Google DeepMind The company has hired the CEO of and top engineers Hume AIThe startup is tackling the problem of reducing carbon emissions. emotionally intelligent voice interfacesWIRED learned that as part of the new licensing agreement.
The financial details are not disclosed, but Hume AI has said that it will continue to provide its technology to other AI laboratories.
The deal is the latest sign that AI companies expect voice mode to become an increasingly important interface for interacting with customers—and that understanding a user’s emotions and mood based on their voice interactions is key.
John Beadle is the cofounder and managing director of AEGIS Ventures which invested in Hume AI. He says that Hume AI will bring in $100,000,000 in revenues by 2026. The company has so far raised $74 millions in funding.
Alan Cowen has a doctorate in psychology. He will join Google DeepMind, along with seven other engineers. Cowen, along with the Hume AI hires, will assist Google DeepMind in integrating voice and emotion intelligence into their latest models. Sources who spoke under the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized by Google to discuss the deal publicly said that Cowen would help integrate these features.
Hume AI invested millions of dollars in models and tools that allow users to create realistic voice interfaces, and detect emotion in their voices. It trains models by having professionals annotate emotions in actual conversations. Cowen, along with colleagues, will assist Google in integrating voice and emotion technologies into their frontier models.
“Voice is going to become a primary interface for AI, that is absolutely where it’s headed,” Andrew Ettinger has been appointed as CEO of Hume AI. He is a seasoned investor and executive. Ettinger states that Hume AI will release its latest models within the next months.
Beadle of AEGIS Ventures says AI models which can detect and adapt to a users’ emotions will be increasingly useful, both for consumer products as well as customer service. “On the intelligence side, AI models are quite good at this point, but from the dimension of general helpfulness—do they understand your emotion and can they respond in a way that enables you to achieve whatever goal you’re driving towards—we think there’s a huge amount of opportunity for improvement,” Beadle Says
Hume AI’s deal with Google could allow it to more aggressively compete against OpenAI ChatGPT which features lifelike speech. Google recently also partnered with Apple Google Gemini is the engine behind a new Siri version as part of multi-year contract.
Hume AI’s deal blurs the lines between an acquisition and a partnership. Such arrangements allow big tech companies to extract high-value talent without the government oversight that comes with a traditional acquisition—though the Federal Trade Commission recently said It will start scrutinizing so called “aqui-hires.”
Google DeepMind will be available in 2024 reportedly paid $3 billion Character.ai has licensed its technology to a company that is working on creating lifelike companion chatbots. Microsoft has hired top talent from Inflection, Amazon recruited the team behind Adept and Meta secured the CEO of Scale AI.
