Kyutai Labs launches Moshi AI chatbot with real-time voice capabilities as a rival to GPT-4o

Kyutai Labs on Wednesday launched Moshi AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that responds verbally in real time. The French AI company revealed that Moshi’s entire audio speech model was developed in-house. It can also modulate the voice to express emotions and respond in different speaking styles. The AI ​​model is available to the public for free. Currently, the AI ​​model limits conversations to five minutes. Interestingly, with the release of GPT-4o, OpenAI also announced similar speech features, but these have not been released yet.

Moshi AI Features

The company says the AI ​​model was developed in six months by a team of eight people. Introducing the AI ​​model at an event in Paris, Kyutai Labs said Moshi is not an AI assistant but a prototype that can be used to develop tools for different use cases. The company has also made the chatbot publicly available here. Users can enter their email address and join the queue, but Gadgets 360 employees were able to access the platform immediately without waiting.

The platform interface is quite minimalistic. There is a simplified AI design where users can check the volume of their voice while speaking. There is a text box that only displays the AI’s responses. Another box at the top displays technical details like audio duration, latency, and missed audio.

There is a button at the top to disconnect the call. Currently, the maximum call duration is five minutes. The description page highlights that Moshi can think, speak and listen simultaneously to maximize the flow of conversation.

Gadgets 360 found that the latency is extremely low and the AI ​​often responds instantly. However, there are some cases where the response delay can exceed 10-15 seconds. However, this may be due to the high server load. However, sometimes the verbal prompts were not registered at all, even after three-quarters of the volume meter was filled.

Moshi AI interface
Image credit: Kyutai Labs

Gadgets 360 also found that the AI ​​model can respond with an emotional voice and speak in different styles and with different voice modulations. The AI ​​model is also connected to the internet and can retrieve answers to queries that require searching the internet. Notably, the chatbot does not allow text input and voice is the only medium through which one can interact.

Kyutai Labs has stated that the AI ​​model will be open source. However, the AI ​​company has yet to host the model weights and code on a portal. Once it is available, users will be able to download and install it locally and run it on an unconnected device.