AI Chatbots Now Offering Real-Time Voice Conversations with Multilingual Support

Character.AI has recently unveiled a feature that enables users to initiate voice conversations with AI chatbots. These AI entities, termed Characters, can mimic the behavior of either real or fictional personas. This feature allows users to conduct phone-like dialogues within the app, experiencing an interaction that closely resembles a real telephonic exchange. The platform indicates that this innovation will accommodate multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese. Interestingly, Arc Search introduced a similar capability just last month.

In a blog announcement, the AI company revealed that the Character Calls feature will be accessible to all users at no cost. However, it is currently exclusive to the app and not available on the website. Back in March, the company launched a Character Voice feature, which allowed one-way communication, where users would send text messages and receive verbal responses from the AI, facilitated by text-to-speech (TTS) technology.

With the advent of Character Calls, users can now engage in two-way verbal interactions, creating a hands-free conversational experience with an AI character.

Upon initiating a voice conversation with a chatbot, users will encounter a call screen interface that includes options like mute and end call. According to the company, lower latency will be a key advantage, ensuring swifter response times. Users have the privilege to select from a plethora of voices, tones, dialects, and unique character traits.

The chatbots will support an array of languages, such as English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. Additionally, there will be an option to easily toggle between voice and text modes while retaining the context of the conversation.

Once a call concludes, users can access a complete transcript stored within the chat interface, providing a handy reference for subsequent interactions. Character.AI also mentioned plans to extend this feature to the web in the future.