Agent5Seven topics. One clear view.
Agent5

The latest AI news at a glance: seven topics, and a short, plain-English read on the stories. Free, no account.

Product
HomeHow it worksFAQAboutHow we fact-checkBlog
News
All newsModels & ReleasesFunding & DealsBenchmarksAgents & ProductsHardware & ComputePolicy & DramaRobotics
More
AdvertisePressPrivacyTerms
© 2026 Agent5
Agent5
Blog
Agent5
Blog
  1. Home›
  2. News›
  3. Models & Releases›
  4. AssemblyAI launches text-to-speech API
Models & Releases23Funding & Deals19Benchmarks12Agents & Products67Hardware & Compute13Policy & Drama25Robotics10
Models & Releases

AssemblyAI launches text-to-speech API

MarkTechPost: AssemblyAI Ships AssemblyAI-TTS-1: A $15 per 1M Character Text-to-Speech API for Voice Agents

AssemblyAI has released AssemblyAI-TTS-1, its first text-to-speech model, now generally available. The AssemblyAI-TTS-1 text-to-speech API targets voice agents running on live phone calls. In that setting, latency and pronunciation decide whether a caller stays on the line. Pricing is $15 per 1M characters, with no annual contract and no concurrency tier to buy. For developers already using AssemblyAI speech-to-text, it closes the voice loop with one vendor. TL;DR Size: It is a hosted AP

Get smart on it

A text-to-speech API has been released that converts written text into spoken audio for voice agents used in live phone calls. The service costs $15 per 1 million characters with unlimited concurrent requests and no contract requirements. Performance testing shows it achieves 93.7% accuracy on difficult targets like phone numbers and codes, with a 47 millisecond delay before audio begins, though independent benchmarks report mixed results compared to competing services. The API supports 4,000+ voices, instant voice cloning, and six languages at launch.

Relevant courses

Want to go deeper than the news? Explore live, cohort-based AI courses taught by practitioners.

Browse AI courses on Maven →
Sources
MarkTechPost ↗
The biggest AI stories, once a day

One short email a day with the stories that matter. Free. Unsubscribe with one click.

Related news
Models & ReleasesOpen story →

Gemini 4 Carbon: Our next frontier model

Google's latest offering suggests the company is prioritizing efficiency and environmental impact alongside raw capability gains.

Also reported by Ars Technica, MarkTechPost, The Verge and The Decoder

Models & ReleasesOpen story →

Introducing GPT-6.1 Terra

Bringing fast and capable computer use to everyone

Also reported by SiliconANGLE, MarkTechPost and The Decoder

Models & ReleasesOpen story →

Genie 4: A new generation of world simulation

Genie 4: our new world model unlocking unprecedented realism in real-time simulation.

Also reported by TechCrunch, Ars Technica, SiliconANGLE and MarkTechPost

Models & ReleasesOpen story →

NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe and Granary v2: Intelligent Multilingual Transcription You Can Prompt and Adapt

Customizable transcription tools could help organizations reduce manual annotation costs while handling multiple languages simultaneously.

Also reported by TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE, The Decoder and MarkTechPost

Models & ReleasesOpen story →

Block Unveils Dessa, a Full-Duplex Speech Model Trained Only on Speech

Block’s AI research lab has released Dessa, a full-duplex speech model trained only on human conversation. Block announced it on October 23, 2026 as a research preview. Dessa is a speech-to-speech model from Block that listens and talks at the same time. Block says it used no text and no pretrained models. That is a different design from the text-first stacks behind most voice agents today. TL;DR Runs on: A MacBook Pro M4 Max or better, locally, faster than real time. Performan

Models & ReleasesOpen story →

Google’s next Genie AI model generates more realistic experiences

Google announced today its Genie 4 world model for generating interactive experiences using AI. The company says the model has four main updates: It allows for more realistic worlds, lets users update an experience in real time with a natural language prompt, can generate audio, and uses Gemini 3.8 Flash under the hood to help with its simulations. It also can create experiences that are about two minutes long, up from one minute for the previous Genie 3 model. Google is pitchi