A new conversational voice model from AI startup Sesame has garnered attention for its astonishing realism, with some users reporting emotional connections to the AI voices, named Miles and Maya. Released in February 2025, the model has been described as crossing the “uncanny valley” of AI speech, with one user noting the experience felt genuinely human. The model was developed using a combination of two AI systems that process both text and audio, achieving near-human quality with 8.3 billion parameters trained on about one million hours of audio.
I wanted to highlight I’d seen this in multiple sources. Ars Technica is the primary link, and The Verge covered it too.
Apple’s long-awaited upgrade for Siri may not arrive until 2027, according to a report by Mark Gurman from Bloomberg. While an intermediate update powered by a large language model is expected in iOS 18.5, it will operate separately from the existing Siri system. The ultimate goal is to merge these into a more efficient architecture that can handle both simple commands and advanced artificial intelligence tasks. Apple had initially planned to introduce this combined system in iOS 19.4, but delays mean it will not be unveiled during the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Internally, issues such as ineffective leadership and competition for AI talent are hindering progress, exacerbating challenges as rival companies advance their own AI systems.
Why do we care?
I tried Seasme, and it’s compelling. Distinctly the most natural voice interface I have worked with. Making it convincing and useful is the trick. Seasme is compelling but lacks capabilities. Siri isn’t even capable. Alexa Plus joins the ranks in a month or so. Voice as a UI has the pieces to be something, yet seems far away. Apple might have time.
