at the same time.
