Eucalyptus Voice Milestone

type: milestone

description: Discovery and selection of Telnyx.NaturalHD.eucalyptus as the primary Australian Female voice for all Genesis voice products -- Kinan's choice as the most natural sounding voice

voice_id: eucalyptus

provider: Telnyx NaturalHD

gender: Female

quality: Premium HD (enabled by default, no extra cost)

selection_source: 2,287 available voices via GET /v2/text-to-speech/voices

kinan_verdict: Most natural

commit_message: feat(aiva): Switch voice to Leda (Kinan's choice, most natural)

significance: First time a Genesis voice product achieved 'sounds human' quality bar


Voice Humanization Framework

type: framework

description: 5 techniques for making AI voice agents sound human rather than robotic

technique_1: Mandatory contractions: 'I'm' not 'I am', 'We're' not 'We are' -- single biggest impact on reducing AI-feeling

technique_2: Filler words: 'uh-huh', 'got it', 'let's see' -- bridge LLM processing latency so user feels heard

technique_3: SSML prosody: Intentional pauses (<break>), emphasis (<emphasis>), whispered asides -- creates vocal variety

technique_4: 250ms reaction time: Decouple turn detection from transcription so agent 'jumps in' when it predicts finished thought

technique_5: Guided prompts: Narrow user intent to one action per turn, never output instruction lists

optimization_loop: Daily Listen-Identify-Diagnose-Adjust cycle: review logs -> find unnatural moments -> trace to prompt -> fix -> redeploy

multi_agent_approach: Greeter (Flash, <200ms) for trust-building, Specialist (Deep Think) for complex queries, Validator (MCP) for compliance

type: COMPLEMENTS