Audio & Speech

Today's Stories

1. 1

   McDonald's revives Archy AI at drive-thrus after 2024 shutdown

   McDonald's unveiled ArchIQ and its Archy voice assistant in limited testing at a handful of US drive-thrus, after shutting down a similar system in 2024 that had run for three years. The first system handled drive-thru orders at about a hundred US locations and failed because it didn't flag its own mistakes, not because it was inaccurate overall.

   The QSR Drive-Thru Report found AI order accuracy was 81%, rising to 95% when the system transferred to an employee, so success hinges on when Archy pauses and hands off.

2. 2

   Treble raises $18 million for voice simulation platform

   Treble raised $18 million in a Series A extension led by Paladin Capital Group, with KOMPAS VC, Frumtak Ventures, EIC and Omega ehf participating. It raised $12 million in 2024, taking its total to over $40 million. Treble's simulation platform gives voice AI labs, wearables and robotics makers a way to generate synthetic audio data and test models, an alternative to internet-scraped recordings that Paladin sees as increasingly valuable infrastructure.

   Treble aims to expand into physical AI, including robotics, automotive and drones, so the test is whether it can win those customers beyond Amazon and Logitech. Watch how its Hugging Face speech-recognition benchmark is used.

3. 3

   Spotify set to change course on AI music labeling

   Spotify and industry groups are moving to label, restrict or ban AI-generated tracks, after the New York Times reported about a dozen AI-made songs hit various Billboard charts since 2022. The leading music streaming platform had been sitting on the fence, saying it was working on a shared industry standard for disclosing AI use, but nothing had been implemented so far.

   Whether Spotify actually rolls out the labeling and blocking tools hinges on the shared industry standard moving from talk to implementation, and on whether other platforms follow suit.

4. 4

   Google launches Gemini 3.8 Live for real-time voice

   Google announced Gemini 3.8 Live and Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking on September 15 and began offering them the same day, rolling them out in Search Live, Gemini Live, Google Workspace, the Gemini API and Gemini Enterprise. The two models let voice assistants keep talking while tasks run in the background, which could make AI voice agents more usable for hands-on or customer-facing work.

   Extended Thinking's #1 ranking on Artificial Analysis's Speech to Speech Quality Index uses that index's own scoring; Workspace access requires a paid plan, and API usage pricing is not stated in the official blog.

5. 5

   Google's Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking tops voice index at 82.6

   Google launched Gemini 3.8 Live and Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, its most advanced voice models, which handle background tool calls and support 97 languages. The models' near-real-time reasoning and ability to execute tasks in the background suggest voice AI agents may maintain more natural conversations, though Google's benchmark claims have not been independently verified.

   Pricing starts at $0.005 per minute for audio inputs and $0.018 per minute for outputs, so adoption will hinge on whether enterprises find the latency gains worth the cost.

6. 6

   Gemini 3.8 Live adds speech-to-speech, rivaling GPT-Live

   Google released Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, two speech-to-speech models similar in shape to OpenAI's GPT-Live family. A developer built a browser UI letting you pick a model and voice preset, add an optional system prompt, and interrupt the model mid-speech. The demo shows these new models can be tried in a browser, including interrupting the model while it talks, so the shape of Google's speech-to-speech lineup is now comparable to OpenAI's GPT-Live family.

   The demo relies on audio capture and playback in the browser, so the experience hinges on whether that works reliably. Watch how the two models differ once the Extended Thinking option is compared in use.