The Thinker and the Responder: Bring your own response generation to a voice agent

AssemblyAI’s Voice Agent API separates voice interactions into a managed “Responder,” which handles real-time transcription, turn detection, text-to-speech, interruptions, and call transport, and a customer-controlled “Thinker,” which determines what the agent says. Developers can replace the managed model by supplying a public HTTPS endpoint compatible with OpenAI-style streamed `/chat/completions` requests, allowing the response logic to be a commercial LLM, rules engine, retrieval system, state machine, human operator, or combination of these. Streaming server-sent responses is essential because voice quality depends primarily on time to first token rather than total generation time; early acknowledgements can mask slower reasoning or tool calls while audio begins promptly. The platform supports both WebSocket-based browser and application calls and SIP-based phone calls, while keeping voice infrastructure behavior consistent regardless of the selected Thinker. Developers remain responsible for endpoint security, persistent conversation state, failover logic, and translating non-text inputs into text, whereas AssemblyAI continues to manage the latency-sensitive mechanics that make conversations feel natural.

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