Why I Decided to Hold Off on Voice AI in My Chatbot
Why I Decided to Hold Off on Voice AI in My Chatbot
An honest experience and insights from developing my own AI service
As part of developing our AI chatbot creation service, I decided to test one of the hottest features — voice interface. I wanted users to be able to simply speak their questions instead of typing them.
It sounds convenient. Especially since the technology seems ready for this. But in practice, it turned out not to be so smooth.
I built a working prototype: voice → text using OpenAI API → processed by LLM → text response. In theory, it worked. But in reality, many issues emerged.
Challenges I Encountered
1. Speech recognition is still unstable.
If the user doesn’t speak clearly, has an accent, pauses, or there’s background noise — the assistant starts to “imagine” and distort the meaning.
2. Errors cause frustration.
When the voice bot doesn’t understand on the first try, people quickly lose patience. This creates frustration and spoils the service experience.
3. Real speech is not a professional studio.
People talk differently: interrupt themselves, use emotions, slang, or fragmented thoughts. Current voice models just don’t handle this at the required level.
Sure, one could blame the microphone, accent, or diction. But the reality is: not only public speaking experts will talk to the bot, but everyday users. The technology should adapt to them, not the other way around.
My Conclusion
Voice AI is still a raw tool for real-world user scenarios. Maybe the next generation of models will fix these issues. But right now — it’s more of an experiment than a practical solution.
That’s why we focused on text-based chatbots. They offer more stable control, higher quality, and a predictable, comfortable user experience.
Still, I’m glad I tried the voice format. Such experience helps develop the product consciously — not blindly, but based on real tests.
If you’re interested in AI applications in chatbots and want to follow the service development — I’d be happy if you check out other articles in the blog.