Claude gets a voice: Anthropic rolls out free voice mode for mobile users

Author

Ryan Howard
June 04, 2025

🔊 Soundcheck

  • Claude gets a voice: Anthropic rolls out free voice mode for mobile users.

  • Rime secures $5.5M to revolutionize AI voice tech.

  • Hume's EVI 3 enables rapid, emotive AI voice creation.

Read time: 3 minutes

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Big moves, deep dives, and standout stories.

Anthropic has introduced a new voice mode for its AI assistant, Claude, now available in beta on iOS and Android devices. This feature allows users to engage in spoken conversations with Claude, which responds audibly while displaying key points on the screen. Users can choose from five distinct voice options: Buttery, Airy, Mellow, Glassy, and Rounded.

The voice mode supports seamless transitions between voice and text inputs within the same conversation, maintaining context throughout. While the feature is currently limited to English, it enhances accessibility and multitasking, making it particularly useful during activities like commuting or cooking.

For paid subscribers, Claude's voice mode integrates with Google Workspace, enabling the assistant to access Google Calendar, Gmail, and Google Docs, providing a more comprehensive conversational experience.

Key Points:

  • Voice mode available in beta on iOS and Android.

  • Five voice options to personalize user experience.

  • Seamless switching between voice and text inputs.

  • Integration with Google Workspace for paid

Takeaway:
Anthropic's introduction of voice mode for Claude marks a significant step in making AI interactions more natural and accessible, positioning it competitively alongside other AI voice

Rime, an AI voice startup, has secured a $5.5 million seed funding round led by Unusual Ventures. The company specializes in creating authentic-sounding AI voices by training its models on diverse speech-to-speech interactions, capturing a wide range of accents and dialects.

Currently, Rime's technology powers over 100 million phone calls each month across 20+ enterprise customers—including Domino’s and Wingstop—highlighting the growing enterprise demand for realistic AI voice solutions.

The broader market is heating up too. In January, ElevenLabs raised $250M in a Series C round led by a16z and ICONIQ Growth, showing growing investor interest in this space.

Rime’s CEO, Lily Clifford, says the startup is in rare company: “We’re often compared to Google and Amazon, but we rarely see other early-stage startups here,” pointing to the company’s unique positioning.

Key Points:

  • $5.5M seed round led by Unusual Ventures.

  • 100M+ monthly calls across 20+ enterprise clients.

  • Trusted by Domino’s, Wingstop, and others.

  • Part of a growing AI voice investment wave (e.g., ElevenLabs’ $250M Series C).

Takeaway:
Rime’s traction and funding validate a surge in enterprise adoption of AI voice, positioning them as a breakout player in this fast-moving market.

Hume AI has launched EVI 3, the newest version of its Empathic Voice Interface—enabling real-time, emotionally nuanced AI voice synthesis tailored to different use cases.

Building on EVI 2’s latency and modulation improvements, EVI 3 gives developers tools to create expressive, original voices—without the ethical baggage of voice cloning.

It’s built for use in chatbots, assistants, tutoring platforms, and accessibility tools—where conveying tone can make or break the user experience.

Key Points:

  • Real-time, emotionally nuanced AI voices.

  • Ethical alternative to voice cloning.

  • Ideal for assistants, chatbots, accessibility, and tutoring tools.

Takeaway:
Hume’s EVI 3 raises the bar for emotionally aware AI voice, giving developers new creative freedom without crossing ethical lines.

🎙️ Mic Drop

What else is making noise in voice AI:

  • ElevenLabs launches Conversational AI 2.0 — aims to be a full-stack voice platform. (Opus Research)

  • Hexaware + Fixie.ai team up to donate GPU power for Ultravox’s enterprise voice training. (Analytics India Mag)

  • 4 AI tools are transforming how hotels automate bookings and guest communication. (Hotel Technology News)

  • Conversational AI scaling guide outlines key go-to-market tactics. (Ecommerce News AU)

  • Rezolve AI CEO explains how voice AI is transforming sales teams. (TahawulTech)

  • Ivy League schools deploy voice AI to scale IT help desks via ServiceNow. (Macau Business)

  • Voice assistant market forecast to hit $79B by 2034. (Market.us)

  • India’s AI voice evolution moves toward multimodal integrations. (ET Edge Insights)

  • AI voice at graduation ceremonies sparks mixed reactions. (EdScoop)