Voice AI Takes Over

Top News

Google rolls out Gemini for TV: Google began rolling out Gemini for TV to Google TV devices, replacing the older Google Assistant interface with a more conversational, natural-language experience. By pressing the remote’s microphone button, users can ask Gemini for personalized content recommendations like “I like comedy but my wife likes action, what’s a movie we can watch together?,” show recaps, or help beyond entertainment, including kids’ homework questions or DIY recipes with linked YouTube videos. The experience is rolling out over the next few weeks in select countries and languages.

Plaud launches a new AI pin and a desktop meeting notetaker: Plaud unveiled the NotePin S, an updated wearable AI pin with a physical button for recording and highlighting moments, plus onboard storage, ~20 hours of recording, free monthly transcription, multiple wearing options, and Apple Find My support. The company also launched a bot-free desktop app that auto-detects online meetings and generates notes and summaries, extending Plaud from in-person to digital workflows.

OpenAI Boosts Audio AI Ahead of Device Launch: OpenAI is accelerating development of its audio AI, bringing together engineering, product, and research teams to build much better voice models ahead of its first personal hardware device. The goal is to create more natural-sounding, responsive audio interactions that can handle interruptions and even talk over users, improvements over today’s voice systems. This push, including a new audio model expected in early 2026, supports plans for an audio-first device (possibly a screenless gadget) slated to arrive in about a year.

TWiST 500

NVIDIA acquired TWiST 500 company Groq for $20 billion. The move secures Groq’s LPU (Language Processing Unit) architecture, which is currently the industry standard for low-latency inference. This acquisition is a strategic bet on the "Voice-First" era, where near-instant response times are required for AI agents to feel conversational and human.

Meta acquired Manus, a TWiST 500 AI startup building "general purpose" autonomous agents. Manus is designed to handle complex, multi-step tasks independently, moving beyond simple chat interfaces. By integrating Manus into its ecosystem, Meta is positioning its models and accessories to act as proactive digital assistants that can execute tasks via voice command.

Subtle launched its first hardware product: AI-powered earbuds featuring proprietary noise-cance;lation models. Unlike standard consumer buds, Subtle’s tech focuses on isolating human speech in loud environments. This provides the high-fidelity audio input necessary for Voice AI to function accurately, solving a major bottleneck in real-world voice-to-text reliability. Subtle has appeared as a strong competitor to dictation tools like TWiST 500 company, Wispr Flow and may find its way on the list very soon.
— Oliver

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