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Realtime Voice Agents(RVA)
Low-latency spoken agents built on speech-to-speech models over a single streaming session, replacing the traditional speech-to-text then LLM then text-to-speech pipeline. A single model reasons directly over audio, so responses arrive fast enough to feel like natural conversation, with turn detection, barge-in interruption, mid-conversation tool calls, guardrails, and handoffs handled inside the live session.
In 30 seconds
- What
- Processes spoken input and generates spoken output through a single streaming model, enabling interruption and tool calls without leaving the audio stream.
- When to use
- Phone support, customer service, or any interaction where natural conversation rhythm and sub-200ms response latency are required.
- Watch out
- Latency spikes from tool calls, network drops, or VAD errors break the illusion of naturalness and frustrate users expecting real-time conversation.
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Realtime Voice Agents: Overview
Low-latency spoken agents built on speech-to-speech models over a single streaming session, replacing the traditional speech-to-text then LLM then text-to-speech pipeline. A single model reasons directly over audio, so responses arrive fast enough to feel like natural conversation, with turn detection, barge-in interruption, mid-conversation tool calls, guardrails, and handoffs handled inside the live session.
- Single speech-to-speech model instead of a chained STT to LLM to TTS pipeline
- Server-side voice activity detection and turn detection for natural turn-taking
- Barge-in handling: the user can interrupt and the agent truncates its own speech
- Mid-conversation tool calls and guardrail checks without leaving the audio stream
- Agent-to-agent and agent-to-human handoffs on policy triggers during a live call
- Telephony and SIP integration for phone-based support and outbound calling
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References
The papers, specifications, and repositories this pattern is based on.
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