Vapi AI: New Voice Controls & Humanness Benchmark

Vapi is enhancing its AI voice infrastructure with new technical capabilities and benchmarking. The company is introducing advanced controls to prevent AI voice agents from interrupting callers during pauses. This aims to create more natural phone interactions. Here's the thing: Vapi's platform now offers "turn-end detection" through a startSpeakingPlan configuration. This allows developers to customize how the AI responds, making conversations smoother. What's interesting is Vapi also launched the Humanness Index. This benchmark ranks AI voice models based on how human-like they sound, using votes from actual human listeners. This approach focuses on user perception, which differs from traditional metrics. The bottom line: These developments could make Vapi's platform more competitive and help enterprises adopt more natural and reliable automated agents.