What is Hume AI?
Hume AI is a voice AI platform that offers Octave, an expressive text-to-speech model, and EVI, a speech-to-speech interface for building conversational voice agents. The company is built on research into how people express emotion in voice. In January 2026 Google DeepMind signed a licensing deal with Hume and hired founder Alan Cowen and several engineers, while Hume continues to operate independently under a new CEO.
Hume differs from many TTS providers in its focus on emotional expression: Octave can follow acting instructions about tone and delivery, and EVI is designed to respond to how a speaker sounds as well as what they say. Hume now also sells evaluation products for voice AI teams, including Kairos for simulating conversations, an expression measurement API and a human feedback API, plus public voice AI leaderboards. Developers use it for narrated content, voice characters in apps and games, customer support voice agents and testing the quality of their own voice models.
Main Features
- Generate expressive speech from text with Octave, guided by tone and delivery instructions.
- Build real-time voice agents with EVI speech-to-speech.
- Measure vocal expression across 48 emotion categories and more than 50 languages via API.
- Simulate and evaluate voice agent conversations with the Kairos platform.
- Collect human ratings of voice samples with the Human Feedback API.
- Scale usage with monthly character and minute allowances plus usage-based overages.
- Invite teammates to a shared workspace, with three seats on the free plan.
How to Get Started with Hume AI
- Create a free account at hume.ai to get 10,000 characters of TTS.
- Try Octave in the web playground by entering text and describing the voice.
- Test EVI in the playground with the five included free minutes.
- Generate an API key and call Octave or EVI from your app.
- Upgrade to a paid plan when you need more characters, minutes or connections.
Hume AI Pricing
The Free plan includes 10,000 characters of text-to-speech, five minutes of EVI and three team seats. Paid plans are Starter at $3 per month, Creator at $14 per month (currently $7), Pro at $70, Scale at $200 and Business at $500, with Enterprise pricing by quote. Overages run from $0.15 down to $0.05 per 1,000 characters and from $0.07 down to $0.04 per EVI minute depending on plan.
Who Should Use It?
- Developers building voice assistants and customer support agents.
- Game and app studios that need expressive character voices.
- Content creators producing narrated videos and audiobooks.
- Voice AI teams that need evaluation and human feedback data.
- Researchers studying emotion in speech.
Hume AI Alternatives
- ElevenLabs AI: Larger voice library and dubbing tools for creators.
- Typecast: Cheaper web studio with emotion controls for video narration.
- Vapi: Developer platform focused on building phone voice agents.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Hume AI free?
Yes, Hume AI has a free plan with 10,000 characters of text-to-speech and five minutes of EVI. Paid plans start at $3 per month.
What is Hume Octave?
Octave is Hume AI's text-to-speech model that produces expressive speech. You can describe the tone and delivery you want and it adjusts the voice.
Did Google buy Hume AI?
No, Google did not buy Hume AI outright. In January 2026 Google DeepMind signed a licensing deal and hired founder Alan Cowen and some engineers, while Hume continues as an independent company.
Hume AI vs ElevenLabs: which is better?
Hume AI is better for emotionally expressive voices and voice agent evaluation, while ElevenLabs offers a larger voice library and more creator tools such as dubbing. Both have free plans to compare.