In this article

01 Dessa keeps the sound behind the words

02 A natural voice still needs a working business connection

Block’s voice AI Dessa was trained entirely on human speech, without text or a previously trained model, according to the company. The research system can listen and speak at the same time, but early access is limited to a small group of AI safety researchers.

Block, which owns Square and Cash App, has published company demonstrations and says Dessa can run locally on a MacBook Pro with an M4 Max chip or better.

Dessa keeps the sound behind the words

Dessa processes speech directly. Block says this lets the model respond to vocal cues such as laughter, pauses and sarcasm that a plain transcript can lose.

Listening while speaking, often called full-duplex conversation, allows overlapping speech and brief acknowledgments instead of requiring each speaker to finish a turn.…