I wrote recently about my mixed feelings about AI-generated conversations for such situations as customer support and service. This news brings artificial human voice conversations to the receptionist. This is probably better than the “press 1 if…” interfaces we’ve experienced for the past 40 years. It’s remains impersonal, but a touch more friendly. This is another news item from Deepgram, about whom I’ve written many times in 2025.
Deepgram announced that Abby Connect, a premier virtual receptionist service, has successfully launched its new AI Receptionist product line built on Deepgram’s real-time speech-to-text technology.
Note the wording of “human first impression.”
For more than 20 years, Abby Connect has built its reputation on creating a warm, human first impression for every call. But scaling that personal service 24/7 – while managing rising client demand and costs – presented a major challenge. Abby Connect turned to Deepgram to help strike the right balance between efficiency and empathy.
After evaluating Google Cloud Speech-to-Text, AWS Transcribe, AssemblyAI, and Whisper, Abby Connect found Deepgram’s performance to be unmatched:
- Accuracy in the Real World – Deepgram outperformed competitors on noisy calls, including from HVAC job sites.
- Low Latency for Natural Conversations – Sub-300ms streaming latency enabled real-time, two-way AI dialogue without delays.
- Ease of Integration – Developer-friendly APIs and transparent pricing simplified rollout.
- Domain Customization – Tuned for industry-specific terminology, from legal to medical.
Abby Connect is now exploring how to extend Deepgram-powered transcription into even more advanced conversational AI, including large language models trained on call data to detect intent, measure sentiment, and enable smarter escalations.
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