Voice AI & Networking Glossary

An autonomous software system that processes voice input, understands intent, and generates natural spoken responses in real-time conversations.

The ability for a user to interrupt an AI agent while it is speaking, causing the agent to stop and listen to the new input. Essential for natural conversation flow.

A geographically distributed network of servers that delivers content to users from the nearest location, reducing latency and improving performance.

Short for coder-decoder, a codec compresses and decompresses audio data to reduce bandwidth while maintaining quality.

Technology that enables machines to understand, process, and respond to human language in a natural, context-aware manner across voice and text channels.

The process of partitioning an audio stream into segments according to speaker identity, answering "who spoke when" in a conversation.

Computing infrastructure positioned close to data sources to minimize latency and bandwidth usage by processing data near where it's generated.

Detecting when a speaker has finished their turn in a conversation, enabling the AI to respond at the right moment without cutting off the user or waiting too long.

The ability for an LLM to invoke external functions or APIs during a conversation to retrieve data or perform actions, enabling AI agents to interact with real-world systems.

The process of identifying the user's goal or purpose from their spoken or written input in a conversational system.

Variation in packet arrival times over a network connection, causing inconsistent delays that can degrade voice quality.

A neural network trained on massive text datasets that can understand and generate human language. The "brain" of conversational AI systems that processes user intent and generates responses.

The time delay between a request and its response in a system. In voice AI, this includes network transmission, processing, and response generation time. Lower latency creates more natural, human-like conversations.

Distributing incoming network traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server becomes overwhelmed, improving reliability and performance.

A numerical measure of voice quality on a scale of 1-5, derived from listener ratings. Used to benchmark call quality in VoIP and voice AI systems.

A field of AI focused on enabling computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language in both written and spoken forms.

The traditional global telephone network infrastructure that connects landlines and mobile phones. Voice AI agents connect to PSTN to make and receive real phone calls.

The failure of network data packets to reach their destination, causing gaps or degradation in voice calls and data transmission.

A technique that enhances LLM responses by retrieving relevant information from external knowledge bases before generating an answer, reducing hallucinations and providing up-to-date information.

A measure of processing speed relative to audio duration. An RTF of 0.5 means 1 second of audio is processed in 0.5 seconds. Lower is faster; RTF below 1.0 is required for real-time applications.

The ability of a system to handle increasing workloads by adding resources, while maintaining performance and reliability.

Processing data incrementally as it arrives rather than waiting for complete input. In voice AI, streaming enables responses to begin before the full audio or text is received.

A signaling protocol used to initiate, maintain, and terminate real-time voice, video, and messaging sessions over IP networks.

Technology that converts spoken audio into written text, enabling voice AI systems to process and understand human speech.

The time between making a request and receiving the first byte of the response. In voice AI, TTFB for TTS measures how quickly audio playback can begin.

The conversational protocol governing when each party speaks. Effective turn-taking enables natural back-and-forth dialogue without awkward overlaps or long silences.

Technology that synthesizes natural-sounding speech from written text, allowing AI systems to communicate verbally with users.

The percentage of time a system or service is operational and available, typically measured as a percentage (e.g., 99.9% uptime).

Technology that detects the presence or absence of human speech in an audio signal, distinguishing speech from silence, background noise, or music.

A programmatic interface that enables developers to integrate voice communication capabilities into applications, including making calls, receiving calls, and processing audio.

Technology that identifies or verifies individuals based on unique characteristics in their voice, such as pitch, tone, and speech patterns.

Technology that continuously listens for a specific trigger phrase (like "Hey Siri" or "Alexa") to activate a voice assistant or AI agent.

Web Real-Time Communication - an open-source technology enabling peer-to-peer audio, video, and data sharing directly in web browsers without plugins.