Block Launches Dessa, a Startlingly Human-Sounding Voice AI
- ai-news
- voice-ai
- block
- dessa
What happened
Jack Dorsey's Block — the company behind Square and Cash App — unveiled a new voice AI model this week called Dessa. Unlike most voice assistants, which convert speech to text and back to speech (losing most tone and emotion along the way), Dessa is a pure speech-to-speech model trained entirely on real human conversations, with no text step in between.
The result, based on examples Block shared: a conversation where the model sounds genuinely tired after a long day, excited about a surprise trip to Paris, or plays a natural-sounding voice guessing game — complete with laughs, pauses, and nuance that's hard to fake.
Technically, Dessa is a "full-duplex" model, meaning it can talk and listen at the same time, just like a real phone call between two people. That's different from most voice assistants, which work in turns: you speak, then it responds.
Why this matters for small and medium businesses
Block primarily serves small businesses — Square already offers an AI-powered voice ordering feature today. A model like Dessa, which can run locally on a regular Mac (not expensive cloud servers), opens the door to cheaper, more accessible voice experiences — like customer service lines, appointment booking, or a voice sales assistant — without paying per-call fees to a giant cloud model.
Important caveat: Dessa isn't publicly available yet. Block has only opened limited access to AI safety researchers so far, to study how a model this convincing at mimicking human emotion could be misused.
Bonus: AI assistants that live in your text messages
Separately, TechCrunch published a comprehensive roundup this week of a fast-growing category: AI assistants you can simply text (iMessage, WhatsApp, SMS) without downloading a separate app. Examples include Instinct, Poke, Martin, and Town, which handle tasks like scheduling, replying to emails, booking services, and reminders — straight from an ordinary text conversation. It's a trend that reinforces a clear direction: AI is becoming more accessible, cheaper, and less dependent on dedicated apps.