Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice February 27, 2025 Brendan Iribe, Ankit Kumar, and the Sesame team How do we know when someone truly understands us? It is rarely just our words—it is in the subtleties of voice: the rising excitement, the thoughtful pause, the warm reassurance. Voice is our most intimate medium as humans, carrying layers of meaning through countless variations in tone, pitch, rhythm, and emotion. Today’s digital voice assistants lack essential qualities to make them truly useful. Without unlocking the full power of voice, they cannot hope to effectively collaborate with us. A personal assistant who speaks only in a neutral tone has difficulty finding a permanent place in our daily lives after the initial novelty wears off. Over time this emotional flatness becomes more than just disappointing—it becomes exhausting. Achieving voice presence At Sesame, our goal is to achieve “voice presence”—the magical quality that makes spoken interactions f ... Read full article.