conversational AI

Loka built a conversational voice agent using Amazon Nova 2 Sonic that achieved 87.0% speech reasoning accuracy on Big Bench Audio, surpassing GPT Realtime at 83.0% and Gemini 2.5 Flash Native Audio at 71.0%. The system delivers Time to First Audio of 1.39 seconds at approximately $0.27 per hour of input audio.

Google announced Gmail Live at IO 2026, a Gemini-powered conversational AI feature that allows users to ask natural language questions about their inbox instead of typing search terms. The voice-powered tool will roll out this summer exclusively to Google AI Ultra subscribers.

Amazon has launched Alexa for Shopping, integrating its Rufus chatbot into the main shopping experience across its app, website, and Echo Show devices. The assistant is free for all signed-in US customers and includes price tracking, automated purchasing, and conversational shopping features. Rufus served over 300 million customers in 2025, according to Amazon.

Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, announced TML-Interaction-Small, a full-duplex AI model that processes input while generating responses simultaneously. The company claims 0.40-second response time, matching natural human conversation speed.

Google rolled out split-screen browsing for AI Mode on Chrome desktop, letting users view webpages alongside conversational search results. The update also adds multi-tab context search across Chrome desktop and mobile.