Alibaba Qwen Releases Qwen-Audio-3.1-Realtime: A Full-Duplex Voice Model Trained to Think, Act, and Decide When to Speak
Alibaba’s Qwen team has released Qwen-Audio-3.1, a 5-model audio stack spanning ASR, TTS and realtime interaction. The main model is Qwen-Audio-3.1-Realtime, a full-duplex speech model built for voice agents that call tools. Qwen also cut prices: about 85% on Realtime, about 70% on TTS and up to 95% on ASR. Is it deployable? Yes, as a managed API. qwen-audio-3.1-realtime-plus is live on QwenCloud over WebSocket. No open weights were announced. What Ships on QwenCloud The model pa
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A full-duplex voice model has been released that can listen and speak simultaneously while deciding when to interrupt, stay silent, or respond in conversations. The model is built from two components sharing the same audio encoder and language model design, with one predicting when to speak and another generating the spoken response. The system was trained using a three-layer approach focused on reasoning, tool use, and turn-taking coordination, and it is available as a managed API with significantly reduced pricing compared to competing voice models. Performance improvements include better ability to ignore background speech and reduced rates of unwanted interruptions, though interruption response time remains slower than some competitors.
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