Block's Dessa: The Voice AI That Learned to Talk From Speech Alone

AI 📅 Oct 25, 2026 ✍️ Aamir Raza

A Voice AI That Learned From Speech Alone

Block unveiled Dessa, a voice model it says was trained only on human conversation — no text, no pretrained models. LexxWire

Most voice assistants turn speech into text first. Dessa skips that step entirely: audio in, audio out. LexxWire

Dessa is full-duplex, so it can cut in, laugh mid-sentence, and backchannel with a 'yeah' or 'got it' like a real person. LexxWire

Block says Dessa runs locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max or better, with inference faster than real time. LexxWire

Dessa is a research preview behind a waitlist, with early access for a small group of AI safety researchers first. LexxWire