Start a voice chat

Talk to your assistant out loud: a live call you can interrupt, a recorded voice message, or replies read back to you. All three reach the same agent you type to, and they share one setup.

Before you start

You need a microphone and a browser allowed to use it. Any recent desktop or phone browser will do.

Voice messages work from the start: Player One Provider, included with Player One, transcribes them with nothing to connect. Live calls and replies read aloud also need a speech service connected to your installation, once. If none is connected, pressing the call button starts the setup in the chat: your assistant asks which service you want, collects the key in a secure prompt and picks a default voice for that agent. The Health and agents tab of Admin > Voice Models (/admin/voice/health) reports whether voice is configured, connected and responding.

Start a live call

1. Open the chat with the agent you want to speak to. A call uses the agent in that chat.
2. Press the phone button in the composer at the bottom. The first time, a beta notice explains that voice is experimental and can be unreliable in a noisy room. Choose I understand to carry on.
3. Allow the microphone when your browser asks. It only asks the once.
4. Wait for the voice orb to connect, then talk. It answers aloud, captioning the words underneath.
5. Interrupt whenever you like. Talking over a reply stops it, and it takes up your new point instead. Say "stop" and it goes quiet at once.
6. Use Mute microphone while you think, and the caret beside it to Choose microphone if you have more than one. The call moves across without dropping.
7. Press End voice call when you have finished, or say you are done and it says goodbye and hangs up itself.

Send a voice message

1. Press the mic button in the composer. The recorder takes the place of the usual controls while you speak.
2. Speak. Files attached before you start recording travel with the note rather than waiting for the next turn.
3. Send it yourself, or open Voice options on the recorder and turn on Auto send so it goes after you stop talking. Pause before sending sets how long that pause is.
4. Your message appears with a player in it, and the transcript beside it once the words have been written out. That transcript is your message, so a short note can steer a reply already running.

Turn on Continue listening in the same panel for a hands-free exchange: the microphone rearms itself after every reply.

Have replies read aloud

1. Press Speak back in the composer, or turn it on from Voice options. The two controls share one setting.
2. Replies are now spoken as well as written, so the wording is still there to read afterwards.
3. Turn it off before you start a live call. The call button is unavailable while Speak back is on, and Speak back pauses by itself during a call.

Per-agent voices

Each agent has its own voice and speaking speed. Ask your assistant to change the voice: it lists what is available and saves your choice for that agent. On a call you can also ask it to speak faster or slower, and it keeps the new speed for next time.

The same setting is on the agent's page: open Manage > Agents (/agents), choose the agent and use Advanced > Voice. Which models speak, narrate and transcribe for the whole installation is chosen on Admin > Voice Models (/admin/voice).

If something goes wrong

Nothing happens when you press the call button. No speech service is connected yet. Your assistant starts the setup in the chat, so follow it there.

The browser never asked for the microphone. Permission was refused at some point. Allow it for this site in your browser's settings, reload and press the button again.

It cannot hear you. Check the right microphone is selected, from Choose microphone on the call or Microphone in Voice options. The chooser appears only when your machine has more than one.

The call ends on its own. The speech service reported a problem. The reason lands in the chat and your assistant tells you the next step, usually a key to replace.

A voice message will not send. The refusal says why. When the reason is that nothing can transcribe, check Transcription: files on Admin > Voice Models: leave it on Player One Provider, or pick an account that is still connected.

It mishears you in a noisy room. Live calls are experimental, and this is the case the beta notice warns about. A voice message is steadier when there is background noise.

Where next

Voice describes the parts and where every control lives.

Talk to it puts voice beside the other ways to reach your assistant, Agents covers giving each agent a voice of its own, and A morning briefing that talks to you puts it to work.

Give an agent a phone number

You need an account with a telephony provider that can use a custom language model and post call events to a webhook, and a telephone number on it. A number you already hold with a carrier is imported into the provider.

1. In a chat with the agent, say "give this agent a phone number" and name the provider.
2. Paste the provider's key into the secure prompt that opens. It goes to the vault; the agent only ever sees a reference.
3. Your assistant registers a line and sets the provider up to use it: the model address, the key, the webhook for call events and the number. It tells you which of your own numbers it will treat as yours.
4. Say "test the line". Then ring the number from your own phone: the call joins this chat, and the agent answers out loud.
5. To make a call, say "ring +44 7700 900000 and ask when the order ships". The conversation appears in this chat as it happens.

If the assistant says the installation has no public address, that is a setting for whoever runs the installation, not something to fix on your own machine.