Google Acquires Top Talent From AI Voice Startup Hume AI in Licensing Deal

Hume AI's CEO, Alan Cowen, will join Google DeepMind along with several top engineers as part of a major licensing deal. Google DeepMind is hiring the CEO and several top engineers from Hume AI, a startup working on emotionally intelligent voice interfaces, as part of a new licensing agreement, WIRED has learned. Financial details of the deal are confidential, but Hume AI says the company will continue to supply its technology to other frontier AI labs. The deal is the latest sign that AI companies expect voice mode to become an increasingly important interface for interacting with customers--and that understanding a user's emotions and mood based on their voice interactions is key. Hume AI expects to bring in $100 million in revenue in 2026 as it works with AI labs on tuning AI models to be more capable and useful voice helpers, says John Beadle, cofounder and managing partner of AEGIS Ventures, which invested in Hume AI.