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Hume AI brings expressive speech to Groq-powered Kimi K2

By Serena Wang on July 29, 2025

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Hume AI has partnered with Groq to bring emotionally intelligent voice to Groq-hosted language models. The collaboration debuts with Kimi K2, supporting a multimodal assistant that showcases how Groq's LPU™ Inference Engine and Hume's Empathic Voice Interface (EVI) work together to create conversations that feel remarkably human.

Key partnership highlights:

  • Sub-300ms speech-to-speech latency with emotional understanding

  • Native Groq model integration with EVI 3 platform

  • Real-time voice AI with dynamic tone and natural expression

Ultra-fast inference meets expressive voice

Groq's LPU™ Inference Engine processes language model requests with deterministic, ultra-low latency that makes real-time applications possible. The technology delivers consistent performance that developers can rely on for live interactions. When the Kimi K2 team wanted to showcase this breakthrough speed, they faced a common challenge: how do you generate lightning-fast AI responses that feel natural and engaging rather than robotic?

Traditional text-to-speech solutions couldn't match Groq's sub-second response times, and even when they could keep up with the speed, the monotone output felt jarring.

The partnership addresses this gap by combining the speed of Hume's real-time speech-language model that generates all voice and the initial language responses with Groq's Kimi K2 deployment that is fast enough to take over the language seamlessly, creating a foundation for voice applications that are realistic, fast, and have frontier intelligence.

EVI 3 + Groq: Designed for human-like conversation

At the core of this collaboration is Hume's Empathic Voice Interface, a speech-to-speech AI platform that goes beyond understanding words to interpret their emphasis and emotional tone. EVI listens to subtle cues in a user's tone, detects their emotional state, and generates responses with appropriate emotional resonance.

Unlike traditional voice synthesis that treats every utterance the same way, EVI dynamically adjusts speech prosody, rhythm, and inflection in real time. This creates conversation patterns that mirror how humans naturally communicate, complete with the emotional nuance that makes interactions feel authentic.

Groq's deterministic performance makes it particularly well-suited for these real-time use cases. The consistent, predictable latency means developers can build voice applications without worrying about unpredictable delays that break conversational flow.

Why developers choose Groq models in EVI 3:

  • Sub-300ms latency: Responses arrive fast enough to maintain natural conversation rhythm

  • Frontier intelligence: Kimi K2 running on Groq takes over the language soon after the voice response begins.

  • Stable, interruptible output: Users can interrupt mid-response for smooth turn-taking

  • Reliable scale performance: Maintains consistent quality across thousands of simultaneous conversations

  • Seamless integration: Works out-of-the-box without complex orchestration layers

"The response we've seen to Kimi K2 demonstrates what frontier models sound like when combined with the most humanlike, expressive AI voices at conversational speed. People aren't just impressed by the speed, they're engaged by how natural the conversation feels." — Alan Cowen, CEO of Hume AI

Getting started with the platform

Groq-hosted models are now fully supported within Hume's development platform, allowing developers to combine frontier intelligence with real-time speech-to-speech conversational AI. The integration takes care of all the orchestration, so teams can focus on building their application logic rather than managing infrastructure.

Whether you're prototyping a new voice feature or scaling an existing application to handle thousands of users, the platform provides the tools to create agents that understand both the content and emotional context of user communication.

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